Common ground is there for taking

Even in a yawning partisan divide, core issues can rise to top

WASHINGTON – The president brought lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to their feet Tuesday night when he called for Congress to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure system and make health care more affordable.

“Many of us campaigned on the same core promises,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday night. “We must choose between greatness or gridlock, results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction.

“Tonight, I ask you to choose greatness.”

The call for unity comes amid a deep partisan divide. It followed a 35-day partial government shutdown after the president and Democrats refused to agree on how to fund security along the southern border. And it came just as the Democratic-controlled Congress began to use its oversight power on the administration and Trump’s allies.

But sprinkled in among the bitterness may be opportunities to work together on a handful of issues both sides have expressed interest in: lowering health care costs, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and ethics reform. After more than a month of Washington operating at a near

standstill, Democrats, Republicans and the White House are all ready to notch some political wins.

But to do that, they’ll have to work together:

Prescription drugs

Vermont Democrat Rep. Peter Welch has met with Trump on the topic and is optimistic on lowering drug costs, though so far he has been “somewhat disappointed on the modest followthrough.” That’s because Trump “was extremely energetic” about the problem when they met. Welch noted that Trump had said “we’re getting murdered” by drug companies.

Welch is co-chair of the House Affordable Prescription Drug Task Force and a member of both the Energy and Commerce Committee and Oversight and Reform Committee, which both deal with drug pricing. Last month, the oversight panel sent letters to 12 drug companies to try to determine why prices have risen “so dramatically” and what can be done to reduce costs for patients. The Trump administration, meanwhile,

“Trump has shown us time and again that he is willing to work with anyone who wants the best for our country. It’s not a campaign strategy – it’s just who he is.”

Erin Montgomery The pro-Trump super PAC America First Action

is working on proposals of its own.

Infrastructure

Both sides agree the nation’s roads and bridges need an overhaul, but there is no consensus about how to pay for it. The Highway Trust Fund has traditionally been funded through the gas tax, but raising the gas tax is a concern for lawmakers of both parties.

In last year’s State of the Union, Trump called for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill, but his proposal relied on funding from local governments and the private sector and did not get into much detail about greater federal funding, which would have come from unspecified cuts elsewhere.

Democrats say they’re hopeful he’ll come along. In the spring when he met with lawmakers, “the president put forward a very large number on a potential gas tax increase – even after his staff blanched,” said Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “So I think the president knows that it’s going to take some investment to get this done.”

Ethics reform

This one may be trickier, but Democrats insist it’s not impossible. One of Trump’s signature campaign phrases was a promise to “Drain the swamp” in Washington. But Democrats have been unhappy with Trump’s picks for his Cabinet and the president’s own ditching of ethics norms, such as refusing to release his tax returns.

“The rooting-out-corruption aspect, from a Democratic perspective, I don’t see that one as being as much of an issue of bipartisanship – which is shocking to some degree,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., a freshman lawmaker. But, she said, “I will pursue them as areas of bipartisanship.”