By Edward Epstein, CQ Staff

Election year calculations mean that on a number of issues, the Democratic Congress is playing a waiting game in hopes of bigger House and Senate majorities and a Democrat in the White House next year.

From appropriations bills to free-trade agreements and efforts to find a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax, Democratic legislators see that their chances for enacting bills to their liking will vastly improve in 2009 if things go their way at the ballot box.

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Meanwhile, Democrats are devoting floor time to legislation that already has failed to advance in the 110th Congress, such as trying to force a timetable for withdrawing U.S. military forces from Iraq or converting tax breaks for domestic oil and gas producers into incentives for alternative energy production (HR 5351).

“It all makes sense,” said Princeton University congressional scholar Julian Zelizer. “Democrats have an incentive to wait it out to get good legislation, with a Democratic president, if that’s what they get.”

“They’re at a stalemate in Congress,” he added. “If neither party is ready to compromise, nothing will happen. And they don’t want to give away legislation by compromise or by watering it down this year.”

House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey , frustrated after last year’s appropriations endgame in which President Bush refused to compromise on domestic spending levels, was frank Tuesday in a hearing with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings : “If the administration doesn’t want to deal, if they don’t want to compromise . . . then we’re simply in a waiting game, and we’ll deal with a president who does.”

Obey, D-Wis., articulated what others on Capitol Hill predict: Little progress on finishing appropriations work is expected until after the election as Bush and Democrats spar over domestic spending.

To a rank-and-file House member like Mike Thompson , D-Calif., it seems his leaders are willing, on some issues, to wait for voters to send more Democrats to Congress or a Democrat to the White House. “I suspect some of that’s true,” said Thompson.

When Bush used his State of the Union address to call for doing away with congressional earmarks in appropriations bills, but made no mention of presidential earmarks, a lot of Thompson’s colleagues walked away with an expectation of gridlock.

“People don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings about negotiating with the president on lots of things,” Thompson said.

Motivation Shortfall

Democrats spent the end of 2007 searching for ways to challenge Bush on his veto threats, hoping congressional Republicans would push the White House to compromise. That never happened, and Congress sent Bush bills in line with his spending cap.

This year there will be little motivation for Democrats to let the White House dictate to Congress.

“We learned a bittersweet lesson when President Bush learned to use his veto pen last year,” said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin , D-Ill.

On No Child Left Behind (PL 107-110), Sen. Edward M. Kennedy , D-Mass., is taking the legislative lead. He has promised to throw his clout as Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee chairman behind an overhaul, but observers say the presidential election will make that goal impossible.

“I’m skeptical. It’s a very, very complex law substantively and politically,” said Joel Packer, director of educational policy and practice at the National Education Association.

The Democrats’ two major presidential contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have criticized the law. While Kennedy could ramp up the pressure, the candidates’ calls for changes would make it difficult for them to support any compromise bill.

Congress also faces the expiration of several popular tax breaks, including the deduction for state and local sales taxes for taxpayers who do not itemize.

Many tax writers want to extend them, but serious discussions have not begun on how to do so, and tax policy experts generally say that anything without a deadline should be expected to slide into 2009. That includes major initiatives such as permanent restructuring of the alternative minimum tax.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., denies that Democrats are counting down to Election Day.

“The answer is no. We’re not in a ‘wait till next year’ posture. We want to pass legislation that we think is good public policy,” Hoyer added.

But House Minority Whip Roy Blunt , R-Mo., said all signs point to a delay game. Blunt says the House does about one and a half days of work each week, spread out over four or five days.

“I don’t know how long their members will let them sustain the strategy of keeping them in Washington rather than letting them go home to see what the people who send us to Washington want us to do for them,” he said.

David Clarke, Chuck Conlon, Liriel Higa, Timothy R. Homan, Libby George, Erin McNeill, Keith Perine, Catharine Richert, Richard Rubin and Alex Wayne contributed to this story.