Overview: Quick Start Vital for Successful 111th Congress

Related Content

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

Print

E-Mail

Reprints

Text Size

Latest News

• Democrats Leaving No GOP Health Care Critique Unchallenged
• Despite Ailing Mother, Baucus Will Return for Saturday Vote
• White House Strongly Backs Reid’s Health Reform Bill
• GOP Leaders Press Obama on Afghanistan
• Levin Says Panel May Have to Punt on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

Newly empowered Democratic leaders are aiming for a blockbuster agenda in 2009 as they look to jump-start an economy in recession, overturn a host of Republican policies and enact universal health care. And save the planet, to boot.

Then, of course, there’s the nearly $600 billion in off-budget monies that have already been spent on the Iraq War.

Still, the fiscal crisis has set off a frenzy of lobbying as every interest group looks to get its slice of bailout pie — from governors looking for a federal helping hand to avoid higher taxes or massive layoffs to green-power advocates seeking new subsidies and highway construction interests hoping for a massive public works package.

All could find themselves in the winner’s circle, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also signaling that broad tax cuts will be on the table as well. That will present a challenge to Republicans, who have blocked spending-heavy stimulus plans for much of the past year as either premature or wasteful, but have supported tax relief.

First things first — President-elect Barack Obama wants a massive recovery package on his desk as soon as he takes office, and it looks to be several hundred billion dollars. That’s in addition to the $850 billion tab of this year’s bailout bill; the costly rescues of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, American International Group and Bear Stearns; the first stimulus package; and the trillions in debt guaranteed or bought by the Federal Reserve on its own authority.

But even if they stand in opposition, Democrats are all but certain to roll them with their increased majorities, as even Democrats who have touted the importance of pay-as-you-go budget rules have signaled that those budget protections will be of secondary importance until the economy is out of recession.

Democrats who say they’ve learned their lessons from the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress understand the importance of getting a fast start and racking up accomplishments before Obama’s presidential honeymoon fades.

“All of the things that we didn’t pass in the 110th — now we have the votes,” noted one senior Senate Democratic aide.

Instead of President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993, they are looking as their guide to 1933, the year Franklin D. Roosevelt took office — complete with New Deal-like plans for assistance for the ailing economy and bold proposals to expand social services.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Pelosi and Obama “need to work on the exact agenda for next year, but we expect a significant amount of time to be spent on efforts to improve the economy and on providing access to health care for those who currently don’t have access,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.

Despite those plans, Democrats plan to step gingerly into those debates, having been humbled by what House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) recently termed their years in “the wilderness.”

Democrats were shocked to lose in 1994, but they now are hungry to not only keep their majorities but also to show they can govern.

“We had been in the majority for 38 years in ’93 and ’94. And there was a sense that we would perhaps always be in the majority,” Hoyer said.

Beyond the stimulus package, Democrats also have a full plate of unfinished business to tidy up from 2008 — namely, the domestic appropriations bills they left undone to avoid a veto showdown with President George W. Bush.

Their gambit of delaying the bills until Obama takes office could yield about $20 billion in extra domestic spending — and thousands of earmarks — shortly after Congress reconvenes.

Democratic leaders also want to start work quickly on two massive but complex tasks — a health care overhaul and passage of a cap-and-trade system intended to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

Both projects will require months of negotiating between various Democratic factions and the two chambers, and will be a key test of Obama’s ability to get his agenda enacted.

The last time Democrats held the White House, Clinton’s universal health care agenda flat-lined and a massive energy tax scheme imploded in the Senate; Democrats are intent on not repeating that result.

Already, Senate Democratic stakeholders — such as Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — have made an effort to avoid the internecine rifts that characterized the Clinton-era health care debate.