Democrats’ ambitious agenda for 2021 runs into unexpected obstacle — McConnell’s resilience
Democrats’ dream agenda of pushing through a large new economic stimulus bill, strengthening the Affordable Care Act and paring back the 2017 tax cuts could face stiff resistance after Republicans greatly outperformed expectations in Tuesday’s election.
The GOP is on track to keep control of the Senate and gain rather than lose seats in the House — outcomes congressional Democratic leaders did not foresee. The winner of the presidential race remains uncertain, but even if Democratic nominee Joe Biden defeats President Trump, a GOP-led Senate would severely constrain Democrats’ ability to achieve significant legislative victories. The only path for Democrats to take control of the Senate at this point would be for Biden to win the presidential race and then have two Democratic candidates win run-off races in Georgia.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was so confident that Democrats would get unified control of Washington that she began publicly discussing how the party would move forward to implement an ambitious agenda on multiple fronts, from health care to economic relief to infrastructure. She was eyeing a legislative maneuver called “budget reconciliation” to push extensive legislation through the Senate without GOP votes — the same mechanism that Republicans used to pass their partisan tax bill in the first year of Trump’s term, and that Democrats used to pass the Affordable Care Act under President Barack Obama.
Democrats could only use budget reconciliation if they controlled the Senate next year, which appears very unlikely at this point.
“We most certainly will be passing a reconciliation bill, not only for the Affordable Care Act, but for what we may want to do further on the pandemic and some other issues that relate to the well-being of the American people,” Pelosi said Monday. “Our agenda in ’18 and now still … we’re going to lower the cost of health care by lowering the cost of prescription drugs, preserving the preexisting conditions, et cetera.”
The potential for such far-reaching legislation all but vanished barely 24 hours later as Democrats saw their chances to reclaim the Senate slip away — and with it the ability to pass legislation on a party-line vote. Instead, House Democrats will be forced to make deals with a Senate that is still led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is likely to have little interest in legislation of the scope the Democrats were envisioning. Pelosi will be presiding over a shrunken majority, giving her less room to maneuver.
If Biden ultimately wins the presidency and Republicans retain the Senate, Biden would become the first president since George H.W. Bush to start his first term without a Congress fully controlled by his party. That means that a major, signature legislative achievement early in his administration could be out of reach unless there is significant compromise.
“We all felt that we had the possibility of being able to really change the direction of the country, and that’s not looking like a realistic possibility right now,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). “We had prepared a lot of memos on things like reconciliation that now we’re going to have to file away unless something crazy happens in the Senate.”
Not all Democrats, though, have conceded they will scale back their plans.
In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi on Wednesday wrote: “Our Democratic House Majority, working in partnership with the Democratic White House, will now have the opportunity to deliver extraordinary progress. Together, we will continue to deliver on our successful For The People agenda: lower health care costs, bigger paychecks by building green infrastructure and cleaner government.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/11/05/democrats-congress-election-2020/