Congress in motion

Coming back from their Memorial Day break, members of Congress resumed work this week on a lengthy agenda of actions that they need to complete before going on their long end-of-summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 1.

The first of these is raising the national debt limit.

Other priority areas for Congress include completion of action replacing the Affordable Care Act with the American Health Care Act, Trumpcare. The Republican successor to the ACA was passed by the House of Representatives but remains bogged down in the Senate. Prospects for passage of tax reform, also promised by President Donald Trump and on the congressional agenda, remain cloudy. To Democrats, who recognize the need for tax reform, the bill still looks too much like giving tax breaks to the rich while doing little for the poor, whose ranks continue to grow.

There are also the supposedly routine spending bills, a dozen of them, that need to be passed by Sept. 30 to prevent the federal government, or parts of it, and the elements in state government that depend on them, from being shut down.

Then there is the much-promised infrastructure bill. Trump talks about $1 trillion to fix locks and dams as well as roads and bridges.

All of this is supposed to be completed before the August break. Americans hope so, but beaches, donors and voters to court will beckon.