The flooding and rain continues in Texas (and now Louisiana, too), but the White House is already talking about getting an emergency relief spending package through Congress next week. The Washington Post reports the funding “is expected to only be a partial down payment and serve in part to backstop depleted reserves” FEMA has had to use to respond to Hurricane Harvey.
One big question for this or any other federal disaster relief funding: Whether President Trump or congressional leadership try to tie spending to either an increase in the debt ceiling or a broad continuing resolution—both of which Congress will be grappling with upon return from its summer recess on Tuesday. Doing so would be a dare of sorts to those most fiscally conservative members of the House and Senate who are often resistant to both raising the debt limit or supporting continuing resolutions that don’t cut government spending significantly. Will members of the Freedom Caucus really oppose disaster relief funding and prompt a government shutdown? (Hill leadership better know the answer to that question before they try this gambit.)
My White House sources won’t say one way or another if the administration plans to push for including disaster relief in any of these “must-pass” budget measures. But the president is not opposed to threatening to do so with other priorities—like the border wall.
Mueller Watch—From Politico: “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is working with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on its investigation into Paul Manafort and his financial transactions, according to several people familiar with the matter.”
Trump Tweet of the Day
After reading the false reporting and even ferocious anger in some dying magazines, it makes me wonder, WHY? All I want to do is #MAGA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2017
Tax Reform Watch—Trump’s tax reform speech on Wednesday in Missouri was, for Trump events, pretty boring. Sticking mostly to his script, the president touted some broad tax-reform ideas—lower rates for businesses and middle-class taxpayers, a repatriation holiday for overseas income, a simplified filing process—that Republicans have been talking about for years. Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, haven’t released any sort of detailed plan that the White House is claiming it wants to have signed by mid-November. Wednesday’s speech didn’t really seem to move the ball forward on a piece of legislation that doesn’t even exist yet.
But my colleague Andrew Egger picked up on something that suggests one of Trump’s goals with tax reform he may have advanced in Missouri. Here’s an excerpt:
But before Trump starts picking off red-state Democrats like McCaskill, Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and Heidi Heitkamp, he’ll need to make sure he can corral all the Republican senators on tax reform. In an op-ed for CNN, Kentucky senator Rand Paul sounds a little, well, skeptical of the emerging plan from GOP leadership, despite saying he’s “ready to fight” for tax reform.
“If tax reform is run like most things around here—like Obamacare repeal, for example—then I can’t predict what will happen other than it will be complicated, won’t help much and could even fail. There’s no excuse for that,” Paul writes.
Mark It Down—“I know we will pass historic tax cuts this year …” – Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce summit, Aug. 30, 2017.
Trump In the Polls—A new Fox News poll of registered voters finds 56 percent say they believe President Trump is “tearing the country apart.”
Op-Ed of the Day—“Three Cheers for Cultural Appropriation.”
My colleague Chris Deaton has an in-depth look this morning at President Trump’s favorite Republican targets in the Senate. Chris goes through how each of these GOP rivals of the president, from Lisa Murkowski and John McCain to Ben Sasse and Jeff Flake, could hurt Trump’s chances at achieving some legislative goals.
Song of the Day—“Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder.
