America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.
-Warren G. Harding
FORGET HEALTHCARE, TRUMP NOTCHES ENERGY WINS: And he’s doing without Congress. While health care was sucking up all of the oxygen in Washington, Trump’s energy agenda is flying through without needing Congressional approval. Trump received the State Department recommendation to issue the Presidential Permit for the Keystone Pipeline and signed the permit with the CEO of TransCanada in the oval office. Up next is the roll back of the Obama carbon regulations. We expect the president to sign an executive order today that directs EPA to take action to reverse the Obama Clean Power Plan. The executive order signals the end of the Obama-initiated policy to decarbonize the U.S. economy. EPA had only started with the power sector, but had plans to move on with carbon regulations for other sectors, including refining, petrochemical, automotive, airlines and others. Since President Obama established these policies via executive orders and agency rulemaking, the policies are easily reversed by President Trump through the same executive branch actions.
PO’D: Political fallout from the Republican failure to pass the AHCA continues. TX Representative Ted Poe resigned from the Freedom Caucus citing its unwillingness to support the health care bill. The main complaint made against the conservative group was that Speaker Ryan and President Trump continued to make changes to make the bill more conservative yet they still wouldn’t support it (yes, we’ve seen this movie before). Now leadership on the Hill and the White House are flirting with the idea that they may be better off working with Democrats rather than trying to appease the intractable group again.
NOT SO NEW PARADIGM: Now that President Trump realizes the difficulty in uniting Republicans on the Hill, he and his team are looking to pivot and woo moderate Democrats to ensure tax reform doesn’t face the same end result as health care. To do this the Trump Administration and its allies spent the day floating the idea of tying together tax reform and infrastructure policy. He only needs a little over a dozen Democrats to break party lines to get an effort across the finish line, and rebuilding bridges, roads, and airports is a good bipartisan way to get it there. Trump needs quick wins beyond executive orders, and a solid infrastructure deal would be a high profile and tangible way to show voters he can deliver.
ON DECK: Looking ahead to the next round of reconciliation. President Trump is likely to propose the first major comprehensive tax reform package since Ronald Reagan in 1986 - with a tug of war emerging on which end of Pennsylvania Avenue will take the lead. Below is a chart that shows the comparison of Trump’s proposal versus the current state for capital gains and income:
BREAKING THE BUREAUCRACY: Senior Advisor Jared Kushner will lead a new White House office that will try and reform the federal bureaucracy by applying lessons from the business world. Kushner’s team will begin its focus on opioid abuse, reforming the VA, modernizing technology across the federal government and working on “transformative projects” that will support the president's infrastructure goals. Expect this new office to augment the tax reform push now that the Administration is looking to tie it together with infrastructure as well.
NASTY BRUTISH AND SHORT: THE MEANING OF THE LIFE OF THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE ACT OF 2017: Our Senior Health Policy Analyst Emily Evans writes Medicaid paradigm shift; more uncertainty for individual market not less; Medicare and drugs now in play; ACA taxes up in the air. You can read the full piece here.
