佛罗里达州迈阿密海滩的一家 Publix 超市，摄于 1 月 31 日。
The Publix grocery store in Miami Beach, Florida, on 31 January.
当选候选人承诺削减成本、约束企业、遏制亿万富翁权力并改善经济。别担心，资金紧张的美国人，“救济正在路上”，参议员查克·舒默上周在庆祝民主党在中期选举中大获全胜的新闻发布会上承诺。当选候选人承诺削减食品和医疗成本，遏制欺骗消费者和工人的企业，限制亿万富翁权力，让世界最大经济体更好地服务工薪阶层。
Winning candidates promised to cut costs, rein in corporations, curb billionaire power and improve the economy Don’t worry, cash-strapped Americans, “relief is on the way”, the senator Chuck Schumer promised last week in a press conference celebrating Democrats’ massive midterms win Winning candidates promised to cut food and healthcare costs, rein in corporations ripping off consumers and workers, curb billionaire power and make the world’s biggest economy better serve the working class.
对于这些崇高目标以及一些短期措施，各方有广泛共识。但这场大胜将数十年来的斗争推向前台，核心在于美国联邦政府应如何为社会安全网提供资金，以及如何管控医疗和食品成本。
There’s broad agreement on those lofty goals and on some short-term steps. But the big win is bringing decades-old battles to the fore, about how the US federal government should fund safety nets and check healthcare and food costs.
选举与新一届国会于 1 月初宣誓就职之间的“跛脚鸭”时期，通常是企业游说者、智库、选民团体和大额捐赠者试图影响议程、在幕后激烈角力和公开造势的时期。这一次，这一切都呈“类固醇般”升级。
The “lame duck” period between an election and a new Congress’s swearing-in in early January is often a frenzy of behind-the-scenes battles and public posturing as corporate lobbyists, thinktanks, voter groups and big donors try to influence the agenda. This time, it’s all that on steroids.
伊利诺伊州州长 JB·普里茨克已发布一份长达 75 页、包含 200 项政策建议的清单，供国会“首日议程”参考；哥伦比亚大学教授蒂姆·吴正在推动一项“可负担法案”；得克萨斯州新当选参议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科承诺为该州实现全民医保；一份 181 页的调查备忘录正在流传；温和派民主党人则主张采取更渐进的步骤。与此同时，特朗普拥有否决法案的权力，总统不喜欢的任何法案都需要一批共和党人支持才能通过，这使局势更加复杂。
Already, JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, has issued a 75-page list of 200 policy proposals for Congress’s “day one agenda”; Columbia professor Tim Wu is pushing an “affordability bill”; Texas’s new senator James Talarico is promising universal healthcare for all there’s an 181-page investigation memo circulating; and moderate Democrats are arguing for more incremental steps Meanwhile, Trump’s power to veto bills means anything the president doesn’t like will need a clutch of Republicans to pass, making things more complicated.
预计将出现总统会支持的可负担法案组合，如遏制私募股权和信用卡利率的措施，以及他将予以否决的法案，民主党将利用这些被否决法案进行反共和党的政治宣传。
Expect a mix of affordability bills the president will back, like curbs on private equity and credit card interest rates, and ones he will veto, which Democrats will use for anti-Republican political messaging.
大多数选民希望国会保护社会保障、提高工资并降低基本生活必需品、医疗保健和家庭护理的费用，近期平等权利倡导行动基金的调查显示，这与许多其他调查的结果相呼应。他们对在任者的支持是有条件的。
Most voters want Congress to protect social security, raise wages and lower the costs of basic necessities, healthcare and family care, a recent Equal Rights Advocates Action Fund survey found echoing many others. Their support for anyone in office is conditional.
“现在每个人都被警告了。这是试用期，而不是授权，”倡导美国工人降低成本、提高工资的非营利组织WorkMoney创始人Carrie Joy Grimes在谈及周二选举结果时说。“人们并没有突然变成民主党人。人们非常明确地表示，他们想要不同的东西。”
“Everyone’s on notice now. This is probation and not a mandate,” Carrie Joy Grimes, the founder of WorkMoney, a non-profit that advocates for lower costs and higher wages for US workers, said of Tuesday’s election results. “People have not suddenly become Democrats. People are very clear that they want something different.”
Grimes表示，她正对该组织数百万成员说：“普通民众有责任把刚刚发生的事当作契机，继续向两党施压。”以下是国会计划应对的具体领域：食品杂货和汽油费用参议员舒默等民主党人承诺结束伊朗战争，该战争推高了取暖油等成本，并结束特朗普的关税政策，后者今年已使普通家庭额外支出1,110美元。马里兰州参议员克里斯·范·霍伦正酝酿2028年总统竞选，他坚持认为国会应立即采取行动。
Grimes said she’s telling the group’s millions of members: “It’s incumbent on everyday people to take what just happened and keep thumping on both parties.”Here’s the concrete areas where Congress is planning to respond: Grocery and gas costs Schumer and other Democrats have pledged to end the Iran war, which has pushed up heating oil and other costs, and to end Trump’s tariffs, which cost the average household $1,110 this year They should move immediately, insists Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland senator who is exploring a 2028 presidential bid.
“民主党人不应通过拒绝投票通过将在12月中旬到期的继续决议来继续为这场战争提供资金，”他在接受《Lever》采访时说。“越南战争只有在国会撤销经费后才结束，”他补充道。
“Democrats should not advance spending to continue to fund this war” by refusing to vote for a continuing resolution that expires in mid-December, he told the Lever“The Vietnam war ended only when Congress defunded it,” he added.
结束特朗普关税的路径尚不明朗；特朗普及其内阁对高成本的关联视而不见。但一些国会共和党人现在开始批评这些关税，使得在没有特朗普支持的情况下通过法案所需的三分之二多数成为可能。
The path for ending Trump’s tariffs is unclear; he and his cabinet have ignored links to high costs. But some congressional Republicans are now criticizing them, making the two-thirds majority needed to pass a bill without Trump a possibility.
今年早些时候，包括佛蒙特州参议员彼得·韦尔奇在内的民主党人提出了一项取消对加拿大商品关税的法案，但该法案被共和党人阻挠。新一届国会该法案将送交白宫，韦尔奇在接受CBC采访时说：“我们不能强迫总统签署我们递交给他的立法，但我们可以本着善意通过它。”
Earlier this year, Democrats, including the Vermont senator Peter Welch, introduced a bill to end tariffs on Canadian goods that was blocked by Republicans In the new Congress, it’s headed to the White House, Welch told CBC“We can’t force the president to sign the legislation we put on his desk, but we can pass it in good faith.”
医疗保健民主党人承诺立即撤销《平价医疗法案》中的补贴削减以及特朗普《一项宏伟法案》中对医疗补助的工作要求，这些削减总计约为1万亿美元的医疗补助预算。通过这些变动需要与特朗普或共和党人协商，可能作为更大规模的支出方案的一部分。
Healthcare Democrats have promised to immediately roll back the cuts to subsidies in the Affordable Care Act and the work requirements to Medicaid that were part of the $1tn in Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Passing those changes will have to be negotiated with Trump or Republicans, and could come as part of a bigger spending package.
包括密歇根州的阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德和南卡罗来纳州的安妮·安德鲁斯在内的许多民主党人以承诺颠覆一个昂贵且低效的医疗体系为竞选纲领，该体系让数百万人民背负沉重的医疗债务，并推动全民医疗保健。
Many Democrats, including Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and South Carolina’s Annie Andrews ran on pledges to upend an expensive, ineffective healthcare system that leaves millions with crushing medical debt and are pushing universal healthcare.
具体的方案和实施方式仍不明确。纽约州的亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯将主持众议院的一个医疗保健“工作组”，该小组将研究下一步行动，杰弗里斯周三在回答提问时说：“我们将作为众议院民主党大家庭进行讨论。”
Again, the what and how are still unclear. New York’s Alexandria Ocasio Cortez will head a House “working group” on healthcare that will figure out what to do next, Jeffries said Wednesday in response to questions. “We’ll be having conversations as a House Democratic family,” he said.
在参议院方面，由佛蒙特州的伯尼·桑德斯主持的健康、教育、劳工与退休金委员会（HELP委员会）预计将发挥主导作用。他已呼吁实施全民医保计划，并立即将医保年龄下调至55岁，同时加入视力和牙科护理。
On the Senate side, the Help committee (health, education, labor and pensions), chaired by Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, is expected to take a lead role. He’s already calling for a Medicare for All plan, and immediately for lowering the Medicare age to 55 and adding vision and dental care.
预计将重新提出《患者优先于垄断法案》，这是一项两党法案，旨在拆分大型医疗集团；以及限制私募股权收购医疗机构的法案。包括阿肯色州和田纳西州在内的共和党州已通过立法，禁止公司拥有药店和药品福利管理公司。CVS Health首席执行官大卫·乔伊纳周三表示，垄断法案是公司决定拆分的原因之一。
Expect revivals of the Patients Before Monopolies Act, a bipartisan bill that promises to break up big healthcare conglomerates, and bills to curb private equity’s healthcare acquisitions Republican states including Arkansas and Tennessee have already passed laws banning companies from owning pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers. David Joyner, the CEO of CVS Health, said Wednesday that the monopolies bill was a reason the company decided to break up.
民主党人表示，选民既担心生活成本高企，也担忧特朗普政府的腐败和外交政策混乱。他们希望将这些问题串联起来。
Affordability Voters are concerned about the high cost of living, but also about Trump administration corruption and foreign policy chaos, Democrats say. They hope to tie that all together.
预计将出任众议院领袖的哈基姆·杰弗里斯在2026年设立了五个“可负担性工作组”，涉及食品杂货和汽油价格、儿童保育等议题。他要求众议院议员尝试将他们开展的每一项调查都关联回这些可负担性问题之一。
Likely House leader Hakeem Jeffries set up five“affordability working groups” in 2026 on issues including grocery and gas prices and childcare. He’s asked House members to try to link every investigation they do back to one of these affordability issues.
现任国会民主党议员已向石油公司、航空公司、科技公司、银行、杂货店等发出“靶向”信函，询问其导致美国消费者生活更艰难或更昂贵的做法。他们计划在公开听证会上传唤首席执行官，就算法定价、高管薪酬和企业利润飙升进行质询，随后推出法案以改变企业行为。
Already, sitting Congress Democrats sent out “target” letters to oil companies, airlines, tech companies, banks, grocery stores and others asking about their practices that have made life more difficult or expensive for the American consumer. They’re making plans to grill CEOs in public hearings about algorithmic pricing, executive compensation and skyrocketing corporate profits before introducing bills to change corporate behavior.
全球律师事务所保罗·黑斯廷斯国会调查业务负责人罗纳克·D·德赛表示，民主党将审查“企业与特朗普政府接触的程度”。他说，他们将寻找企业以不道德方式帮助特朗普或其盟友的证据，然后试图将其与可负担性问题挂钩。
Democrats will scrutinize “the extent to which corporations engaged with the Trump administration”, said Ronak D Desai, who heads the congressional investigations practice for the global law firm Paul Hastings. They’ll be looking for evidence that companies helped Trump or his allies in unethical ways, and then seek to tie that to affordability, he said.
许多这类靶向信函尚未公开，但已有公开线索显示这些关联可能如何运作。例如，马里兰州众议员杰米·拉斯金上周要求白宫提供关于给予特朗普豪华礼物的苹果等公司获得关税豁免的详情。
Many of these target letters are not yet public, but there are public clues as to how these links could work. Maryland’s Jamie Raskin last week asked the White House to provide details about tariff carveouts for Apple and other companies that gave Trump lavish gifts, for example.
特朗普政府解雇或逼退了数百名监管空气、水质和消费者安全机构的工作人员。
The Trump administration has fired or pushed out hundreds of workers at agencies that regulate air, water and consumer safety.
国会无法命令复职这些人员，但预计将通过公开听证会调查这些解雇及其对消费者健康、安全和钱包的影响，让预算局局长拉塞尔·沃特等特朗普官员处于聚光灯下。
Congress can’t order them to be reinstated, but it is likely to investigate the firings and their effects on consumers’ health, safety and pocketbooks in public hearings that put budget chief Russ Vought and other Trump officials in a spotlight.
参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦将于1月接任参议院银行委员会主席，她在2008年房地产崩盘后创立了消费者金融保护局，旨在保护消费者免受金融诈骗侵害。该机构的资金已被大幅削减，惩罚企业虐待消费者的命令也被废除。
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who will run the Senate banking committee in January, created the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau after the housing meltdown of 2008 to protect consumers from financial scams. The agency’s funding has been slashed, and orders punishing companies for mistreating consumers were scrapped.
“国会将调查特朗普政府拆解消费者金融保护局的努力，以及之前受到执法制裁的公司现在是否成了任何‘甜心交易’的受益者，”德赛预测说。
“Congress will investigate both the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the CFPB and whether companies previously subject to enforcement were now the beneficiary of any sweetheart deal,” Desai predicted.
有人认为，国会现在应该全力以赴。华盛顿律师事务所Cuneo Gilbert Flannery and LaDuca的公共政策和立法高级顾问乔·范怀表示，民主党需要对抗“掏空美国梦的企业权力”。
Right now, Congress should swing for the fences, some say. Democrats need to take on “the corporate power that has hollowed out the American dream”, said Joe Van Wye, senior adviser on public policy and legislation at Washington law firm Cuneo Gilbert Flannery and LaDuca.
“我不认为在边缘修修补补、只通过特朗普会签署的法案，能解决问题，”范怀说。
“I don’t think nibbling around the edges, only passing bills Trump is going to pass, is going to cut it,” Van Wye said.