Pelosi's Moment (Page 2)

"In the first 100 hours of a new Congress, if elected," minority leader Pelosi has declared, "Democrats will roll back the subsidies to Big Oil." She means to repeal the tax relief and royalty giveaways Republicans enacted while oil prices and profits soared. House Democrats promise there will be no pay raise for Congress until Congress enacts the long-blocked increase in the minimum wage. They would also have the votes to pass what would be the most significant labor-law reform in at least four decades--"card check" certification for organizing unions that can liberate workers from the brutal unionbusting tactics of business.

Democrats intend to correct Bush's malformed prescription drug program by allowing Medicare to use its vast bargaining power to lower drug prices. Other goodies for drug companies and HMOs will be removed. Dems expect to cut the interest rate on tuition loans and expand Pell grants. They would push for exit from Iraq, while implementing numerous homeland-security measures that the 9/11 commission recommended and Bush has ignored.

The objectives could get bigger and bolder if Democrats win control by a substantial majority, though no one is counting on that. Representative Pete Stark, the California liberal who would become chair of the health subcommittee of Ways and Means, has proposed a bill that essentially broadens Medicare coverage to include uninsured Americans. Stark said, "I would love, of course, and the Democratic Party would agree, to move toward universal coverage. But that's not going to happen with a five-vote majority and no one in the White House pushing."

Lots of other legislative issues have a good shot at House passage. Senior Democrats think their break from the past--Republican refusal to face these issues--will generate its own popular momentum for more action. Representative George Miller, another California liberal and Pelosi's close policy adviser, would again become chair of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and is confident of winning on many matters.

"I have constructed the votes on a number of environmental issues or labor issues where I have a clear majority--230, 240 or 260 members who would vote for them," Miller explains. "I can't get that vote under the Republicans. After Gingrich and DeLay, the House became 'winner take all.' This most democratic institution now looks more like a bad Third World country where if you win an election, you get to shoot your opponents."

Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts liberal who would chair the Committee on Financial Services, wants to legislate across a broad front and predicts, "We are going to frame these things so a lot of Republicans are going to have a hard time voting no." His committee's jurisdiction would let him take up predatory lending, unregulated hedge funds, consumer protection from financial fraud, Federal Reserve policy, the IMF and World Bank. He wants to give shareholders the power to reject the swollen pay packages awarded to corporate executives. He wants to start a major inquiry into income inequality, both in America and the global economy.

"The biggest difference will be housing," Frank says. "We will get back in the business of building affordable housing. Republicans cut that out. That also means helping the homeless with social services. Housing is a big social problem, and now people understand it's also an economic problem, not only for the poor but for the middle class."

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