The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Budget negotiators close on debt, agency spending deal
WASHINGTON >> The Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are on the cusp of a critical debt and budget agreement, a deal that would amount to an against-the-odds victory for Washington pragmatists seeking to avoid politically dangerous tumult over fiscal deadlines.
Aides on both sides of the talks say the tentative deal would restore the government’s ability to borrow to pay its bills into the next administration and build upon recent large budget gains for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies. It would mostly eliminate the risk of a repeat government shutdown this fall.
The agreement is on a broad outline for $1.37 trillion in agency spending next year and would represent a win for lawmakers eager to return Washington to a more predictable path amid political turmoil and polarization, defense hawks determined to cement big military increases and Democrats seeking to protect domestic programs. Nobody can claim a big win, but both sides view it as better than a protracted battle this fall that probably wouldn’t end up much differently.
Trump appeared to indicate he was pleased with the emerging agreement.
“I think we’re doing pretty well on a budget. It’s very important that we take care of our military. Our military was depleted. In the last two-and-a-half years, We’ve un-depleted it, to put it mildly,” Trump told reporters in an Oval Office appearance on Monday. “We need another big year.”
It also comes as budget deficits are rising to $1 trillion levels — requiring the government to borrow a quarter for every dollar the government spends — despite the thriving economy and three rounds of annual Trump budget proposals promising to crack down on the domestic programs that Pelosi is successfully defending now. It ignores warnings from deficit and debt scolds who say the nation’s fiscal future is unsustainable and will eventually drag down the economy.
“This agreement is a total abdication of fiscal responsibility by Congress and the president,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington advocacy group. “It may end up being the worst budget agreement in our nation’s history, proposed at a time when our fiscal conditions are already precarious.”
The aides who spoke Monday about the emerging deal did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record before a deal was final. A person close to the talks said final obstacles are down to technical issues.
A push by the White House and House GOP forces for new offsetting spending cuts was largely jettisoned, though Pelosi, DCalif., has given assurances about not seeking to use the follow-up spending bills as vehicles for aggressively liberal policy initiatives.
Fights over President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall, other immigration-related issues and spending priorities will be rejoined on followup spending bills that are likely to produce much the same result as current law. The House has passed most of its bills, using far higher levels for domestic spending. Senate measures will follow this fall, with levels reflecting the accord.
At issue are two separate but pressing items on Washington’s must-do agenda: increasing the debt limit to avert a first-ever default on U.S. payments and acting to set overall spending limits and prevent automatic spending cuts from hitting the Pentagon and domestic agencies in January.
The threat of the automatic cuts represents the last gasp of a failed 2011 budget and debt pact between former President Barack Obama and then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that promised future spending and deficit cuts to cover a $2 trillion increase in the debt. But a bipartisan deficit “supercommittee” failed to deliver, and lawmakers were unwilling to live with the follow-up cuts to defense and domestic accounts. This is the fourth deal since 2013 to reverse those cuts.
Prospects for an agreement, a months-long priority of top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., became far brighter when Pelosi returned to Washington this month and aggressively pursued the pact with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin , who was anointed lead negotiator instead of more conservative options like acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney or hardline Budget Director Russell Vought. SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO >> Waving flags, chanting and banging pots and pans, tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans filled a central highway Monday to demand the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in what appeared to be the biggest protest on the island in nearly two decades.
The demonstration came 10 days after the leak of 889 pages of obscenity-laced online chats between Rosselló and some of his close advisers. In the conversations, they insulted women and mocked constituents, including victims of Hurricane Maria.
The leak has intensified long-smoldering anger in the U.S. territory over persistent corruption and mismanagement by the island’s two main political parties, a severe debt crisis, a sickly economy and a slow recovery from Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017.
“The people have awakened after so much outrage,” said 69-year-old retired nurse Benedicta Villegas. “There are still people without roofs and highways without lights. The chat was the tip of the iceberg.”
Jannice Rivera, a 43-year-old mechanical engineer who lives in Houston but was born and raised in Puerto Rico and flew in solely to join the protest, said: “This is just the beginning. Finally, the government’s mask has fallen.”
The crowd surged along the American Expressway despite the punishing heat — toddlers, teenagers, professionals and the elderly, all dripping in sweat and smiling as they waved Puerto Rico flags large and small and hoisted signs.
One group dragged a portable karaoke machine and chanted, “Ricky, resign!”
“This is to show that the people respect themselves,” said Ana Carrasquillo, 26. “We’ve put up with corruption for so many years.”
Rosselló, a Democrat, announced Sunday evening that he would not quit, but sought to calm the unrest by promising not to seek reelection in 2020 or continue as head of his pro-statehood political party. That only further angered his critics, who have mounted street demonstrations for more than a week.
“The people are not going to go away,” said Johanna Soto, of the city of Carolina. “That’s what he’s hoping for, but we outnumber him.”