THE MORNING PLUM:
When it comes to Donald Trump’s self-created mystique as a kind of populist avenging angel for working class whites betrayed by elites, you cannot overstate the centrality of his promise to push for massive infrastructure spending. It helped Trump cast himself as ideologically different from congressional Republicans, who have long balked at massive public outlays to create jobs.
But today, Chuck Schumer and Democrats are trying to call Trump’s bluff. They are unveiling their own massive infrastructure spending plan, and are asking Trump to join them in supporting it:
A group of senior Senate Democrats on Tuesday plan to unveil their own $1 trillion plan to revamp the nation’s airports, bridges, roads and seaports, urging President Trump to back their proposal, which they say would create 15 million jobs over 10 years.
The Democrats said their infrastructure plan would rely on direct federal spending and would span a range of projects including not only roads and bridges, but also the nation’s broadband network, hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and schools….
Democrats said they would pay for their program by closing tax loopholes, an oft-stated pledge by both Democrats and Republicans. They did not specify which tax loopholes would be used. …
Their 10-year blueprint included $75 billion for schools, $210 billion for roads and bridges, $10 billion for VA hospitals, and $20 billion for broadband installations. For every billion dollars in spending, 13,000 jobs lasting at least a year would be created, they said, citing a Federal Highway Administration estimate.
Democrats are trying to stake out a marker in this debate that indicates what they would need to cooperate with Trump in passing infrastructure spending. The idea is to contrast this with the plan that Trump himself has actually proposed, which isn’t actually a plan for massive public spending. What we know of Trump’s plan now is that it’s a tax break and privatization scheme. As Paul Krugman recently explained, the Trump plan would probably not result in projects that would fulfill real public need, because such projects would not be profitable to the private companies that would build them. And it would probably result in huge tax credits doled out to those companies for projects that would have been built anyway, possibly encouraging corruption and blunting its job-creation potential.
It’s hard to see how Trump’s plan, as it stands now, would create nearly as many jobs as a massive public investment would. And remember, Democrats have said that they will not participate in supporting a Trump plan that doesn’t amount to a genuine public expenditure. As Nancy Pelosi told me recently: “We aren’t going to use an infrastructure bill to be a vehicle for tax breaks, instead of an investment in the future.”
Now, it remains to be seen whether Democrats make good on this threat. Democratic senators in red states carried by Trump who face reelection in 2018 might be tempted to support even a crappy infrastructure plan with his name on it.
But the point is that right now, Democrats need to make clear, broad statements as to where they stand as a party — drawing a hard contrast with the GOP in the Trump era. Unequivocal support for major public spending to create jobs fits the bill. Democrats have long pushed for more infrastructure spending, only to be blocked by Republicans. Trump is supposedly remaking the GOP as a “workers party.” If so, will he support this sort of spending plan?
Stephen Bannon, the keeper of the narrative of Trump as leader of a new kind of populist movement, has explicitly described this kind of expenditure as central to that storyline. In a recent interview, he cast it as a crucial element of the kind of “economic nationalism” that would lock in the support of working-class people of all races behind Trump:
“We’re going to build an entirely new political movement,” he says. “It’s everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Shipyards, ironworks, get them all jacked up.”
Trump repeated his call for such spending in his inaugural address. Yet he kept it general. And White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus recently played down the chances of such a thing happening anytime soon.
It has been widely speculated that there will be a war for the soul of Trumpism inside the administration and among Republicans, with the economic nationalist types (Bannon) calling for big breaks with conservative orthodoxy, and those more in sync ideologically with congressional Republicans (Priebus) pushing instead for the sort of tax break and privatization infrastructure scheme that they can accept.
In a sense, then, the question of what kind of infrastructure plan Trump ends up supporting could help settle outstanding questions about whether Trumpism will really amount to a new, ideologically heterodox populist movement — in concrete policy terms. Our bet is that it will be much more in line with the sort of scheme that congressional Republicans can comfortably support.
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* TRUMP WILL KEEP JAMES COMEY: The New York Times scoops that James Comey has told associates that President Trump has asked him to remain as director of the FBI:
A decision to retain Mr. Comey would spare the president another potentially bruising confirmation battle. It also would keep Mr. Comey at the center of the F.B.I.’s investigation into several Trump associates and their potential ties with the Russian government.
This will test Comey’s independence. Also recall that the Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether Comey’s intervention in the election was proper. Should be interesting to see how Trump handles it if the IG finds it wasn’t.
* TRUMP ‘RESENTFUL’ AND ‘FURIOUS’ AT MEDIA: The Post has a deep dive into Trump’s mental state, reporting that he personally directed press secretary Sean Spicer to hit back at the media for accurately reporting on his inaugural crowd size:
Over the objections of his aides and advisers — who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency — the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary. … Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media’s failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public’s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.
Just wait until the media accurately reports on his substantive failures as president. That should really be a sight to see.
* TRUMP KEEPS LYING ABOUT ILLEGAL VOTES: He just can’t stop talking about this:
Trump insisted to congressional leaders invited to a reception at the White House that he would have won the popular vote had it not been for millions of illegal votes, according to people familiar with the meeting. … Two people familiar with the meeting said Trump spent about 10 minutes at the start of the bipartisan gathering rehashing the campaign.
It’s almost as if Trump isn’t all that confident about his true level of popular support, or something.
* NEW YORK TIMES STEPS UP ITS HEADLINE GAME: Here’s what is on the New York Times homepage this morning:
Trump Repeats an Election Lie in Meeting With Top Lawmakers
In his first official meeting with congressional leaders President Trump again falsely claimed that illegal immigrants had cost him the popular vote.
As I’ve been arguing, news orgs really need to step it up in flatly calling out Trump’s lies in their headlines, to rise to the new challenges he poses to journalism.
* A HEADLINE THAT TRUMP WANTS: CNN’s headline on Trump’s decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership:
Trump gets to work for his blue collar base
Nope, way overstated. While unions wanted the TPP killed, the mere fact of pulling out of it doesn’t guarantee that the trade deals Trump does negotiate will be pro-worker. In fact, they may very well be the opposite.
* OBAMACARE REPEAL COULD HURT COAL MINERS: NPR reports that the repeal of the ACA could mean many workers in Trump coal country have a tougher time getting health coverage for black lung disease:
The Affordable Care Act includes special provisions that make the process of getting black lung benefits easier for coal miners. If the ACA is repealed, gaining these benefits could become much more difficult, effectively harming a group of people that President Donald Trump has promised to protect.
But Trump will bring coal jobs roaring back! (Seriously, if these workers thought Trump would not take away such benefits, that was a reasonable conclusion, based on his campaign rhetoric.)
* AND TRUMP MAKES HISTORY ONCE AGAIN: Gallup explains how:
Trump is the first elected president in Gallup’s polling history to receive an initial job approval rating below the majority level. He starts his term in office with 45% of Americans approving of the way he is handling his new job, 45% disapproving and 10% yet to form an opinion. Trump now holds the record for the lowest initial job approval rating as well as the highest initial disapproval rating in Gallup surveys dating back to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
#FakePolls
