Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Harry Reid’s wish list is lengthy for lame duck session

Social Security. The DREAM Act. START. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Health care. A budget. Taxes.

Believe it or not, that’s only a partial list of what’s left to accomplish on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s lame duck agenda. But with just 17 days left until Christmas, wonks across Washington are taking out their political abaci to try and figure out just how much Congress can be expected to finish.

It isn’t just the list that’s long — so is the amount of time it will take to get through some of these issues.

While something like the DREAM Act, a measure that would legalize the status of young undocumented immigrants who enlist in the military or enroll in college, is a one-off vote, other measures, like the defense authorization bill, have several moving parts, and are expected to take several days to debate.

Reid is in negotiations to conclude agreements that would allow the Senate to take up the more complex bills in a way that keeps time to a minimum, most likely by the number of amendments that can be offered to a predetermined list. But that never sits well with Republicans, who have staged several successful blocks in recent months when they think they’re being muzzled.

Republicans took an early stand last week, with a letter in which all 42 Republican senators pledged to work to block any legislation tried to bring up before the body completed an extension of tax cuts and approved a budget for next year. Currently, government funding runs out on Dec. 18.

The House is expected to deliver a bill to fund the government at more-or-less static levels later today. But it’s not even clear that taxes are a done deal, even with the president’s compromise on the table.

Democrats and Republicans alike reacted strongly to the president’s proposal, which would extend tax cuts at all income levels for two years, unemployment benefits for 13 months, and reduce the Social Security tax rate for workers from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent in 2011. But their reactions weren’t what you’d call typical: it was mostly Republicans cheering the president and Democrats jeering that his plan was a sell-out.

It’s usually Democrats calling Republicans the recalcitrant “Party of ‘No’”, but in a press conference yesterday, Obama went after Democrats in his own party for being “sanctimonious” and clinging to “purist positions” that were politically unrealistic.

That list of clingers-on might just include Reid, who called another meeting with Senate Democrats today to hash out a way forward on the resolution — which undercuts the approach the majority leader and his most trusted fiscal advisers in the Senate believe is right: capping the tax cuts at $250,000 income levels.

“If our Democratic friends really think they can get a better deal with the House being in Republican hands next year, go for it,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “This is silly. Quite frankly, the president is whining ... if he believes in the deal, stand by it.”

Until taxes are resolved, it’s unlikely there’s going to be much positive momentum on anything else — which leaves Reid with a choice: force votes on everything that’s faster and easier just to get the Republicans on record as having voting against them, or commit to a long process that may keep the Congress close to or after Christmas...or leave much unfinished until next year.

With a Republican House, measures like the DREAM Act and a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance, while today, absent questions of timing, a repeal of the military’s policy banning gays from serving openly in the military likely does have enough votes to clear a filibuster.

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