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News and updates

News and updates

What We’re Reading This Week, January 16 – 20

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Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.

@POTUS – It’s official. Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States, and he officially takes over the @POTUS handle today. President Obama and all of his prior tweets have been moved to @POTUS44. As president, Trump plans on keeping the @RealDonaldTrump account active. Read more in The New York Times.

18 Million – A Congressional Budget Office report revealed that repealing major Obamacare provisions without a replacement plan in place would quickly strip 18 million Americans of their insurance and cause premiums to skyrocket. The number of uninsured people could climb to 32 million by 2026, the report from the nonpartisan office said. Premiums, which would rise by up to 25% initially, would double by 2026. Read more at CNN. 

Complications on Taxes – President-elect Trump criticized Republican border-adjustment measure, which would tax imports and exempt exports, as ‘too complicated’. Read more in The Wall Street Journal. 

Capitol Rotunda (AOC)
Capitol Rotunda (AOC)

Conflict – Trump and Congressional Republicans don’t agree on everything. There are a series of topics and issues where the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans will have some friction as to what to do and how to approach it. Read more in Forbes. 

Protection from Bears – The Senate HELP Committee heard from several nominees this week, including Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos. The hearing had some interesting moments. Read more in The Washington Post. 

ACA Moving Forward – Vanity Fair interviews former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who helped implement the ACA and what the proposed Republican changes could have. Read more in Vanity Fair. 

Common Core – The much derided Common Core is something that President-elect Trump has said must go, but truly how much can be done? Read more at NPR.

EPA Nominee – “Science tells us that the climate is changing, and that human activity, in some manner, impacts that change,” Scott Pruitt told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the opening statement of his confirmation hearing Wednesday. Read more in The Hill. 

This Has to End in Disaster, Right? – On Thursday through Sunday mornings until February 12, you can take part in “The Museum Workout” at New York’s Metropolian Museum of Art. It’s an 8:30 a.m. fitness class and museum tour by choreographer Monica Bill Barnes and her dance partner Anna Bass. Barnes and Bass pair their sneakers with sparkly dresses, and the tour route and soundtrack come via artist Maira Kalman. At $35, it costs about the same as a SoulCycle class. Read more at The MET. 

Collins to Stay on at NIH

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As previously reported, the Trump Administration has asked approximately 50 members of the current Obama Administration

NIH indicated today that the resignation letter that NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., submitted to the incoming Administration has been returned, and he is being held over into the next administration. At this point, President-elect Trump’s transition team has not yet publicly announced whether Dr. Collins will serve in the role permanently or until a new director is in place.

“Please Stay”

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In a transition press briefing today, Trump Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, announced that Trump has asked 50 current Obama Administration officials to stay in their current positions with the new Administration to help with the Transition.

While the full list is not yet know, individuals who have been asked to stay are:

  • Michelle Lee, Director of the US Patent and Trade Office
  • Nick Rasmussen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
  • Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIL
  • Tom Shannon, Undersecretary of State for political affairs
  • Adam Szubin, the Treasury Department’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence
  • Dab Kern, acting director of the White House Military Office

Trump Transition Previews Budget

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Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy. The proposal takes directly from the Heritage Foundation’s FY 2017 budget blueprint and the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) FY 2017 Budget Proposal.

While the annual President’s Budget Request is important to set the Administration’s policies and agenda. Congress is ultimately responsible for approving a federal budget and appropriating funds.

The Trump budget, which will not likely be officially unveiled until mid-April, would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years. The preliminary proposals from the White House budget office will be shared with federal departments and agencies soon after Trump takes the oath of office Friday. Also, Trump’s Cabinet picks have yet to be apprised of the reforms, which would reduce resources within their agencies.

The Commerce and Energy departments would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

The Heritage FY 2017 blueprint, which is reportedly being used as a basis for Trump’s proposed cuts, calls for eliminating several “corporate welfare” programs including:

  • the Minority Business Development Agency,
  • the Economic Development Administration,
  • the International Trade Administration, and
  • the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

The total savings from cutting these four programs would amount to nearly $900 million in 2017.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions and eliminating:

  • the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,
  • Violence Against Women Grants and the Legal Services Corporation.

At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, and would eliminate

  • the Office of Electricity,
  • the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and
  • the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

At the State Department’s , funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are candidates for elimination.

Many of the specific cuts were included in the 2017 budget adopted by the conservative RSC, a caucus that represents a majority of House Republicans. It is notable, that the RSC budget plan would reduce federal spending by $8.6 trillion over the next decade.

 

Trump vowed during the campaign not to cut Medicare and Social Security, a pledge that Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers in testimony Wednesday has not changed.

That said, it could be very difficult to reduce U.S. debt without tackling the entitlement programs. Conservative House budgets have repeatedly included reforms to Medicare and Social Security, arguing they are necessary to save the programs.

 

This proposal is expected to be met with strong opposition by Democrats.
The Office of Federal Relations will continue to update on this issue.