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Mike DeBonis
Congress reporter covering the House of Representatives
A $ 2 trillion infrastructure deal announced this week by President Trump and leading Democrats is already losing momentum, as the President's chief of staff tells people inside and outside the administration that this effort is too costly and unlikely to succeed.
The interim agreement to repair the country's roads, revitalize public transport and expand broadband systems was found Tuesday at a private meeting at the White House between Trump and the Democratic leaders of Congress, who said they were pleasantly surprised by the president's willingness to support large-scale spending. effort.
But the initiative has met with immediate opposition from Republicans who balk at the high price and conservative allies pushing lawmakers to block it. Opponents include Mick Mulvaney, Trump's senior aide, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Who is not in favor of spending, according to his interlocutors.
In an interview Friday, Mr Mulvaney said he did not disagree with the president on the need for an infrastructure initiative and aimed to identify at least $ 1 trillion for this purpose.
"Is it difficult to pass an infrastructure bill in this environment, not to mention $ 2 trillion, in this environment? Absolutely, "said Mulvaney.
Saturday morning, the president tweeted: "A US infrastructure plan is not easy, especially when our big country has spent $ 7 billion in the Middle East over the past 19 years, but I've definitely turned towards a bipartite plan of $ 1 to $ 2 trillion. Urgent need!
On April 30, 2019, President Trump welcomes NASCAR Cup Series Champion Joey Logano to the White House South Lawn. (Susan Walsh / AP)
Senior Republican legislators are also actively downplaying the chances of an infrastructure contract of this magnitude this year. Trump himself has proposed $ 2,000 billion to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), And seems to want to pursue that goal with Congress.
"I think we need to determine what we need and then we can figure out how much it costs to build it," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). "It seems to me that I do not want to say how much we want to spend without talking about what we need and what the priorities should be."
Senate Majority Whip John Thune (RS.D.), the Senate's Senior Deputy Returning Officer, described the $ 2 trillion figure as incredibly ambitious and said he was "still chewing" the size of the package requested by Trump.
"The question most of our members ask themselves is, 'How are we going to pay for this? "Thune said. "We will see."
The resistance of Trump's own party illustrates the speed with which the bipartisan idea was jeopardized in Washington, as the president began his re-election campaign without significant legislative agenda and besieged by congressional investigations.
Trump's White House senior advisor and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, left-wing White House acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, and senior White House press officer Hogan Gidley follow President Trump at Marine One at the White House on March 28, 2019. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
Infrastructure efforts also point to Trump's propensity to negotiate agreements with Democrats behind closed doors – leaving his own advisers and congressional Republicans to fire him.
Earlier in the administration, Trump congratulated Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) – a potential enemy for 2020 – for her ideas because, in her opinion, she was determined to spend more than Republicans. He asked his associates to get a list of projects and "just spend it," in the words of a former administration official.
Trump was also frustrated when the idea of "Infrastructure Week" became a symbolic farce for the disorganization of his White House, announced former and current collaborators. Trump really wanted to undertake such an effort, considering it as a populist idea essential to his chances of reelection, they said, saying that the government could make money with the toll roads.
The White House's initial plan was to raise $ 200 billion in federal funds with larger private spending, but Trump has always wanted to spend more. Gary Cohn, while he was the president's national economic adviser, would argue for such publicity.
Private partnerships, but the president's real estate friends in New York – including investor Steven Roth, economic adviser to the Trump campaign – told Trump that it was a far-fetched idea. Trump denigrated the concept during the meeting with Democrats this week.
"Two challenges: a very large number and the total lack of definition of value that would be generated if we made this investment," said DJ Gribbin, infrastructure policy expert of the Trump administration until last year. "I find it unusual how the conversation is" how much are we going to spend? "Instead of" what are we going to accomplish? "
Gribbin said that Trump loved big numbers: "That's his management style. Why can not he be taller? Let's do the biggest. Why can not we do more? & # 39;
But while Trump has charged his associates to find $ 2 trillion, so far, few concrete answers have been provided, according to White House officials. The aides said that they did not know how they would spend this money.
According to Democratic advisers, the White House in Pelosi or the leader of the Senate minority, Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.), did little, except a phone call between Trump and Pelosi Tuesday afternoon, which also related to the infrastructure. as an effort to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
Meanwhile, the powerful network of conservative organizations founded by billionaire Koch Brothers has launched appeals against the bill, according to Capitol Hill officials.
Finding $ 2 trillion in federal funding is indeed a daunting task.
According to a December analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, raising fuel tax rates and indexing them to inflation would only generate about a quarter of the needed revenue over 10 years. Since 1993, rates have remained at 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel, and recent democratic proposals to increase them have been much less ambitious.
Getting the remaining $ 1.5 trillion would involve much larger tax increases, and Democrats have not hesitated to contemplate the recent Republican tax cuts, which disproportionately benefited corporations. and wealthy individuals. But even canceling completely the corporate tax cut, which had brought the rate down from 35% to 21%, would not reduce the gap and many Democrats do not want to go that far.
Although Democrats said Trump did not rule out tax increases at their meeting this week, several GOP leaders have made it clear that they would not support the cancellation of their 2017 tax laws.
"It took us three decades to do that," McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader, said Thursday in an interview with the Washington Post Live. "I do not want to touch it."
Several Republicans, including McCarthy, have discussed a recent bipartisan bill entitled Generating American Income and Infrastructure Now Act, which would sell distressed loans to the Ministry of Agriculture to fund infrastructure and reduce the deficit. But this bill should only bring in tens of billions of dollars, which is far from the four-point figure that Trump and the Democrats are considering.
Many GOP personalities simply call the impossible task.
"I have not seen any set of payments of up to $ 2 trillion on which Republicans and Democrats in Congress could be heard," said Steve Scalise (R-La.), Whip of the minority of the House.
Nevertheless, Grover Norquist, of the Americans for Tax Reform group, said that the $ 2 trillion generated by conservatives, despite stomach burns, were accompanied by an even larger wave of relief. that Trump had promised no tax increase.
"Everything is going exactly as we wished," said Friday Norquist, president of the organization. "All members of the White House arrived immediately. White House staff and others have said that tax increases are not an option. Republican leaders, the House and the Senate, came in and said that tax increases are off the table. It could not have been better. "
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