Congressional endgame
Posted: Monday, December 10, 2007 3:19 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Congress, Democrats
From NBC's Ken Strickland and Mike Viqueira
If you are sympathetic to Democratic causes and you had high hopes that by now the new majority in Congress would have ended or altered American involvement in the war, or that your federal spending priorities would finally get their due, or that the days of deficit spending were over -- you may be in for some disappointment in the coming days.
It appears that the annual legislative endgame -- where months of committee hearings, speeches, amendments, and votes come down to a massive all-in-one "omnibus" package negotiated among a select few from the Hill and the White House behind closed doors -- will not include any conditions attached to war funding. The war in Iraq is going to get funded, at least through early next year, even though Speaker Nancy Pelosi had pledged less than a month ago that not a penny more would be forthcoming until Congress returned in mid-January. Domestic spending will likely be at or close to the president's ceiling. And if there is a "fix" for the Alternative Minimum Tax, which most agree there will be, there will likely not be corresponding raises in taxes to offset the cost of the measure, despite passage earlier this year of a requirement to pay for everything.
Bright sides for Dems looking for accomplishments: some kitchen table items important to voters stand a chance of making it through. The bill funding billions in farm subsidies has new life in the Senate. The AMT -- with or without the offsets -- will save hundreds, if not thousands, in income tax for middle-class filers in a matter of months. The big energy bill that would raise CAFE standards still has legs, though it's not likely to survive with House-passed rollbacks of the tax breaks given by Republicans to energy companies a few years back. At this point, the president will probably not get all of the $196 billion for the wars that he had requested, maybe even less than half. And there is still a faint hope for reauthorization and expansion of the children's health insurance program this year.
Beyond that, it is a familiar tableau around here. The unforgiving math dictates that Democrats simply have not had the votes all year to overcome a surprisingly solid Republican wall of opposition, whether it be the Senate's 60-vote threshold or the two-thirds required to override a veto. Much to the glee of Republicans here and "Down the Avenue," House Dems are sniping at Senate Dems; Dem leaders are frustrated with other Dem leaders; some rank-and-file Dems are bickering with those same leaders; and all Dems are upset with what they regard as Republican obstructionism.
Close your eyes and listen, or simply change the names and party affiliations, and this could be most any other December in the last several years, especially during the Clinton Administration, when the roles were literally reversed. The questions is: Will the end result this time be good enough for Democrats and their supporters?
