Democrats Prep Swift First Week of Legislation

Jan. 4, 2007 — -- As Democrats are set to take control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade today, gone is President Bush's tough campaign rhetoric.

It's been replaced with talk of bipartisan cooperation.

"I'm hopeful that Republicans and Democrats can find common ground to serve our folks, to do our jobs, to be constructive for our country," Bush said this morning after his first Cabinet meeting of 2007.

But behind the talk by both Republicans and Democrats about working together lie competing agendas and principles that may be at fundamental odds.

As Bush held out his olive branch, such as it was, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., kicked off the first events of her three-day celebration of her speakership. And Democrats sketched out their plan for their first 100 legislative hours in session, many of which the president has stated he opposes to and one of which he already vetoed.

Perhaps hoping to regain some of the legislative momentum, the president fleshed out his own agenda for the 110th Congress with an editorial in this morning's Wall Street Journal where he outlined his goals.

He said he wants to make his tax cuts permanent, balance the federal budget within five years, eliminate secret budget items members of Congress often tuck into spending bills called earmarks and give the president line-item veto power to help eliminate spending he finds wasteful.

"We can show the American people that Republicans and Democrats can come together to find ways to help make America a more secure, prosperous and hopeful society," he wrote, saying he hoped to find "common ground."

The question is whether any of the Democrats now running Capitol Hill will buy Bush's bipartisan rhetoric amidst his laundry list of conservative agenda items.

"This is the first time the president has dealt with the Democratic majority, so this is a very different environment in which he has to work," said Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report.