It's like it's not even a whole new year in Washington, D.C.
Congress faces a jam-packed to-do list this month with deadlines looming on difficult issues—including how to fund the government and avoid a shutdown, stabilizing the nation’s health insurance program for poor children, and whether to shield young undocumented immigrants from deportation. […]
[T]he government could soon be on the verge of a shutdown, with pressing questions regarding health care, immigration and other policies left unresolved. Also on the agenda are emergency relief for regions upended by last year’s natural disasters, a key national security program and the fate of an agreement to stabilize health insurance markets under the Affordable Care Act.
That's just the first three weeks of this month, with government funding now extended to January 19. The House, by the way, decided to tack an additional week on to their holiday break. They'll be back to whatever qualifies as work for them as a body next Tuesday.
"Some of these things they're talking about are huge, contentious issues," said Jane Calderwood, who served as chief of staff for then-Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). "I can't imagine it's doable, and certainly not doable in a thoughtful way."
Jim Manley, who served as an aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said, "I'm not sure I've seen anything like it, at least in recent years, where so much high-profile stuff has to be done right out of the gate."
Yep, that's a unified Republican government for you. If you hated 2017, don't get your hopes up for 2018. At least not as far as the Republican Congress is concerned. The only good news in this is that it ends in the midterm elections, and everything that this Congress does—or doesn't do—this year makes it that much more likely that they are subsumed in a blue tsunami in November.