Biden and Congress face a summer grind
Tough going expected when it comes to passing new legislation
WASHINGTON » Until recently, the act of governing seemed to happen at the speed of presidential tweets. But now President Biden is settling in for what appears will be a long, summer slog of legislating.
Congress is hunkered down, the House and Senate grinding through a monthslong stretch, lawmakers trying to draft Biden’s big infrastructure ideas into bills that could actually be signed into law. Perhaps not since the drafting of the Affordable Care Act more than a decade ago has Washington tried a legislative lift as heavy.
It’s going to take a while. “Passing legislation is not a made-for-TV movie,” said Phil Schiliro, a former legislative affairs director at the Obama White House and veteran of congressional battles, including over the health care law.
Biden appears comfortable in this space, embarked on an agenda in Congress that’s rooted in his top legislative priority — the $4 trillion “build back better” investments now being shaped as his American Jobs and American Families plans.
To land the bills on his desk, the president is relying on an old-school legislative process that can feel out of step with today’s fast-moving political cycles and hopes for quick payoffs. Democrats are anxious it is taking too long and he is wasting precious time negotiating with Republicans, but Biden seems to like the laborious art of legislating.
On Monday, Biden is expected to launch another week of engagement with members of both parties, and the White House is likely at some point to hear from a bipartisan group of senators working on a scaled-back $1 trillion plan as an alternative.
At the same time, the administration is pushing ahead with the president’s own, more sweeping proposals being developed in the House and Senate budget committees, tallying as much as $6 trillion, under a process that could enable Democrats to pass it on their own.
Initial votes are being eyed for late July.
“This is how negotiations work,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said during last week’s twists and turns of the infrastructure negotiations.
“We continue to work closely with Democrats of all views — as well as Republicans — on the path forward. There are many possible avenues to getting this done, and we are optimistic about our chances,” Bates said.
During his administration, President Donald Trump had the full sweep of Republican control of the House and Senate for the first two years of his tenure, but the limits of legislating quickly became clear.
Trump tended to govern by tweet, rather than the more traditional legislative process, bursting out with policy ideas and official administrative positions often at odds with his party in Congress.
The Trump-era results were mixed, and Republicans were unable to clinch their top legislative priority, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. But they went on to secure a sizable achievement when Trump signed the GOP tax cuts into law at the end of 2017.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is a leader of today’s bipartisan negotiations, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump, too, proposed an infrastructure package. If Biden sticks with the bipartisan talks he could not only fulfill a campaign promise but “keep his pledge of doing things across the aisle and getting something done,” Portman said.