Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online offers the Republican-led Congress ideas for its 2018 agenda.
The prospect of a political hanging in a few months is not concentrating Republican minds on an agenda. More and more Republicans in Washington expect their party to lose control of the House in the November elections. You would think that Republicans would be scrambling to get as much done as possible, then, before they lose the power that comes with party control of the White House and both chambers of the legislature. But you would be wrong.
Should Republicans decide to try to pass legislation, there is no shortage of useful reforms they could make.
Health care. A lot of congressional Republicans, especially in the House, don’t want to take up health care again. They feel that last year they wasted months trying and failing to pass a bill making major changes to Obamacare. The passage of the tax bill, which included the abolition of the fines on people who go without health insurance, should change their thinking on the issue.
The end of those fines should raise insurance premiums, and Democrats are planning to blame Republicans for it. Thus Republicans have an additional reason to seek to relax Obamacare’s regulations. …
… Taxes. Many Republicans want to devote a large chunk of the year to publicizing the benefits of the just-enacted tax bill. A good way to do that would be to advance legislation to make the middle-class tax cuts included in the bill permanent. …
… Infrastructure. A lot of conservatives in Congress worry that any infrastructure legislation will quickly degenerate into a race to spend money as wastefully as possible, with the projects funded based on their political appeal rather than the country’s economic needs. They are probably right. If Congress takes up infrastructure, though, conservatives should do what they can to improve the legislation.
