Congress to begin work on stimulus

President-elect Obama will meet with congressional leaders Monday.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The 111th Congress will convene this week determined to avoid the mistakes of two eras: the Great Depression and the Carter administration.

The first task for the Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate is to contain the economic crisis by passing a stimulus package worth $500 billion to $850 billion. They’re hoping to complete it before Barack Obama is sworn in Jan. 20 as the 44th president.

On a parallel track, congressional Democrats who spent eight years in a confrontational relationship with President George W. Bush are shifting gears as they prepare to work with a president — and former senator — from their own party.

Senators also have been making contingency plans in case Roland Burris, whom scandal-plagued Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tapped to replace Obama in the Senate, tries to report to work. Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he won’t seat any Blagojevich appointee, not because Burris has done anything wrong but because federal prosecutors have evidence that Blagojevich at some point sought to sell the Senate seat. It’s unclear, however, that the Senate has the authority to refuse to seat a senator based on accusations against his appointer.

Obama plans to visit Capitol Hill on Monday and meet with Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Republicans.

“While the economic situation is likely to be front and center, this will be the first chance for everyone to sit down and discuss the entire legislative agenda,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.

“I look forward to meeting with President-elect Obama ... and I hope this is the first of many bipartisan meetings on the significant challenges facing our country,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in a statement.

Democrats want to make the most of their control of the legislative and executive branches and avoid the legislative, policy and personal missteps that marked the relationship between President Jimmy Carter and congressional Democrats when Carter took office in 1977.

Carter, intent on changing what he saw as a culture of corruption in Washington, assembled for his staff a team of outsiders who couldn’t work well with Congress. He distrusted lawmakers and went after appropriators’ pet projects.