The era of big government is back. That was the clear message from President Donald Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. His speech, as light on specifics as the White House promised, was nonetheless a call for a muscular response from government to the nation’s problems. “Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed,” Trump said. “Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing and hope.”
The list of solutions Trump presented to the gathered lawmakers was long and contained some conservative policy goals. The president called for school choice, expanding health savings accounts, increasing the defense budget, and reducing the federal regulatory burden.
But Trump also made a pitch for more infrastructure spending, paid family leave, and “accessible and affordable” childcare. And there was no talk of reforming Medicare or Social Security, nor of reducing the size and scope of government. He even seemed open to Medicaid expansion. (More on that below.) Republicans in Congress won elections blasting federal spending projects and promising to fix unsustainable entitlements. But Tuesday found even House speaker Paul Ryan, the party’s intellectual leader on domestic policy, applauding Trump’s deviations.
A Steady Presentation of Trumpism from the Man Himself
Republican government in Washington tends to look less like a Milton Friedman dream than what the GOP promises. (See George W. Bush’s expansion of Medicare, for example.) But Trump did not campaign as a conservative, so his moderate Republicanism mixture—tough on terrorism, crime, and illegal immigration; expansionist on domestic spending and social programs—is truer to what the American people were told they were voting for.
And for the first time since declaring his candidacy back in 2015, Trump delivered a tonally balanced argument for his brand of Republicanism that sought converts, not just true believers. He avoided boasting about his electoral victory or taunting his opponents, hewing fairly closely to the prepared remarks released to the press just before he began. He cast his immigration agenda as a reasonable execution of the law, and respectfully challenged opponents to consider their own stance: “What would you say to the American family that loses their jobs, their income, or a loved one, because America refused to uphold its laws and defend its borders?”
If Trump can maintain the more presidential posture he showed Tuesday night, he’ll be able to accomplish more than most in Washington are giving him credit for. But that’s a big, big “if.”
More Hints Trump Wants to Expand Medicaid
The biggest domestic policy question of the first months of the Trump presidency remains: What will become of Obamacare? The president offered a few more hints, but no framework of a proposal, on Tuesday. Any replacement for Obamacare, Trump said, should “expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, provide better health care.”
Those are lofty, if not ideal, goals for health-care policy. Trump also laid out five “principles” for achieving those goals. Among them: maintaining access for Americans with pre-existing conditions, expanding health savings accounts and health-insurance tax credits, allowing for the purchase of insurance across state lines.
But here’s another principle: “We should give our great state governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.” That’s pretty darn close to an endorsement of maintaining and even growing the Medicaid expansion first implemented by Obamacare. And if increasing access is a goal of the Trump health-care reforms, Medicaid expansion is a straightforward, if costly, way to do it.
Bye-raq? The New Travel Ban EO Drops a Country
The Associated Press reports the forthcoming travel restriction executive order that will correct the errors of the previous EO will no longer include Iraq in the list of countries whose residents will be temporarily unable to enter the United States.
The White House has not yet replied to a request to confirm the AP’s reporting.
Song of the Day
“Sail,” Awolnation
