With improbable Democratic wins in both Georgia Senate runoff elections, President-elect Joe Biden has an opportunity to govern with a congressional
With improbable Democratic wins in both Georgia Senate runoff elections, President-elect Joe Biden has an opportunity to govern with a congressional majority—though one that will be excruciatingly narrow. The party’s ability to eke out 51 Senate votes, thanks to tiebreaking vote of Vice-president Kamala Harris, gives Biden the opportunity to pass some of his domestic policy ideas, including some tax initiatives. But don’t expect anything like the ambitious agenda he laid out in his campaign.
Razor-thin majorities in the Senate and House and limited, if any, GOP support mean Biden will have to satisfy a small group of Democratic moderates to pass bills. And that suggests some of his most ambitious ideas likely will fall by the wayside. Here are six clues to what Biden may be able to accomplish in 2021.
What will Biden and the Democrats cram into budget reconciliation bills? Unless Democrats repeal the Senate filibuster, which is highly unlikely, they’ll generally need 60 votes to get legislation passed in the upper chamber. That means they’ll turn to a big exception to the 60-vote requirement, the special process used to pass a budget framework known as reconciliation. For it, 50 votes+1 will do.
The biggest question Biden must answer in 2021: What will he stuff into those reconciliation bills? The possibilities seem endless: immigration, infrastructure, tax increases,…
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