……….some say the fat lady sings but in this case I am going to say It’s Not Over Till All the Votes Are Counted. Some of my quick original observations and others picked up from sources.
Majorities in House and Senate set and drive the agenda. Control of Congress not clear and at least in the Senate it may be some time before majority control is determined. What that means is whoever is in the majority quickly must get their act together, set up offices, staff up and the biggest challenge, get their members in line to support the majority.
Unless you are planning to build a pond or do some landscape for Hunter Biden, the agenda impacting LICA members will not change over the next two years. I was on a call with Ag leaders yesterday and the consensus is that the farm bill – due to be reauthorized next year – will not see major changes. That consensus is driven by the fact that farm bills are traditionally bipartisan and the margins are so thin that a policy swing either way would be difficult.
For infrastructure spending, the authority to spend money on all the programs was put in place last year and since every district benefits you won’t see any effort to scale back infrastructure spending. There will be a lot of noise about enacted provisions and regulations re: climate change but again the margins are too close to make significant policy change.
And hard line and moderate Republicans will call for reduction in federal spending but the trajectory under this and past Administrations continues to be upward. One elected official once jokingly told me he considers foreign investment any funds spent outside his district. Most of the spending reduction talk will be in oversight hearings (see first point about who sets the agenda) with Biden department heads called before committees to explain funding decisions (most mandated by Congress).
The sun came up on Wednesday and the moon eclipsed, so let’s take a deep breath and be thankful that so many Americans went out and voted and there doesn’t appear to be any talk of a rigged elections.