The party’s over for the 113th Congress—one day after the fanfare surrounding the president’s inaugural address, members of the House & Senate return to work with some major items on the legislative agenda: immigration reform, gun control legislation, and major budget battles. The first fight is over the debt ceiling, and House Republicans seem poised to pass a three-month debt limit hike this week.
The focus in the Senate this week will be on the Foreign Relations Committee. Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will finally testify on the Benghazi consulate attack that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, and one day later Chairman John Kerry will sit before his colleagues for a confirmation hearing to become the State Department’s next leader.
In tTuesday’s opinion pages: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius sees the inaugural address more as a rallying cry for liberal supporters than a pitch for bipartisanship. The New York Times’ David Brooks says the president’s pitch was for more communal action and less individualism nationwide.
