President may wait for wall funding
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump appears to be stepping back from demanding a down payment for his border wall, which could remove a major obstacle to a bipartisan deal on spending legislation just days ahead of a governmentshutdown deadline.
Trump told a gathering of about 20 conservative media
reporters Monday evening that he would be willing to return to the funding issue in September.
The border-wall money is fiercely opposed by Democrats, whose votes are needed to pass the legislation. They are equally incensed over Trump’s threat to deprive former President Barack Obama’s health-care law of key funds to help poor people.
The wall is also unpopular with many Republicans, and GOP negotiators on Capitol Hill were uneasy about the clash over the wall potentially sparking a government shutdown.
Those were the most-pressing issues confronting lawmakers as they returned from a two-week spring recess to face a critical deadline. Congress must pass a $1 trillion catch-all spending bill to pay for all agencies of government by midnight Friday or trigger a partial shutdown the next day, which happens to coincide with the 100th day of Trump’s presidency.
It’s increasingly obvious that the House and Senate will have to pass a temporary funding extension of a few days or more to prevent a shutdown this weekend and allow more time for talks.
“I do not think the
“I do not think the election was a referendum on building a wall to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.”
— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
election was a referendum on building a wall to the tune of tens of billions of dollars,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The negotiations over the spending bill took center stage despite a separate White House push for fast action to revive health-care legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. After signaling last week that they hoped for a vote as soon as this week on a rewritten health bill, White House officials softened their stance Monday. Echoing the views of House GOP leaders, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said there would be a vote on health-care legislation when House leaders count the 216 votes needed to pass it.
“I think we want to make sure that we’ve got the votes and we’re headed in the right direction before putting some artificial deadline,” Spicer said.
Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan were embarrassed last month when they had to pull their Obamacare replacement bill off the floor without a vote as it became clear it would fail. Since then, leaders of conservative and moderate factions in the House have been negotiating a compromise allowing states to opt out of certain Obamacare requirements, and they appear to be making progress, although legislative text had not been finalized as of Monday.
The original GOP bill eliminated many of the Obamacare mandates, offered skimpier subsidies for consumers to buy care and rolled back a Medicaid expansion. Still, conservatives balked, saying it didn’t go far enough.
With Democrats unanimously opposed, it remains to be seen whether the deal will come together and attract the needed support. Trump talked it up on Twitter, writing Monday: “If our healthcare plan is approved, you will see real healthcare and premiums will start tumbling down. ObamaCare is in a death spiral!”
Trump also pushed for his border wall, a central campaign pledge that he still insists Mexico will pay for in the end, though Democrats and even most Republicans doubt that will ever come to pass. Cost estimates for the wall range past $20 billion, and Republicans were seeking $1.4 billion as a down payment in the spending bill.
Trump turned again to Twitter: “The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)! If the wall is not built, which it will be, the drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way it should be! #BuildTheWall.”
But while Trump says his base “really wants” the wall, polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans, including those who live near the U.S.-Mexico border and the lawmakers who represent them, don’t want it. Many also don’t believe that building a wall would have a significant impact on illegal immigration.
The other major stumbling block involved a demand by Democratic negotiators that the measure fund cost-sharing payments to insurance companies that help low-income people afford health policies under Obama’s health law, or that Trump back off a threat to use the payments as a bargaining chip. The subsidies are embroiled in a lawsuit brought by House Republicans, and supporters of the health law warn that its marketplaces could collapse if they are taken away.
GOP leaders warn, however, that it would be exceedingly difficult for Republicans controlling Congress to give in to Democratic demands to include the cost-sharing payments — they help low-income people with copayments and other out-ofpocket Obamacare costs — at the same time Republicans are trying to repeal major pieces of Obamacare.
Meanwhile, despite Trump promising a “big announcement” this week on one of his signature issues — tax reform — the White House now says the president simply “will be outlining principles for tax reform” during his much-ballyhooed Wednesday event, a far cry from what Trump said last week.
Trump plans to stick with his pledge to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, but outside economic analyses say such cuts would fuel larger deficits.