Domestic Agenda: Five Key Items for the 111th Congress

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Agenda Ahead Policy Briefing

• Overview: Quick Start Vital for Successful 111th Congress
• Presidential Agenda: Obama Will Find Lobbyists Tough to Exclude
• Domestic Agenda: Five Key Items for the 111th Congress

How will the 111th Congress tackle health care?

• Rep. John Dingell
• Rep. Michael Burgess

How will the 111th Congress tackle economic recovery?

• Rep. Charlie Rangel
• Rep. Paul Ryan

How will the 111th Congress tackle energy?

• Sen. Jeff Bingaman
• Rep. Joe Barton
• Rep. John Shimkus

How will the 111th Congress tackle global warming?

• Rep. Rick Boucher
• Rep. John Shadegg

How will the 111th Congress tackle finance?

• Sen. Chris Dodd

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Here is a rundown of five of the most urgent issues facing Congress when lawmakers return in January.

Economic Recovery

Hoping to get the economy back on track, President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional leaders will work to craft and pass a potentially massive stimulus package when lawmakers return in January for the start of the 111th Congress.

Although the president-elect has called the plan “costly,” he hasn’t provided a price tag and has given only broad indications of what might be included in the measure. Most unofficial estimates for the package range up to $700 billion, though some have suggested numbers even higher.

The main goal, Obama has said, is to create 2.5 million jobs by 2011.

“We have to make sure that the stimulus is significant enough that it really gives a jolt to the economy,” Obama said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have said they expect an economic recovery package will be introduced, and possibly passed, during the first week of the Obama administration in late January.

The stimulus plan — which will be shaped by his growing team of economic advisers in cooperation with House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) — would borrow elements from proposals that have already passed the House. Those include investment in infrastructure, food stamps, tax cuts and environmentally sustainable technology.

Rangel’s committee is working on a tax-cut proposal that aims to aid the middle class.

Obama has said he isn’t sure how he is going to handle the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, saying he would consult with his economic team to determine a course of action.

“The basic principle is that we’re going to provide tax cuts to the vast majority of Americans,” he said recently. During the campaign, Obama said he would favor a repeal of the Bush tax cuts, which critics say disproportionately benefit wealthier Americans.

One of the items in the stimulus, Obama said, will be investments in the “clean-energy infrastructure of the 21st century,” including boosting alternative power sources such as wind or solar. As a candidate, Obama promised to invest $150 billion in clean energy over 10 years — an investment that he said would lead to the creation of 5 million jobs.
— Vicki Needham

Financial Services

With the economic crisis showing no signs of ending, Congress will be addressing the problems that got the nation into this crisis in the first place by overhauling the regulatory structure for the financial services industry.

The focus of the two key panels — the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee — will likely be on increasing transparency, eliminating loopholes and consolidating regulatory power to a smaller number of agencies. The chambers could vote to create a special select committee to oversee an overhaul of financial markets.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has signaled that he intends to regulate credit default swaps, which are essentially insurance contracts on lending, and the credit rating industry will likely see some changes.

One proposal to bring transparency could further fuel a jurisdictional battle between the chambers’ financial services committees and their Agriculture panels. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, is planning legislation for the 111th Congress to bring all over-the-counter derivatives, including credit default swaps, onto regulated futures exchanges. Harkin’s proposal, the Derivatives Trading Integrity Act, would require credit default swaps to be traded as futures contracts. Doing so would grant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sole regulatory jurisdiction over the complex product, giving his committee and the House Agriculture Committee sole jurisdiction over credit default swaps.

Both committees will continue to handle oversight of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, the fund the Treasury Department is using to stabilize the financial markets. Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has said he will continue to push for financial institutions receiving funds under the TARP to make credit available to small businesses and consumers. Meanwhile, Frank has also argued that some TARP funds should be allocated for mortgage foreclosure mitigation.
— Charlene Carter

Health Care

The top health care issues likely to emerge in the 111th Congress are the reauthorization and expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, efforts to improve health coverage for all Americans and an overhaul of Medicare.

SCHIP is likely to head the list because a temporary extension of the federal health care program for lower-income children expires in April.

The battle will focus on the scope of the program, with Democrats trying again to expand it by raising the income threshold for eligibility. Democrats failed to win enough support to overcome President George W. Bush’s presidential veto of legislation that would have increased the eligibility cap for SCHIP to 300 percent of poverty, as opposed to the current 200 percent level. But with Barack Obama in office, such expansion is more likely.