If Democrats Win in November

What if Democrats win in November? What will they do? Richard E. Cohen runs down their agenda.

[Democratic House Leader Nancy] Pelosi has also promised that within 100 hours after taking control of the House on January 3, Democrats will pass legislation to increase the minimum wage, mandate the negotiation of Medicare prescription drug prices, fully implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, and repeal tax benefits for big oil companies.

OK. Those are all policy initiatives that will help Democratic voters in the short term. What else?

Barbara Boxer wants to legislate reductions in greenhouse gases; Ted Kennedy wants to reduce student loan interest rates. Charles Rangel “wants a more bipartisan policy on international trade, including better protections for U.S. workers.”

Then there is this:

For many key Democrats, the emerging strategy -- should they win some congressional control this November -- appears to be to try to score legislative victories where possible, thwart GOP initiatives, and wage an aggressive oversight campaign to expose what they see as Bush administration shortcomings and neglected national problems.

Er, isn’t that what they have been doing for the last six years? Democrats have always been good at oversight, that is when it involves public hearings with eevil corporate executives brought to the bar of browbeating. You can bet that Rep. Henry Waxman will be a “barracuda”
in this department, according to Republican Rep. Tom Davis.

It is interesting, though, that there is nary a word in Cohen’s article about Iraq and the war on terror.

I wonder why?