CONGRESS RETURNS TO BIG TO-DO LIST
Lawmakers staring at fiscal deadlines, spending package
The clock is ticking on congressional Democrats as they return to Washington this week, where they hope to advance President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, authorize key defense programs and resolve a slew of urgent fiscal deadlines with little time left to the year.
The flurry of policy battles set the stage for a politically discordant December on Capitol Hill at a moment when tensions between Democrats and Republicans are running high — and fears are resurfacing nationwide about a potential setback in the pandemic.
For lawmakers, their most immediate charge is to prevent a government shutdown. A short-term measure that funds federal agencies and initiatives is set to expire on Friday, meaning the House and Senate need to act swiftly to adopt another spending fix or risk a major disruption.
Then, Democrats and Republicans may have less than two weeks to avert a second crisis: They must move to preserve the country’s ability to borrow to pay its bills, addressing the cap known as the debt ceiling, or Washington will experience its first-ever, economy-crippling default.
The two tasks normally engulf the Capitol in partisan warfare, as lawmakers turn the debates into political proxy fights over the future of federal spending. The tensions could flash especially
in the waning hours of this year, as Democrats simultaneously seek to approve a roughly $2 trillion package to overhaul the country’s health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws — a sprawling effort backed by Biden that Republicans oppose.
But Democrats in recent days have projected an air of optimism, stressing they can balance the routine duties of governance with their own political aims — and accomplish their full slate of policy objectives before the
end of 2021.
“As you know, the legislative agenda for the remainder of 2021 is considerable,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told lawmakers in a letter before they departed for the Thanksgiving break, later adding: “I am confident we can get each of these important items done this year, but it will likely take some long nights and weekends.”
The prospect of final, four-week sprint offers a fitting coda to an intense, frenetic year on Capitol Hill.
Democrats have rushed to try to enact as much of their agenda as possible in the 10 months they have controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate, a position of power they have not held since the very first days of 2011.
Party lawmakers adopted a $1.9 trillion relief package at the height of the pandemic in March, muscling past vocal GOP objections. They steered to passage a more bipartisan, $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal that Biden signed
into law in November.
And Democrats took the first steps on a final, roughly $2 trillion bill to bolster the social safety net, which cleared the House before Thanksgiving despite unanimous Republican opposition. It now awaits a vote in the Senate.
For all their public squabbles and private late-night fights, Democrats attribute significant economic gains to their legislative efforts. The latest unemployment measure from the Labor Department last week, for example, found that new jobless claims had tumbled to their lowest levels since November 1969.
But Republicans allege that Democrats’ spending has contributed to a spike in prices that amounted last month to the largest such annual increase in about 30 years.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans this week hope to finalize a roughly $768 billion annual measure to authorize key defense programs, sorting through hundreds of amendments, including an attempt to repeal a resolution that permitted the Iraq War.
Once its work is complete, the Senate plans to turn its attention later in the month to finalizing the $2 trillion measure known as the Build Back Better Act. Lawmakers still must work through a thicket of unresolved policy issues, including lingering concerns about its price tag previously raised by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
Manchin also has sounded public objections to some of its specific components, such as its provision to provide paid family and medical leave benefits to millions of Americans.
In doing so, party leaders must further confront a slew of procedural issues, since they have opted to advance the bill through the Senate using a special process known as reconciliation. The move allows Democrats to sidestep a GOP filibuster, but only if they hew to strict rules that limit their policymaking specifically to issues that implicate the budget.