Health, climate change vie for boost in Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Barack Obama may be pressuring Congress as no U.S. president has for decades as he aims to get two big domestic goals passed this year — reforming health care and fighting global warming.

“It’s not impossible to do both, but that would be more than a Congress has ever given a president, maybe since the first First 100 Days,” said Brookings Institution senior fellow Stephen Hess, referring to the start of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” presidency in 1933.

A further time constraint may be the pressures imposed by the campaign next year for congressional elections in November when the seats of all 435 U.S. representatives and a third of the 100 senators are up for grabs.

Congress in the past often has shown itself to be unable to handle more than one big issue a year, but Obama and his fellow Democrats, who control the Senate and House of Representatives, see a window of opportunity this year to pass two long-standing Democratic goals.

Reuters