Focus now on healthcare and tax overhaul

WASHINGTON: As President Donald Trump begins his second month in office, his team is trying to move past the crush of controversies that overtook his first month and make progress on healthcare and tax overhauls long sought by Republicans.

Both issues thrust Trump, a real estate executive who has never held elected office, into the unfamiliar world of legislating.

The president has thus far relied exclusively on executive powers to muscle through policy priorities and has offered few details about what he’ll require in any final legis- lative packages, like how the proposals should be paid for.

The White House also sent conflicting signals about whether the president will send Congress his own legislative blueprints or let lawmakers drive the process.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said that he expects a healthcare plan to emerge in “the first few days of March”.

On Sunday, White House advisers held a three-hour meeting on healthcare at Trump’s South Florida club, their third lengthy discussion on the topic in four days.

Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs banker now serving as Trump’s top economic adviser, and newly sworn in Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have been leading talks with Republican lawmakers and business leaders on taxes. Neither man has prior government experience.

Republicans long blamed Democrats for blocking efforts to overhaul the nation’s complicated tax code and make changes to the sweeping 2010 healthcare law signed by President Barack Obama.

But with the GOP now in control of both the White House and Congress, making good on those promises rests almost entirely with the president and his party.

To some Republicans’ chagrin, both issues were overshadowed during Trump’s first month.

The president spent more time publicly fighting the media than selling Americans on his vision for a new healthcare law.

Priebus said the distractions did not slow down work happening behind the scenes on the president’s legislative priorities.

“Obviously with the White House staff, you’re able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” Priebus said.