House Democrats push dozens of 'common sense' bills with bipartisan buy-in
CNN
Frantic to show voters they've accomplished more ahead of the November midterm elections, a small group of House Democrats is circulating what it calls a "common sense" agenda of 77 bills they say could quickly head to President Joe Biden's desk, all with tangible impacts on key issues.
Deliberately, the bills mostly fall under a few key headings they're calling the "three C's": costs, crime and Covid-19. The ideas are being shared with senior White House aides and members of the House Democratic leadership, ahead of Biden's State of the Union address next week and the House Democrats' policy retreat in Philadelphia in mid-March.
Among the ideas in the bills, according to a draft of the agenda obtained by CNN: creating a global supply chain czar, capping the price of insulin, enabling refinancing of student loans, funding free breakfasts and lunches for public school students, sending more resources to prosecutors and law enforcement technology, building up preparedness in schools in case of future pandemics and expanding Medicare to include vision, dental and hearing coverage. There's a Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, Hamas International Financing Prevention Act and an Illicit Arms Trafficking Security Enforcement Act. They want to both invest in tough border protections and provide recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program with a pathway to citizenship.
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