The federal government does not have the jurisdiction to change how people vote in elections. That is determined by the states.
Article 1 Section 4 of the Constitution:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat...
"Manner of Elections" certainly sounds like it would allow Congress to pass a law mandating the elections must be vote by mail, specifically for Senators and Representatives.
This does not apply to the President due to states having the jurisdiction to decide how electoral college electors are chosen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
So Congress has partial authority, the question is if Congress passed a vote by mail law for Senators and Representatives, would states have other ballot measures or positions (Such as the President) that would not be vote by mail in the same election.
Speaker Pelosi says she will push for these funds in any next round of stimulus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
> States had to agree to the limit if they desired to receive federal funding for highway repair.
Those hours spent on the road are hours that people could be spending with their family, at work, or doing whatever else they like.
According to the Census Bureau, 128 million today commute daily in the US. Let's say they spend an average of 30 minutes on the highway at a top speed of 65 mph. If we raised the speed limit by 50% (to 97.5 mph), then the average commute would become: 30 / 1.5 = 20 minutes.
Each individual would save 10 minutes a day. With 252 working days a year, that's 2520 minutes saved a year -- which is a total of 42 hours saved per year. That's a lot of time. Across 128 million commuters, we'd save 5.376 billion hours per year. If people earned an average of $20/hour, that would be $107 billion of added economic activity per year. Whereas even 1% of gas savings would not be more than $2 billion saved per year.
I'm regularly driving 150 kilometers on the fabled Autobahn, with no speed limit for the most part (and some 120 km/h speed limit sections), and the difference between "I feel great, let's drive 180" and "Let's take it slow and drive 100 or 110" is surprisingly small, because that top speed is only attainable for short stretches of time.
All the 55mph limit on that particular road does in my mind is give law enforcement a pretext to make fishing stops.
I can't recall a time I ever saw traffic go ~55 on a limited access road without the presence of inclement weather or severe traffic congestion. When you consider the kind of traffic conditions that are the norm in rural ares I don't think a national 55mph speed limit makes sense at all.
Edit: I'm curious to know how a comment that is simply stating my observations and opinions can be considered so wrong.
Tons of people on both sides of the isle agree that implementing things like the national speed limit and drinking age of 21 by withholding federal funding from the states that don't goose step in line is a backhanded way of enacting legislation and/or an end run around the constitution.
Sure you can do things that way, but you have to ask yourself if it's really worth it in the long run to normalize that kind of legislative behavior in exchange for getting whatever policy point you want a couple years sooner.
Edit: To reply to your comment below I guess you could say, "no the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped them in the past"
Oh, and it can't be too significant, because the Supreme Court shut down the Medicaid expansion requirement (expand Medicaid or lose all related funding) in the ACA because the funding was too much of states' budgets.
It's a fine line to walk.