Congress will be home for Christmas — if only in its dreams

It was early November when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declared the Senate would consider the Democrats’ social spending bill during the week of Nov. 15, but that came before everything went haywire in the House of Representatives a few weeks ago

Of course, Schumer’s aspiration came before everything went haywire in the House of Representatives a few weeks ago. The House struggled to even approve the infrastructure bill. House Democrats finally had to decouple a vote on the infrastructure bill with the social spending bill just to muscle the former through. That came despite demands from House liberals that the Democratic leadership Velcro the respective measures together.

House moderates were then willing to vote on the social spending package — provided they had cost evaluations of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). They also wanted the bill to appear in the House the week of Nov. 15.