Both parties are eager to push forward ideas that will help their candidates. Congress set for do-nothing year

Come January, Americans will face the prospect of seeing their taxes rise substantially. Jobless benefits could expire. And defense programs will be on the chopping block, hitting communities from coast to coast.

So what are the chances Congress will deal with these issues of profound consequence between now and November?


“Zero,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. “If you’re looking for a positive spin on this, I don’t have one to give you.”

It’s only February, but it looks like Congress is ready to pretty much pack it in for the year. Or at least until the November elections, when a lame-duck Congress might be even less able to tackle the nation’s business.

The state of affairs is so grim that “60 Minutes” is exploring a piece on the Senate’s dysfunction.

After House and Senate negotiators worked until the wee hours of Thursday morning, Congress is expected to soon give its blessing to one of the last pieces of must-pass legislation: a 10-month extension of the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and doctors’ reimbursement rates under Medicare.

But unless Congress acts again, the same set of problems will soon be back: On Jan. 1, some 160 million Americans will once again face a 2-percentage-point increase in their Social Security payroll taxes, jobless benefits will be set to expire again, and doctors who treat Medicare patients will be threatened with a 27 percent cut in their payments.

On top of that, an even more titanic struggle looms over another issue: the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels and on capital gains and dividends. Add to that $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts, about half of which would come from defense programs — along with the expiration of a bevy of corporate and individual tax breaks — and Congress will be in for an even bigger mess of its own making.

“There’s a perfect storm set up right now for right after the election,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

“Another train wreck,” Graham added.

So can Congress avoid it? Don’t count on it, if recent history is any guide, lawmakers say.

“They had a better opportunity last year, and it wasn’t used,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). “This year everybody agrees is more difficult, so I assume not a lot is going to get done.”

As for after the election, no one really knows.

If one party sweeps, it would very likely have enormous clout to put its stamp on the soon-to-be-expiring policies that affect millions of Americans. But if voters render a split decision, decisive action might not be any easier than it is now.

“It’s starting to look like there’s going to be a lame-duck session,” Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Wednesday, “and it’s starting to look like it’s going to be a very full session.”

While Congress will certainly attempt to deal with other matters in the next few months — such as a highway bill, an ethics measure and cybersecurity legislation — an election-year agenda filled with political votes is already beginning to take shape.

“Obviously, we’re getting closer and closer to the election, and the presidential campaign strategies and battle for control of the Senate will start impacting what we can move,” Crapo added.

Indeed, both parties are eager to push forward popular ideas that will help their candidates at the polls, even if it’s obvious they’ll go nowhere. Democrats want to force votes on small-business tax breaks funded by tax increases on millionaires. Republicans are pushing for measures aimed at undermining Obama administration policies, including its controversial contraception mandate and its Keystone XL pipeline decision.

For Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), there’s little incentive to put his caucus through tough votes, one reason why he’s chosen not to move forward with a budget blueprint this year. So he’ll be looking for opportunities to exploit his political advantage on the floor and prevent the GOP from offering politically charged amendments.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he complained to “60 Minutes” about the lack of legislating.

“We need to change our behavior by doing what the Senate does — which is to bring bills to the floor, amend them, vote on them,” Alexander told POLITICO. “We have 100 grown men and women of considerable talent who work very hard in the United States Senate, and then when they get here, they sit around in quorum calls, and they’re not very happy about it either on the Democratic or Republican side.”

In the Senate, there have been just 19 roll-call votes this year; the House has had more than 60.

But Republicans have power in the Senate to slow down votes as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) showed this week in delaying action on highway legislation because of a dispute over Egyptian aid.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) similarly don’t want to give the president campaign ammunition — something that was underscored this week when the House GOP made a major concession in allowing the $100 billion payroll tax cut to proceed without spending cuts to pay for it.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said “maybe a few little things” will get done before November. But he doubted that the GOP would be willing to compromise to move an agenda.

Nor are there many deadlines that would force Congress to act.

Funding for the government has already been extended until October, and top appropriators expect a stop-gap resolution to keep agencies operating through November. There’s no immediate threat of Congress having to renegotiate its controversial debt ceiling deal before November.

And Senate Democratic leaders have already said they won’t bring a budget blueprint to the floor this spring.

That’s caused some grumbling in the ranks.

“I think it’s always better when we do the nuts and bolts of governing like we should,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). “I like when we have a budget; I like when we’re doing our appropriations bills. When we’re doing our reauthorizations like we should. That’s the way it ought to work.”

But, Pryor added, “I don’t have really high expectations for this year, either.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he would still try to move a budget resolution through his committee “to demonstrate that there is a chance to do what I believe needs to be done.”

But Reid and other Democrats say there’s little reason to bring such a plan to the floor, since last year’s Budget Control Act — which was enacted as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling — set overall funding levels for the next fiscal year. Bringing a plan to the floor could lead to an unwieldy voting session — and put vulnerable senators in difficult spots.

With the payroll tax deal almost in the rearview mirror, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was asked what else Congress can do this year.

He had two words: “postal reform.”