The progressives seem to think that they have a chance for the passage of lots of legislation by the new Congress.
What do you think has a good chance of becoming law? I would remind folks that almost all legislation requires at least 60 votes in the Senate to pass.
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Personally, I think that the answer is almost nothing. There will be lots and lots of changes by Executive Order and by changes in policies in the various Executive Branch agencies.
There will be some compromise legislation on such things as budgets and debt limits (that has to happen or the government closes down). I believe that there will limited compromise legislation on health care and other items.
But these won't please the left. Let me use the example of healthcare. We are not going to see Medicare expansion. More likely is protections for those with pre-conditions, allowing insurers to have policies that are offered in more than one state, purchases of drugs from Canada, and forcing Medicare to have competitive bidding for drugs. DACA folk may be given a path to citizenship, but even legal status by the Congress would help.
There are some good ideas in these posts. You are right too that it is the bureaucracy that implements past laws that can make changes quickly. On packing the Supreme Court, Joe Manchin from West Virginia said he would never vote for that, so I think that is off the table.
The biggest issue is economic assistance from the covid lockdowns. Biden will restrict the economy more, and the voices for more money will be very loud. A focus on state and local government bailouts, followed by more business bailouts and finally more rent, food and cash assistance. The number could be so big that we will see higher interest rates and inflation from the dollar receding.
Higher spending will be accompanied by higher taxes. Capital gains will go up, as will taxes on higher income groups.
I think we may see something on gun control. More background checks or waiting periods, to restricting certain types of weapons and magazines. Possibly tax on ammunition or something along those lines. Some of this might be unconstitutional but that will take awhile to find out.
We will see something on policing. Either making police more personally responsible for their actions and/or some sort of increase of federal penalties for abusive behaviors.
We will see expanded obamacare. They will continue to try and get more states to participate in medicaid expansion and offer more money in this area. They may try to pass another bill to address the failings and court challenges of the past.
We should see some type of social security reform, mainly lifting the exclusion of ss taxes for those making over 100k plus.
There is going to be something done on the environment. Not only will Biden sign some international treaties but definitely increase regulation on polluters, possibly even some type of carbon credit and taxing system beyond what we have today.
In education, Biden will try to do whatever the unions want. Stopping school choice whenever possible and limiting charter schools as well. He has proposed a modest 10k of forgiveness in student loans too and that could possibly pass.
Foreign policy will be different as well. Lots of carrots and few sticks. Biden will try and buy the favor of countries that hate us just like Obama did. I will go out on a limb and suggest that China may take Taiwan and Biden will not defend it.
Where the rubber hits the road, is if the change in government will really affect individual lives in a meaningful way (positive or negative). Usually, the answer is no for me. Only a major war would make a huge difference, even the Iraq wars made no difference in my life, though it certainly impacted my thinking. I have yet to have a single President or Congress make a large impact on my life. The closest has been the covid response, Trump's under-reaction likely has forced me to be far more careful but I am in a very high covid state, and the Governor has a bigger affect. I suppose any future, lockdowns and potential inflation would impact me as well.
Unlike others, I do not see Biden as destroying America. There will be some positive things I like. If he is too far left, the House will change in two years, it may anyway, and the Senate is almost certainly going to be Republican in two years, even if the Georgia runoffs are both won by democrats.