Trump doubts negotiators will strike budget deal he’d accept

The Canadian Press

Published

6 years ago

7 minute read

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said the odds congressional negotiators will craft a deal to end his border wall standoff with Congress are “less than 50-50.”

As hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers prepared to return to work, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that he doesn’t think the negotiators will strike a deal that he’d accept. He pledged to build a wall anyway using his executive powers to declare a national emergency if necessary.

“I personally think it’s less than 50-50, but you have a lot of very good people on that board,” Trump said in an interview Sunday with the newspaper.

The president was referring to a bipartisan committee of House and Senate lawmakers that will consider border spending as part of the legislative process.

The president’s standoff with Democrats on Capitol Hill is far from over and the clock is ticking. The spending bill Trump signed on Friday to temporarily end the partial government shutdown funds the shuttered agencies only until Feb. 15.

It’s unclear if the Democrats will budge. Trump seemed girded for battle over the weekend, sending out a series of online messages that foreshadowed the upcoming fight with lawmakers. “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!” he tweeted.

Is Trump prepared to shut down the government again in three weeks?

“Yeah, I think he actually is,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said. “He doesn’t want to shut the government down, let’s make that very clear. He doesn’t want to declare a national emergency.”

But Mulvaney said that at “the end of the day, the president’s commitment is to defend the nation and he will do it with or without Congress.”

The linchpin in the standoff is Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for his prized wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, a project Democrats consider an ineffective, wasteful monument to a ridiculous Trump campaign promise.

Asked if he’d willing to accept less than $5.7 billion to build a barrier on the southern border, Trump replied: “I doubt it.” He added: “I have to do it right.”

He also said he’d be wary of any proposed deal that exchanged funds for a wall for broad immigration reform. And when asked if he would agree to citizenship for immigrants who were illegally brought into the U.S. as children, he again replied, “I doubt it.”

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in the House, said Democrats have funded border barriers in the past and are refusing this time simply because Trump is asking for it.

“The president is the only one who has been reasonable in these negotiations,” he said.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a member of the Democratic leadership in the House, said his colleagues are looking for “evidence-based” legislation.

“Shutdowns are not legitimate negotiating tactics when there’s a public policy disagreement between two branches of government,” he said.

Jeffries said that Democrats are willing to invest in additional infrastructure, especially at legal ports of entry where the majority of drugs come into the country.

“We’re willing to invest in personnel. We’re willing to invest in additional technology. … In the past, we have supported enhanced fencing and I think that’s something that’s reasonable that should be on the table,” he said.

Trump has asserted there is a “crisis” at the southern border requiring a wall, blaming previous presidents and Congress for failing to overhaul an immigration system that has allowed millions of people to live in the U.S. illegally.

Last month, he put that number at 35 million, while on Sunday he pegged it at 25.7 million-plus — figures offered without evidence. “I’m not exactly sure where the president got that number this morning,” Mulvaney said.

Both are higher than government and private estimates.

His homeland security chief cited “somewhere” between 11 million and 22 million last month. In November, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported 10.7 million in 2016 — the lowest in a decade.

The president also tweeted Sunday that the cost of illegal immigration so far this year was nearly $19 billion; he didn’t cite a source.

Compare that with research in 2017 from a conservative group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for less immigration: $135 billion a year or about $11.25 billion a month — a figure that included health care and education, plus money spent on immigration enforcement.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. said that he thinks a compromise is possible.

“The president went from talking about a wall along the entire southern border at one point during the campaign … to let’s have barriers where they work and let’s have something else where barriers wouldn’t work as well,” Blunt said.

The partial federal shutdown ended Friday when Trump gave in to mounting pressure, retreating from his demand that Congress commit to the border wall funding before federal agencies could resume work. The bill he signed did not provide the money Trump wanted for a barrier, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called “immoral” and has insisted Congress will not finance.

Mulvaney said Trump agreed to temporarily end the shutdown because some Democrats have stepped forward, publicly and privately, to say they agree with Trump’s plan to better secure the border.

Mulvaney said they told Trump they couldn’t split with Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and work with the White House if the government remained closed.

“Everybody wants to look at this and say the president lost,” Mulvaney said. “We’re still in the middle of negotiations.”

___

Mulvaney appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Jeffries and McCarthy spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Blunt was on Fox.

Deb Riechmann, The Associated Press

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Ottawa’s avalanche of spending hasn’t helped First Nations

Published on November 19, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tom Flanagan

When Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, he memorably said that the welfare of Indigenous Canadians was his highest priority. He certainly has delivered on his promise, at least in terms of shovelling out money.

During his 10 years in office, budgeted Indigenous spending has approximately tripled, from about $11 billion to almost $33 billion. Prime Minister Trudeau’s instruction to the Department of Justice to negotiate rather than litigate class actions has resulted in paying tens of billions of dollars to Indigenous claimants over alleged wrongs in education and other social services. And his government has settled specific claims—alleged violations of treaty terms or of the Indian Act—at four times the previous rate, resulting in the award of at least an additional $10 billion to First Nations government.

But has this avalanche of money really helped First Nations people living on reserves, who are the poorest segment of Canadian society?

One indicator suggests the answer is yes. The gap between reserves and other communities—as measured by the Community Well-Being Index (CWB), a composite of income, employment, housing and education—fell from 19 to 16 points from 2016 to 2021. But closer analysis shows that the reduction in the gap, although real, cannot be due to the additional spending described above.

The gain in First Nations CWB is due mainly to an increase in the income component of the CWB. But almost all of the federal spending on First Nations, class-action settlements and specific claims do not provide taxable income to First Nations people. Rather, the increase in income documented by the CWB comes from the greatly increased payments legislated by the Liberals in the form of the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). First Nations people have a higher birth rate than other Canadians, so they have more children and receive more (on average) from the Canada Child Benefit. Also, they have lower income on average than other Canadians, so the value of the CCB is higher than comparable non-Indigenous families. The result? A gain in income relative to other Canadians, and thus a narrowing of the CWB gap between First Nations and other communities.

There’s an important lesson here. Tens of billions in additional budgetary spending and legal settlements did not move the needle. What did lead to a measurable improvement was legislation creating financial benefits for all eligible Canadian families with children regardless of race. Racially inspired policies are terrible for many reasons, especially because they rarely achieve their goals in practise. If we want to improve life for First Nations people, we should increase opportunities for Canadians of all racial backgrounds and not enact racially targeted policies.

Moreover, racial policies are also fraught with unintended consequences. In this case, the flood of federal money has made First Nations more dependent rather than less dependent on government. In fact, from 2018 to 2022, “Own Source Revenue” (business earnings plus property taxes and fees) among First Nations bands increased—but not as much as transfers from government. The result? Greater dependency on government transfers.

This finding is not just a statistical oddity. Previous research has shown that First Nations who are relatively less dependent on government transfers tend to achieve higher living standards (again, as measured by the CWB index). Thus, the increase in dependency presided over by the Trudeau government does not augur well for the future.

One qualification: this finding is not as robust as I would like because the number of band governments filing reports on their finances has drastically declined. Of 630 First Nation governments, only 260 filed audited statements for fiscal 2022. All First Nations are theoretically obliged by the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, 2013, to publish such statements, but the Trudeau government announced there would be no penalties for non-compliance, leading to a precipitous decline in reporting.

This is a shame, because First Nations, as they often insist, are governments, not private organizations. And like other governments, they should make their affairs visible to the public. Also, most of their income comes from Canadian taxpayers. Both band members and other Canadians have a right to know how much money they receive, how it’s being spent and whether it’s achieving its intended goals.

Author:

Tom Flanagan

Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Distinguished Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary

Uncategorized

Musk, Ramaswamy to lead Trump efforts to cut waste, fraud in federal government

Published on November 13, 2024

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

During his campaign, Ramaswamy proposed cutting 75% of the federal workforce. Musk recently suggested that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, or about one-third of total U.S. spending.

President-elect Donald Trump picked Tesla CEO Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

The department’s acronym, DOGE, is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said the new group will pave the way for his administration to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

Trump laid out lofty goals for the group in his announcement this week.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhatten Project,’ of our time,” Trump’s announcement said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”

It won’t be an official government agency, which will likely allow Musk and Ramaswamy to avoid public financial disclosures.

Trump said the change he’s looking for won’t come from within the existing federal government.

“To drive this kind of change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside the government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform and create and entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before,” the announcement noted.

Trump said he looks forward to what Musk and Ramaswamy can accomplish.

“Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 trillion of government spending,” he said.

Trump also gave them a deadline: July 4, 2026.

“A smaller government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy will be the perfect gift to America” on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, according to the announcement.

Ramaswamy, who dropped out the race for the GOP nomination to endorse Trump in January, has previously proposed significant cuts. During his campaign, Ramaswamy proposed cutting 75% of the federal workforce.

Musk recently suggested that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, or about one-third of total U.S. spending. He’s been tossing out ideas on X, previously Twitter before Musk bought the company and changed the name.

“The world is suffering slow strangulation by overregulation. Every year, the noose tightens a little more,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good.”

Musk also said he isn’t a threat to democracy, but a threat to bureaucracy.

DOGE already has an X account. It’s first post: “Working overtime to ensure your tax dollars will be spent wisely!”

Some budget experts have called Musk’s pledge to cut $2 trillion a pipe dream, noting that many of the problems DOGE wants to address have proven intractable.

Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank, called Musk’s proposal “a random number unattached to reality.”

Marc Goldwein, the senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said it could be done with 10 aggressive policies, mostly focused on Medicare and Medicaid.

“The government can legitimately save trillions over a decade by reducing waste and improving efficiency – and I hope we do,” Goldwein wrote on X. “Achieving these savings requires major changes to how and how much we pay for health care.”

Medicare (annual cost of about $1 trillion) is a federal health insurance program for people 65 or older, and some people younger than 65 with certain disabilities or conditions. Medicaid (annual cost of about $558 billion) is a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income and resources.

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as the research arm of Congress, estimated annual fraud losses cost taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually, in a report in April. The fraud estimate’s range represents 3% to 7% of average federal obligations. The Office of Management and Budget publicly questioned that estimate, calling it “not plausible.”

“OMB has significant concerns that this report will not further efforts to prevent and reduce fraud, but rather will create confusion and promote misleading generalizations that have no factual connection to specific federal programs,” Jason Miller, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, wrote of OMB concerns in a three-page letter to officials with the Government Accountability Office.

On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy detailed his plan to reduce the federal workforce by 75% during an event at the America First Policy Institute in Washington in 2023.

Ramaswamy said he would shutter the FBI (about 35,000 employees); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms a nd Explosives (5,099 employees); the U.S. Department of Education (about 4,200 employees); the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (about 3,000 employees); and the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services (about 1,500 employees).

Under Ramaswamy’s campaign plan, some 15,000 FBI employees would be moved to other agencies such as the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Secret Service, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

Some groups called the Department of Government Efficiency goals a stretch. Others had more pointed things to say.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a progressive consumer advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader, said the government agencies and regulations Ramaswamy proposed cutting are in place to protect people.

“The purpose of government regulations is to protect the American people,” she said in a statement. “We all depend on these regulations to protect our air, water, workers, children’s safety, and so much more. ‘Cutting red tape’ is shorthand for getting rid of the safeguards that protect us in order to benefit corporate interests.”