Senate Democrats to Unveil $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan
Senate Democrats will unveil a $1 trillion infrastructure plan — and offer President Trump their support if he backs it.
■ After years of decline, the federal budget deficit is growing again and will keep growing unless policies change, the Congressional Budget Office is expected to say.
■ The head of the Office of Government Ethics clears the air with the House Oversight Committee chairman, says he still has not received documents on Mr. Trump’s plan to distance himself from his businesses.
Democrats offer a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan
Daring Mr. Trump to make good on his grand infrastructure promises, Senate Democrats on Tuesday will unveil a trillion-dollar plan to rebuild the nation’s roads, railways, airports, waterways and sewer systems over 10 years.
“From our largest cities to our smallest towns, communities across the country are struggling to meet the challenges of aging infrastructure,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, will say. “Our urban and rural communities have their own unique set of infrastructure priorities, and this proposal would provide funding to address those needed upgrades that go beyond the traditional road and bridge repair.”
Republicans resisted President Barack Obama’s push for an infrastructure “surge” for eight years, arguing that the federal government couldn’t afford it and that state and local governments should shoulder more responsibility for improvements. But Mr. Trump has taken up the Democratic cause.
“We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation,” he vowed in his Inaugural Address.
The plan dedicates $180 billion to rail and bus systems, $65 billion to ports, airports and waterways, $110 billion for water and sewer systems, $100 billion for energy infrastructure, and $20 billion for public and tribal lands.
“We’re asking President Trump to work with us to make it a reality,” Mr. Schumer will say.
Red ink spreads again, a first test for Trump and G.O.P.
The first major test of Mr. Trump and his sway over congressional Republicans will come Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.
That is when the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan Capitol Hill scorekeeper, will update its budget outlook. The office is expected to say that the federal deficit, after years of decline, will start swelling again this year and will pick up steam over the next decade if policies aren’t changed to curb the growth of health care programs and of Social Security in an aging populace.
The annual report could be a major brake on Mr. Trump’s agenda, which includes large increases in spending on infrastructure and defense, as well as deep tax cuts. Those plans could collide with Republican promises to balance the budget — if Republicans care about such niceties in the Trump era.
Republican deficit fears curbed President Barack Obama’s ambitions for years, leading to statutory spending caps that are still in place and thwarting Mr. Obama’s desires to bolster infrastructure programs.
Oh yes, and Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, who was willing to risk a default on the national debt to force spending caps, will come before the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday for his confirmation to be White House budget director.
Government ethicist to Trump: Let me help you
Despite a rocky start to their relationship, Walter M. Shaub Jr., the head of the Office of Government Ethics, is apparently still “willing and ready” to help Mr. Trump handle his potential conflicts of interest.
Mr. Shaub met with members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a closed-door session on Monday afternoon at the request of the chairman of the panel, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. After Mr. Shaub publicly criticized Mr. Trump’s plans this month, Mr. Chaffetz accused him of playing politics — prompting Democrats and other watchdogs to come to the ethics monitor’s defense.
According to a recap of Monday’s meeting by Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, Mr. Shaub said that his office had not received copies of documents that Mr. Trump referenced at a news conference on Jan. 11, and that it had been provided with no new information. Still, Mr. Shaub said he would help the president, if called upon.
There were about nine members of the committee at the meeting — eight Democrats and Mr. Chaffetz, according to his spokeswoman, M.J. Henshaw.
After Mr. Chaffetz left the meeting with Mr. Shaub, he told reporters: “I think we understand each other better.”
The building trade unions love Trump
Big Labor may have been With Her, but the unions that represent builders and pavers Love Him.
“We have a common bond with the president,” said Sean McGarvey, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, after meeting on Monday with Mr. Trump and hearing him promise a major push to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. “We come from the same industry. He understands the value of driving development, moving people to the middle class.”
If the labor movement divides over Mr. Trump, it would not be the first time. An old saying holds that the building trades would pave over their mothers’ graves if it created jobs. And before Mr. Trump’s rise, unions like the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International Union had split with the building unions over the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, with the former siding with liberal environmentalists and the latter seeing opportunities for work.
In this case, the unions may unite with Democrats behind the new president — leaving Republican spending hawks in the cold.
Defense secretary seeks to reassure NATO chief
On his first working day as the country’s new secretary of defense, James N. Mattis spoke with the head of NATO and told him that the United States depends on it and on Europe for trans-Atlantic security.
The telephone conversation came just a week after Mr. Mattis’s boss, Mr. Trump, called NATO “obsolete,” because, Mr. Trump said, the alliance hasn’t done enough to combat terrorism.
Mr. Mattis “wanted to place the call on his first full day in office to reinforce the importance he places on the alliance,” a Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, said in a statement on Monday night.
P.C: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/us/politics/donald-trump-administration.html
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