Portman pushes goals despite distractions

WASHINGTON — Just a few months ago, it all seemed within the grasp of Republicans such as Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio: a major overhaul of the federal tax code, sweeping revisions to the nation’s health-care laws, and an easing of regulations on financial institutions and companies.

“There’s such a great potential here to fix our tax code,” Portman told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in the first week of January, based on Republican control of Congress and the White House for the first time since 2006.

Yet today, Portman and other Republicans are increasingly overwhelmed by the daily reality-TV show emanating from President Donald Trump.

As Trump is enmeshed in one controversy after another, a deep gloom has enveloped many Republicans on Capitol Hill, with one saying Portman’s “desire to pass real progrowth legislation that will help the economy and families is being threatened every day by the political circus following Trump.”

“Every ounce of political capital Republicans had prior to this will be spent weaving their way through a maze of trip wires of land mines left in the wake of Trump’s mishandling of this investigation,” the same Republican complained.

Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist and one-time adviser to former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri said, “You have a White House (that is) both distracted and doesn’t know anything ... about the substance of these issues,” referring to revising the tax code.

“To me, this White

House is sort of the opposite of Rob Portman,” Elmendorf said. “Whether you agree with (Portman) or not on the substance, he knows a lot about how the process works.”

Portman has argued for years that the tax code needs its first major overhaul since 1986. His goal is to reduce the number of individual income-tax brackets, reduce taxes on corporations and individuals, and scrub the bloated tax code of scores of deductions, moves that he argues would expand the economy and raise wages.

Even amid the chaos of the first months of Trump’s administration, Portman has maintained his customary optimism. He acknowledged that “in some areas, there are going to be challenges, no matter what. Tax reform and health-care reform are tough issues.”

“I think it’s our job not to get distracted,” Portman said. “My team’s not focused on the distractions. We’re focused on putting our heads down and getting work done.”

Rob Lehman, a former chief of staff to Portman, said that “no matter who is in the White House, Rob’s going to be in the middle of these big issues. In some ways, his comments of keeping his head down and trying to find a pathway is the way he’s always done it. But it’s clearly more challenging when you have distractions at the White House.”

But privately, some GOP officials are convinced that the swirling controversies make it impossible for Republicans to navigate their way to overhauling the tax code. Just on Wednesday, the stock market suffered a selloff because investors also grew worried that a dysfunctional White House will not have the clout to press for congressional passage of a major tax cut.

A Republican congressional staff member said on condition of anonymity that “every time we have one of these self-inflicted crises, that is political capital going down the drain, and that will make it that much harder for people who want to move things to get something done.”

“Look at the president’s actions about health care,” said the GOP staff member. “He doesn’t understand the nuances of the healthcare bill. How are you going to get tax reform done if he’s not going to lead and carry the ball on messaging? It’s going to be awfully difficult to get something like health care done, not to mention taxes.”

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, grumbled that “we’re not talking about the solutions we have for the country. We’re spending more time talking about the executive branch.”

At a time when Republicans are under intense pressure from Democrats and some voters to break with Trump, Portman has attempted a difficult balancing act. He was slow, for example, to call for a special counsel to investigate any links between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials who wanted to defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

But he also has attempted to distance himself from Trump. In the November election, he wrote in the name of GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence instead of Trump, and he has made clear he opposes any White House efforts to ease economic sanctions imposed on Russia after it annexed Crimea in 2014.

When the House — with strong support from Trump — approved a major revision to the 2010 health-care law known as Obamacare this month, Portman rushed out a statement declaring that although Obamacare is “unsustainable,” he did not “support the House bill as currently constructed” because it would curb Ohio’s expansion of Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of lowincome people.

“I’m not trying to distance myself from anybody,” Portman said. “I’m trying to do what’s best for Ohio.”