Democrats Won the Midterms. Now Comes the Hard Part: Making Life Cheaper

The window is narrow. Congress returns for a lame-duck session before the new term starts in early January, and the jockeying has already gone loud. Illinois governor JB Pritzker dropped a 75-page list of 200 policy proposals for Congress's first day, Columbia professor Tim Wu is pushing an affordability bill, and Texas's new senator James Talarico wants universal healthcare. Moderate Democrats are countering with a plea for smaller, incremental steps, while a 181-page investigation memo circulates on Capitol Hill.

Democrats have promised voters they'd cut food and healthcare costs, rein in corporations and curb billionaire power. The public is watching closely. 'Everyone's on notice now. This is probation and not a mandate,' said Carrie Joy Grimes, founder of the worker advocacy non-profit WorkMoney. A recent Equal Rights Advocates Action Fund survey found most voters want Congress to protect social security, raise wages and lower the cost of necessities, healthcare and family care.

Two price tags top the list. Schumer and other Democrats have pledged to end the Iran war, which pushed up heating oil and other costs, and to scrap Trump's tariffs, which ran the average household $1,110 this year. Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, who is exploring a 2028 presidential run, told the Lever that Democrats should refuse to vote for a continuing resolution expiring in mid-December rather than fund the war. 'The Vietnam war ended only when Congress defunded it,' he said. Vermont's Peter Welch, whose bill ending tariffs on Canadian goods was blocked by Republicans, told CBC the measure now heads to the White House: 'We can't force the president to sign the legislation we put on his desk, but we can pass it in good faith.'

Healthcare is the other battleground. Democrats want to roll back Affordable Care Act subsidy cuts and Medicaid work requirements tied to the $1tn in Medicaid reductions in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act — changes that would have to be negotiated with Trump or Republicans, possibly inside a larger spending package. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will lead a House working group on the issue, Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday. 'We'll be having conversations as a House Democratic family,' he said. In the Senate, Bernie Sanders' Help committee is expected to take the lead; he's already calling for Medicare for All, an immediate drop in the Medicare age to 55, and vision and dental coverage. Expect revivals of the bipartisan Patients Before Monopolies Act and bills curbing private equity's healthcare buys. Arkansas and Tennessee have already banned companies from owning pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, and CVS Health CEO David Joyner said Wednesday the monopolies bill was one reason his company decided to break up.

The pressure campaign is already running. Jeffries, the likely House leader, set up five affordability working groups covering grocery and gas prices and childcare, and told members to tie every investigation back to one of them. Democrats have fired off target letters to oil companies, airlines, tech firms, banks and grocery chains, with public CEO hearings planned on algorithmic pricing, executive compensation and corporate profits before any bills land. Maryland's Jamie Raskin asked the White House last week for details on tariff carveouts handed to Apple and other companies that gave Trump lavish gifts. Ronak D Desai, who heads congressional investigations at law firm Paul Hastings, said Democrats will scrutinize 'the extent to which corporations engaged with the Trump administration.'

Oversight will also target the administration's own record. The White House has fired or pushed out hundreds of workers at agencies regulating air, water and consumer safety, and Congress is expected to haul budget chief Russ Vought and other officials into hearings on what those cuts mean for consumers' health, safety and wallets. Elizabeth Warren, who takes over the Senate banking committee in January, created the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau in 2008; its funding has since been slashed and enforcement orders scrapped. Desai predicted Congress will probe both the dismantling of the CFPB and whether companies once punished by it scored 'any sweetheart deal.' Joe Van Wye of law firm Cuneo Gilbert Flannery and LaDuca wants Democrats swinging big at 'the corporate power that has hollowed out the American dream.'