Congress returns this week with a lengthy to-do list
GOP’s ambitious agenda eyes changes for health care, taxes
Congress returns from recess Monday to tackle an ambitious agenda to replace Obamacare, lower taxes, fund a Southwest border wall, boost military spending and approve up to $1 trillion to rebuild the nation’s aging roads, bridges and dams. But leaders have so far offered few details of how they plan to get it all done.
If that’s not enough, lawmakers face two impending fiscal crises: a March 15 deadline to raise the debt limit so the government can pay its bills and an April 28 deadline to pass a spending bill to prevent a government shutdown.
“They’ve got a lot on their plate, and they’ve got to become picky eaters at some point,” said Joshua Huder, senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. “When do they start winnowing down what they want to what is actually possible?”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, RWis., insists Republicans in the House and Senate are on track to pass their long list of goals. He said GOP leaders will introduce a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — better known as Obamacare — when Congress returns.
“I would love to do this stuff yesterday, but getting Congress to act on all those things ... in just one year’s time — unprecedented!” Ryan said in a Feb. 16 interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. “We do these things, this will be the most productive presidency and Congress in our lifetimes.”
Political analysts are skeptical it can be done unless Republicans greatly scale back their promises.
Republicans can repeal Obamacare and replace part of the law — but not all of it — using a procedural tactic that allows bud- get-related items to be fasttracked through the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes. A more comprehensive replacement bill would require 60 votes in a chamber where Republicans hold just 52 seats.
“We don’t have 60 votes from Democrats to help us do any of this stuff,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “They’ve just (got) Cheshire Cat grins on their faces (saying) ‘Now (Republicans) are in power. Now they’ve got to fix this mess.’ It’s true. ... But it’s not easy. ... It’s unbelievably complex and messy.”
GOP leaders also must deal with divisions within their party over the best way to change the law. Republican senators from 21 states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare are worried about losing federal funds that provide health care for constituents. Moderate Republicans such as Maine Sen. Susan Collins also could balk if the new health care bill strips funding for Planned Parenthood, as Ryan has vowed.
“I think Republicans will come up with a health care bill that allows them to claim victory, even though the details may be far short of either repealing or replacing Obamacare,” predicted Eric Herzik, of the University of Nevada-Reno. “They can rename it and tweak it enough to say ‘Obamacare is gone’ even though big parts of it are still there.”
He said he expects a similar outcome on tax reform. Instead of rewriting the complicated tax code to scrap popular loopholes and deductions, it would be easier for Congress to simply lower the corporate and individual tax rates and stop there.
“The public is just going to see headlines that rates are cut, which is good for Republicans,” he said. “But to make that work financially ... you need real tax reform. That’s going to be far more difficult.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he can’t predict the outcome for a new health care bill or tax reform.
“It’s clear that in the early months it’s going to be a Republicans-only exercise,” McConnell said Feb. 17. “What I can tell you, that we’re 100% committed to as a team, is to repeal and replace Obamacare and to do comprehensive tax reform. The various episodes, the chapters, from beginning to end, in my view, from my perspective, are not worth talking about because we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like at the end.”
They also don’t know exactly how they’re going to pay for tax cuts and increased spending on defense programs, a border wall estimated to cost about $21 billion, thousands of new border guards, and up to $1 trillion in improvements to the nation’s highways and transit systems, Huder said.
“How are you going to do all this stuff when you have a bunch of conservatives in the House who are dedicated to not increasing spending, and about eight in the Senate who are dedicated to increasing spending (especially on defense),” he said. “That’s where it gets really tricky.”
“They’ve got a lot on their plate, and they’ve got to become picky eaters at some point.” Joshua Huder, Georgetown University