Pardon my skepticism, but One America News reported yesterday that Senator Mitch McConnell is optimistic that Democrats and Republicans can work together to pass legislation in 2018. Really??!!  One of the things that President Trump has put on the agenda is infrastructure spending. That might be the easiest thing to find bipartisan support on, but based on some of the statements being made by Democrats lately, I can’t imagine them cooperating with Republicans on anything. The tax bill recently passed provided more spending money for the average working man–the person the Democrats have always claimed they represent. Yet no Democrats crossed the aisle to vote to save money for the people they claim to represent.

The article reports:

“There’s not much you can do on a partisan basis in the Senate at 52-48 or at 51- 49 which will be the number for us next year,” said McConnell. “I don’t think most of our Democratic colleagues want to do nothing. And there are areas I think where we can get bipartisan agreement.”

McConnell went on to say two areas of potential bipartisan agreement could be a rollback of some of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, and a permanent solution for young illegal immigrants, which could come to a floor vote in mid-January.

I can’t imagine the Democrats working to rollback any of Dodd-Frank. Elizabeth Warren wants to run for President, and she will use any legislation to limit Dodd-Frank to increase her visibility. Whether or not that will help her cause remains to be seen. I also suspect any agreement on DACA will be elusive–the Democrats look at the DACA kids (who are no longer kids) as their future voting base.

It soon will be 2018–an election year. Historically, very little meaningful legislation gets passed during an election year. It will also be interesting to see how many days Congress actually works before they shut down and leave for campaigning.