What can actually get done over the next two years? Even if you didn’t get your hopes up, you should still lower them.

President Barack Obama and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are doing their best to sound positive. Both say they might be able to work together on trade and tax reform. And at his luncheon with congressional leaders Friday, Obama declared, “I am not going to judge ideas based on whether they’re Democratic or Republican; I’m going to be judging them based whether or not they work.”


But the reality is that the case for a productive two years collapses as soon as you dig into the details.

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McConnell’s aides are frustrated at the lack of movement they see from Obama after the election-night wipeout. They say he’s still stuck in the same battle lines with the GOP that make deals on tax reform and infrastructure less likely. White House officials say the president will keep making the same case he’s already made for his tax reform and infrastructure ideas, and believe Republicans will eventually have to give ground on a minimum wage hike now that voters in four states approved increases Tuesday.

Even trade, perhaps the best bet of all for common ground, won’t be as easy as both sides say it is. That’s because so many Senate Democrats are opposed to it that Obama would have to lean on some of them for their votes — something he hasn’t done yet.

Here are the odds for some of the biggest issues on the agenda for the next two years:

Trade

Why it’s on the list: Obama wants “fast-track” trade authority, and a Republican Senate would be more likely to give it to him than a Democratic Senate, where outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t even want to bring it up last year. McConnell listed it Wednesday as one of the issues where he and Obama could find common ground. McConnell’s aides are convinced that enough moderate Senate Democrats would support it that they should get 60 votes easily, now that Reid won’t be able to block it anymore.

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Obstacles: It’s not just Reid who opposes the trade authority — it’s just about all Senate Democrats, judging from the last Senate vote on the issue three years ago (on an amendment sponsored by McConnell). At that time, the only defections were Joe Lieberman, an independent aligned with the Democrats, who is now retired — and Mark Pryor, who just lost. And three Republicans who are still in the Senate voted against it: Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, and potential presidential candidate Rand Paul.

Senate Republicans insist that if Obama really wants the trade authority, he should work harder to win over Democrats. It’s possible that Obama and McConnell could gain a few votes by working on it together, but the 2011 vote shows that it might not be as easy as all of the common-ground talk suggests.

Odds: Medium.

Tax reform

Why it’s on the list: Both parties say they want something called “tax reform,” so it’s natural that this was another issue that both Obama and McConnell say they can work on. And both sides say they want lower corporate tax rates. So there’s that.

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Obstacles: The effort falls apart once you get beyond the lower corporate rates. Obama wants to use revenues from tax reform to pay for infrastructure, which is a big red line for Republicans — they consider that “tax increases.” If Obama would drop that part of his plan, a McConnell aide said, it would make it easier to get Republicans and Democrats in a room to work out the messier stuff — like figuring out which “loopholes” to close and taking the heat from business interests who don’t want to lose their tax breaks.

However, Obama isn’t dropping his linkage between tax reform and infrastructure projects: “There is an opportunity for us to do a tax reform package that is good for business, good for jobs, and can potentially finance infrastructure development here in the United States,” he said at his Wednesday press conference. Dave Camp, the outgoing House Ways and Means Committee chairman, will be the administration’s shield on this: They point out that his tax reform plan would have raised more than $126 billion for highways and infrastructure repairs.

Odds: Extremely low.

Infrastructure

Why it’s on the list: Congress has to pass a new highway bill before the highway trust fund runs out again in May. Top Republicans want to use the opportunity to pass a long-term solution, not another short-term patch like the one Congress passed last summer.

Obstacles: Obama talks about infrastructure in more ambitious terms than Republicans do — as a jobs program, not just fixing the highway trust fund’s constant shortfalls. Even if Obama and McConnell could get past their disagreements on the linkage to tax reform, the effort to pass a long-term highway bill always breaks down over the same question: how to pay for a more stable funding source for infrastructure repairs, since the gas tax hasn’t kept up with spending.

Somehow, they’d have to raise $100 billion for a six-year bill. That’s not likely to get any easier just because the Senate has changed hands. They have to pass something, but it’s not clear that they can avoid another short-term fix.

Odds: Medium.

Energy

Why it’s on the list: Republicans think they can finally force Obama to sign a bill approving the Keystone pipeline, but their energy list goes beyond that. They think their victory in the Senate will open the door to a series of other House-passed bills that never got votes in the Senate under Democratic control. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner promised to consider “legislation to help protect and expand America’s emerging energy boom.”

Obstacles: Keystone could be easy — Senate Republicans now appear to have the 60 votes they would need to get the bill to Obama’s desk. After that, it’s less clear how many House-passed energy bills the Senate could approve. For example, the Senate version of one House bill that would speed up the review of pipelines and other energy projects — sponsored in the Senate by John Hoeven of North Dakota — has just two Democratic cosponsors: Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. And since Obama threatened to veto the House version, its prospects don’t appear great even if it picked up more support in the Senate.

Odds: Medium.

Obamacare

Why it’s on the list: Republicans have to do something to fight it. They know Obama won’t sign a full repeal, although that won’t stop them from trying. But they hope they can at least peel away enough Democrats to knock out unpopular pieces of the health care law, like the tax on medical devices and the definition of full-time work as 30 hours a week.

Obstacles: The medical device tax repeal should be an easy victory for Republicans — they can win over Democrats from states where the medical device industry is strong. And on Wednesday, Obama didn’t rule out signing it. All he said was, “let me take a look comprehensively at the ideas that they present.” Repealing the 30-hour work week could gain Democratic support, too.

But neither of them is really that important to the law — and on the bigger pieces, Obama’s likely to dig in. For example, he said repealing the hated individual mandate is “a line I can’t cross” because that’s “a central component of the law.” The employer mandate could be another repeal target, but a McConnell aide suggested it’s less meaningful now because the Obama administration has already delayed it so many times it’s not clear that it will ever be enforced. And Republicans still have to decide how many times they will try to repeal the whole law, knowing Obama won’t sign it.

Odds: Low.

Minimum wage

Why it’s on the list: Obama knows it’s an issue that puts Republicans on the defensive, and he believes his case for a federal increase to $10.10 an hour just got stronger on Election Day, when voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota — not exactly deep-blue states — approved increases in their states’ minimum wage. Illinois voters endorsed a non-binding measure along the same lines.

Obstacles: For Republican leaders, the bottom line is still the same. They think it’s bad for the economy, and they’ll keep pointing to a Congressional Budget Office report earlier this year — one strongly disputed by the White House — that says an increase would reduce employment.

Odds: Extremely low.