It has been apparent since the congressional midterm elections last November that little or no legislation would escape Capitol Hill, there being an absolute breach between President Trump and the Democrats, who now control the House of Representatives. So what are politicians doing to kill time until the main attraction, by which I mean the 2020 election?
As we reported in last week’s magazine, Trump is busy on a complete and efficient retooling of the federal judiciary with textualist judges. The Democrats, meanwhile, are using their ascendancy in the House to harass the president and hobble his administration even more effectively than they did before they won their majority. The hope is to tarnish Trump sufficiently to beat him in the presidential campaign now surging ahead at full steam.
Tarnish and obstruct have been Democrats’ twin tactics since Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2017. In the wake of their disappointment at special counsel Robert Mueller’s failure to find strong evidence of presidential crimes, this involves accusing Trump and Attorney General William Barr of a cover-up — although discerning a cover-up in Barr sending a minimally redacted copy of the Mueller report to Congress is quite a feat of partisan insight.
Accusations of a cover-up were raised by Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month, which led to the collapse of talks with Trump over a massive infrastructure bill. And this brings me to our cover story — it’s no cover-up — of this week’s magazine. The Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas takes a detailed look at what a good infrastructure bill should include, assuming it ever moves through Congress and makes its way down Pennsylvania Avenue to Trump’s desk in the Oval Office.
It should not start, Gelinas says, with the $2 trillion price tag Trump and the Democrats put on it, for that emphasizes dumb spending rather than real consideration of what the country needs. It should certainly include rewards and penalties for those who manage or fail to get projects done on budget and on time. Money should be focused on getting people to their workplaces, boosting productivity. I’ll be talking with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao about the infrastructure bill on June 13. It’ll be a lively discussion — we’ll announce the timing on washingtonexaminer.com — and we’ll livestream it, so I hope you’ll tune in.
A big change this week is that there is no Life & Arts section; don’t worry, all our great columnists will be back next week. But, as beach weather approaches, we decided to devote the back of the mag this week to Summer Books. We review new publications and old favorites, and there’s a fascinating author interview. Kevin Williamson appraises George Will’s new work, The Conservative Sensibility, Chris Timmers reviews Julian Jackson’s De Gaulle, and Peter Tonguette writes about Herman Wouk, author of The Caine Mutiny and Winds of War, who died last month. I also recommend the charming cover illustration for the section by Chris Payne, which depicts Trump, Pelosi, Joe Biden, Ilhan Omar, John Brennan, John Bolton, Mitch McConnell, and Chris Christie lounging in beach chairs engrossed in vacation reading.
