Goodbye 117th Congress

 Merry Christmas, you all.

So, the 117th Congress is done, and Nancy Pelosi is ending her historic run as Speaker of the House.  It passed more legislation than we have seen happen in a congress in a very long time.  While Joe Biden did not get all he wanted, much less the progressive caucus, a great deal as passed, some of it, like the infrastructure bill, that has been languishing for decades. At the tail end we got the right to marry confirmed, reform of the electoral act to prevent a VP from messing with countng votes, the CHIPs act and the Inflation Reduction Act, with inflation actually declining right now, if not due to that act particularly.

Also managed to get a spending bill passed under the wire to cover the next nine months, and the J6 comm released its report and Ways and Means got Trump's taxes.

What did not get through? An immigration bill. It looked that a modest one that would please large numbers of people on both sides was put forward by Synema and Tillis, legalising the DACA dreamers while increasing security at the border. But in the end it just could not get through. Politicians love to browbeat this issue too much to actually do anything useful about it.

The other biggie is no debt ceiling increase. I read that this would take "too much time," although I do not see why. But it did not pass, so this will become a chief playting for the GOP in the House this coming year.

There is also the problem that the green stuff in the IRA is very protectionist, violating WTO rules, and really angering European allies of the US. But I guess Biden just has Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin on his mind.

Barkley Rosser