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The easiest way to look foolish in Washington is to declare with any certainty the fate of any political agenda. Time and time again, legislation that should be a slam dunk turns to dust; remember the bipartisan immigration plan from 2013, the pledges to do something about gun violence after every school shooting, the urgent calls for police reform after George Floyd’s murder? It’s similar for long-shot measures that are assumed to be D.O.A. in the face of massive lobbying opposition; here, see the Obama administration’s economic stimulus or, later, Obamacare. Washington is a place that loves to throw tarot cards into diplomatic burn bags.
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So as the year ticks toward a merciful end, The D.C. Brief is going to be careful not to make predictions for what’s possible with the remaining half-month before 2022 begins and it officially turns into election season again. But there are plenty of signs that the big lifts might be a little tougher than anticipated as tempers flare in both parties and at both ends of Capitol Hill. President Joe Biden will finish his first calendar year in power assured a spot in the history books for massive spending already on the books, but his holiday toasts of virgin eggnog might be a little more festive if Democrats could pull together and push the rest of his agenda into reality.
Even the nominally easy stuff is running into trouble. Yesterday’s vote to increase the borrowing power of the nation’s credit card until 2023 almost went off the rails. One of the most important, combustible and should-be-routine process votes on the agenda came close to derailing when Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock openly mulled tanking the debt ceiling vote unless his fellow Democrats could assure him a voting rights bill would get the same special treatment to win passage with a bare…
Source : time
