Congress will return to work staring down many deadlines

WASHINGTON — The clock is ticking for congressional Democrats this week as they return to Washington, 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 in 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 coronavirus pandemic.

For lawmakers, their most immediate charge is to prevent a government shutdown. A shortterm measure that funds federal agencies and initiatives is set to expire Friday, meaning the House and the 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 an 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 also 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 vehemently 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 while accomplishing 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 a final fourweek 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 Republican 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 Democrats’ spending, combined with a surge in pent-up demand, has contributed to a spike in prices that amounted last month to the largest such annual increase in about 30 years.