E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Divided government demands creativity. Here are 3 ways to get things done.

The past two years deserve to be seen as a time of progress — and the 2022 election as ratification that voters noticed. Even in the face of high inflation, they kept the Senate in Democratic hands, limited Republican gains in the House and rejected far-right candidates at the state level. Lord knows, there is much that remains to be done, and President Biden and the Democrats should not back off from fights for tougher gun laws, voting rights, political reform, steps to rein in a right-wing Supreme Court, new measures to fight climate change and a sane immigration policy. But Republican control of the House will make it very difficult for progressive legislation to go forward. This requires Democrats (and Republicans seeking ways to break with their investigation-infatuated leadership) to be creative in thinking simultaneously about what’s possible over the next two years and how to lay the groundwork for change later. Here are three suggestions that I hope others build on.

Presidents can do a lot through executive orders, and Biden will certainly try. But there are other avenues available to change-makers, as my Brookings Institution colleague Thomas E. Mann suggests. First, much of the legislation enacted in the past two years — on infrastructure and investments in technology and green energy for starters — will involve substantial spending between now and the end of Biden’s first term. Democrats should be aggressive in claiming credit for what’s being built. But the Biden administration should also be very public about all it’s doing to make sure the money is spent wisely. “When a bill is finally passed and signed into law,” Mann told me, channeling Churchill, “that’s not the end, but the end of the beginning.” Progressives propose to do a lot of good things through government. They need to make clear they will be in the forefront of reforming how it works. The Internal Revenue Service should do its part with highly visible help to make tax filing as easy as possible and to speed refunds. It would be a way of showing that the employees added to the IRS to prevent cheating at the top are also there to improve service to everyone.