Based on statements from policymakers, we are getting first glimpses of what Congressional fiscal policy might look like, if the Democrats capture one or both chambers in next month’s midterm elections. Potential House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has made clear that her top fiscal priorities will be:

• passage of the minimum wage hike
• re-adoption of the pay-as-you-go budget rules of the 1990s
• a long-term solution to protect the middle-class from AMT creep
• an extension of middle-class, but not upper-class tax cuts expiring in 2010

Prospective Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) offers this on the expiring tax cuts: As I have indicated they are on the books through 2010. So nobody should be misguided with respect to our intentions on middle class tax cuts. There may be some tax cuts that go to the wealthiest among us that are going to have to get trimmed, because you know we have to pay our bills. When Rep. David Obey (D-WI), once-and-maybe-future House Appropriations chair, last served in that capacity in 1994, he cut over 100 domestic spending programs, and today, his staff suggests a hard line on local earmarks. To judge them by their words — should they find themselves in the majority in the 110th Congress — these may not be your father’s tax-and-spend Democrats.