As the year comes to a close, so does the 117th session of Congress. Time is running low for Democrats trying to cram their priorities through the chambers before a divided Congress takes over in January. Parts of Biden’s legislative agenda are still scattered across the parliamentary floor, like expanding the child tax credit and reforming the Electoral Count Act (ECA).
First?
I would hope these two make it as both are critical IMO, one for the future of our democracy and the other for the future of children now in poverty.
Not mention our collective sanity.
“The reason it’s not getting as much talk right now is because I think there’s an agreement to get it done,” he told TPM. “The conversations are focusing on, you know, debates on other things that may or may not get done by the end of the year, but I think it’s almost certainly going to end up getting done.”
He trusts the crazies in the House rethug caucus to do it?
I don’t.
Well, Nancy is still in charge in the House, and Dems still hold (tenuously) the Senate, with Sinema Verite even a looser cannon than previously. Plus Manchin is Manchin. So passing anything, even to keep the United States solvent and maintain its credit rating, is a dicey proposition.
Then there’s the once “Supreme” Court, about to strike down much of the Constitution and let the individual state legislatures, gerrymandered to a fault just last year, have ultimate and unreviewable power. We’re by no means out of the woods yet.
A divided Congress is what the voters chose… sadly.
And then there is “fuck off” Sinema. I call her that due to an image she posted of herself wearing a ring bearing those two words.
Politics is a shameful career to choose. A few who really do care about us but mostly self serving dim bulb fuck offs looking to cash out.
I wonder if Democrats got some of these things done before the lame duck period, if they wouldn’t get more votes in elections. It does seem that a good amount of work happens after it can be counted as an accomplishment.
“If this era doesn’t pass, I think it’s likely that we will face an unprecedented constitutional crisis”
We?
Actually, politicians will. We have the Second Amendment.
It will political malpractice of the highest degree by the Democrats if one of the two alternatives aren’t passed.
Amy Klobuchar is from Minnesota, not Michigan.
This is a detail political writers should get right.
They’ve got to memorize the abbreviations. Not easy for all the states that begin with M-i.
We have a way to get it done. And it will get done.
Silence=GOP treachery
The total lack of any thought about any action on eliminating the debt ceiling is depressing as fuck.
Yes, but maybe they will overplay their hand and it will make 2024 a blue wave.
All you need to do is remember her Minnesota accent, doncha know.
The other thing the current Dem majority could do in the lame duck is to preemptively raise the debt ceiling or postpone it for a few years. That would prevent the Republicans from taking the global economy hostage for cuts in Social Security and Medicare or any other pet goal they can’t get done legislatively.
Republicans have no policy platform. All it was in 2020 was Whatever Trump Wants.Their aim is to stop everything Biden tries to do.
It’s a stew of disparate pieces, the unfinished stuff. I have no expectations, but I fervently hope Dems have the juice to get more done before January and the Invasion of The Brain Snatchers.
Their Only aim…
I only hope the optimism does not turn out to be misplaced.