Where Trump and Congress could clash: 6 fights to come
Congress will be swamped next year with a heavy agenda, and while Republicans have a clear advantage, given their majority control of the White House and Congress, Democrats will still be able to block some of their goals.
Starting off, the new legislative session will be consumed by the Senate’s process to confirm President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments to his cabinet. It may a little rougher for some nominees, like Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, who has been selected as attorney general. Sessions’ 1986 nomination to a federal judgeship was rejected by a GOP-controlled Senate over allegations of racism.
In the month after the inauguration, the new president and GOP leaders will have to focus on some pressing issues in addition to getting to work on some of the 2016 campaign promises.
Since the Senate requires 60 votes to advance legislation, Democrats, though in the minority, will still be able to block some proposals by relying on the filibuster.
Here are some of the major fights to come in the new Congress:
Government spending & the debt ceiling
House Republicans in the lame-duck session have already opted to extend government spending from early December through next March. If President Obama and Democrats agree to the short-term extension next month, that means GOP leaders and Trump will have the opportunity to get started on shifting around allocations as they work to keep the government funded through September.
There’s just one catch. While conservatives have previously lobbied for defunding Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, Democrats could use the filibuster to block the majority from cutting spending to these and other major domestic programs, and they can also block the GOP from implementing controversial policy provisions. At the same time, a standoff between Democrats and Republicans could lead to the threat of a government shutdown in March -- with more to come.
Another issue that will come up in March is the debt ceiling, which has been suspended through March 15. Beyond that date, the Treasury Department’s so-called “extraordinary measures” will likely kick in and push back the deadline to lift the limit until the fall.
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and many Republicans are no fans of raising the debt ceiling, and it’s unclear where Trump stands on the issue. When Congress had to raise the limit last year, he told Bloomberg TV it was “worth the fight” for GOP lawmakers to threaten to not raise the debt limit because they could pressure the Obama administration for spending cuts.
Supreme Court
Mr. Trump will be able to nominate a Supreme Court justice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia who died in February. President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the bench, but Republicans refused to consider him.
During the campaign in May and September, Trump released two short lists of potential justices, which included Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a close ally of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who Trump has met with since becoming the president-elect.
The justice would need Democratic support in order to overcome the 60-vote hurdle in the confirmation process. Schumer was asked Sunday if Cruz would be too conservative for the high court.
“I’m not going to get into specific candidates. But we’d hope it would be mainstream. If it is mainstream, you have to remember, the last four nominees, two from President Bush, two from President Obama, got bipartisan support on the bench. If he doesn’t nominate a mainstream candidate, we’re going to go at him with everything we have,” he said.
Obamacare/Medicare
Republicans aim to immediately start work on an Obamacare repeal. A full repeal would require Democratic support, so it’s more likely they’ll pursue a partial repeal using an obscure budget process called reconciliation, which would only require 51 votes for passage instead of a supermajority of 60. Democrats, therefore, won’t be able to stop this one.
Last January, after months of negotiations among Republicans in the House and Senate, they sent an Obamacare repeal using reconciliation to Mr. Obama’s desk, which he vetoed. The measure would have repealed the health-care law’s tax hikes, insurance exchange subsidies and the Medicaid expansion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the plan would lead to 22 million people losing their healthcare insurance.
Since it likely will take a while for Republicans to coalesce around a replacement plan, it’s possible Republicans might try to delay the repeal from taking effect until they have the new plan ready. Trump told “60 Minutes” just days after the election that Republicans would “do it simultaneously.”
“We’re not going to have, like, a two-day period and we’re not going to have a two-year period where there’s nothing,” he said when asked if people would lose their coverage.
In addition, Trump said during the campaign that no changes should be made to some entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. But Ryan suggested to Fox News last week that Medicare might be something Republicans target as they debate Obamacare.
“What people don’t realize is that Medicare is going broke, that Medicare is going to have price controls, so you have to deal with those issues if you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” he said.
Tax Reform
Vice President-elect Mike Pence told CBS’s “Face the Nation” in a recent interview that in addition to an Obamacare repeal, the legislative session will be dominated by “tax reform, rebuilding the military, infrastructure [and] ending illegal immigration.”
Republicans are discussing crafting a second reconciliation bill to reform the tax code -- a plan that has already been endorsed by the GOP chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees.
Trump campaigned on cutting income taxes and taxes for corporations. He also advocated closing the carried interest loophole that allows managers of hedge funds and private equity firms to pay a lower tax rate. Also up for changes -- the estate tax, which Mr. Trump promised to eliminate, and childcare, which would be tax-deductible (there are already tax credits in place for childcare, but Mr. Trump’s proposals would expand benefits).
In the early 2000s, President George W. Bush was able to implement his sweeping tax cuts with the help of congressional Republicans who used reconciliation.
Again, Democrats would not be able to halt this effort with the filibuster.
Immigration
Trump has, since the election, indicated that the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border may not be all-wall after all, suggesting that fencing “for certain areas” could be acceptable, he told CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”
It’s unclear where and when Congress would step in. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would make Mexico pay for the wall by threatening to cut off billions of dollars in money transfers that Mexicans who are living in the U.S. send home. He wouldn’t cut off the money transfers if Mexico agrees to make a one-time payment: “It’s an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year,” said a campaign memo.
In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Ryan said Republicans are “focused on securing the border...We think that’s first and foremost before we get into any other immigration issue. We’ve got to know who’s coming and going in the country.”
Democrats, however, would likely be needed for any sort immigration measure because they could block it in the Senate.
“We’re not going to help him build his wall,” incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Dodd-Frank
Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that he would get rid of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. That means Congress would need to roll back the law that they passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis.
Democrats can stop Trump here, too, again using the filibuster.
“We are not going to roll back Dodd-Frank,” Schumer said in the interview Sunday. “I think they should forget about that. We have 60 votes to block them.”
