Lawmakers Near Border Deal Without Trump’s $5.7 Billion

Plus, tax refunds down so far in 2019

Is Trump ‘Trapped’ on the Border Wall?

Congressional negotiators looking to hammer out a bipartisan border security spending deal and prevent another government shutdown at the end of next week are reportedly closing in on their goal.

“We’re 95 to 98 percent done,” Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, according to The New York Times.

The deal being finalized could provide between $1.3 billion and about $2 billion for border security, the Times says — far less than the $5.7 billion President Trump has been seeking for construction of some 230 miles of wall on the southern border, and less than the $2.5 billion the president publicly shot down after Vice President Mike Pence floated it in December.

“Talk of a wall has given way to ‘bollard fencing’ and strategic placements,” the Times’ Emily Cochrane and Annie Karni report.

Trump has reportedly indicated he’d accept a deal around $2 billion, and members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which had earlier pushed the president to take a hard line on wall funding and the shutdown, “indicated that any number even slightly above $2 billion would satisfy them for now,” the Cochrane and Karni say.

But Democrats are still pushing back on the number, and it’s unclear how much of the money would go toward barriers. “We will not agree to $2 billion in funding for barriers,” said a spokesman for House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY).

There are other issues to be ironed out, too, according to the Times:

“[N]egotiators remain far apart on detention beds under the control of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house families detained at the border with Mexico. Funds currently allocated are enough for 40,520 detention beds. Democrats asked to limit the number of beds to 35,520 for the remainder of the fiscal year and increase funds for other alternatives to the practice of family detention. Republicans want substantially more beds.”

Whatever the details of the final deal, it’s clear the president won’t be getting close to the $5.7 billion he’s sought. Will he sign off anyway?

Politico noted that the White House is “increasingly aware that the president is trapped,” given that Republicans have no desire for another government shutdown and have cautioned Trump against declaring a national emergency to get the funding he wants. That leaves Trump with few options.

The bottom line: At this stage, at least, it appears likely that he’ll accept whatever bipartisan compromise the conference committee reaches, even if it falls well short of his demands — and then potentially pursue more wall funding via executive action that stops short of declaring a national emergency.

With Trump, though, nothing is final until it’s final — and even then, he may change his mind or otherwise scuttle a deal. He’s scheduled to speak at his first campaign rally of the year on Monday night in El Paso, Texas. The Washington Post’s Erica Werner reports that the planned appearance has raised concerns from some congressional aides that Trump “could veer back to rhetoric on the wall that could throw any deal they reach into question.”

Why it matters: A compromise deal would end the months-long uncertainty over federal funding and, potentially, cool some of the conflict over Trump’s border wall, even if it doesn’t resolve the issue. But it also could have broader significance for the Trump presidency, The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin suggests, marking him as a lame duck: “A week from now, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi most likely will be able to point to a Democratic victory on the single most important issue for Trump and his base. If he isn’t getting the wall, he’s not getting anything else on his wish list that requires legislative approval.”

Taxpayers Getting Smaller Refunds in First Week of 2019 Filing

The average tax refund is down so far this year, according to IRS data covering the first week of the 2019 filing season. Last year, returns generated an average refund of $2,035, while this year the figure is $1,865, an 8.4 percent drop.

The number of returns is also down compared to last year, with 16,035,000 returns received in the first week, compared to 18,302,000 returns received in the same time period in 2018.

Accounting Today said Friday that some taxpayers were complaining this week on social media about their smaller-than-expect refunds — and in some cases, surprise tax bills. Tax professionals have warned that millions of people may have withheld too little this year in the wake of the new tax law, potentially producing unforeseen obligations. “There are going to be a lot of unhappy people over the next month,” Edward Karl, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of CPAs, told Politico’s Aaron Lorenzo.

Why Record Approvals for Generic Drugs May Not Save Consumers Much Money

The Trump administration has pushed to speed up the approval process for generic drugs as part of its strategy to lower drug prices. A recent study by tax and consulting giant PwC found that the Food and Drug Administration is working at a record pace, approving more than 1,600 generic drugs since the beginning of 2017, a roughly 30 percent increase over the previous two-year period.

However, a new analysis by Kaiser Health News found a problem with the administration’s strategy: Many of the approved generics are not available for sale in the U.S. — “meaning that many patients are deriving little practical benefit from the administration’s efforts,” KHN’s Sydney Lupkin and Jay Hancock write.

Of the 1,600 generic drugs approved since January 2017, more than 700 were not on the market as of January 2019. “The approved generics that haven’t made it to American medicine cabinets include generic versions of expensive medicines like the blood thinner Brilinta and HIV medication Truvada,” Lupkin and Hancock write. “They also include six different generic versions of Nitropress, a heart failure drug, whose price spiked 310 percent in 2015.”

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the failure to get drugs to market is “a real problem because we’re not getting all the expected competition.” And it won’t be an easy problem to fix, Lupkin and Hancock say, given the complex set of factors involved, including the threat of litigation from brand-name drug owners, uncertain business conditions and industry consolidation.

White House: Trump Didn’t Sabotage Obamacare — and We’re Savings Billions on Health Care

President Trump boasted during his State of the Union address this week about eliminating the “very unpopular” individual mandate that was a key part of the Affordable Care Act, and has claimed at various times over the past year that Obamacare is essentially dead thanks to his initiatives. Critics say his administration’s efforts amount to sabotage of the ACA, but a report released Friday by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers claims that the administration’s deregulatory efforts have not harmed President Obama’s signature health care program — and are saving American billions of dollars to boot.

The CEA report examines the effects of three big changes made by the Trump administration: eliminating the individual mandate, expanding association health plans and extending short-term plans. It finds that they “generate benefits to Americans that are worth an estimated $450 billion over the next 10 years.” The report also claims that “these reforms do not ‘sabotage’ the ACA but rather provide a more efficient focus of tax-funded care to those in need.”

Thanks to generous subsidies for those who meet the requirements, millions of middle- and lower-income citizens are expected to remain in the program for years to come, the report says, although some upper-income consumers will pay higher premiums due to the rule changes.

Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation said the report suggests that the White House is moving away from its public war on Obamacare. He also said that the savings claimed by the CEA sounded a bit high, and pointed out that the Trump administration’s initiatives come with real costs: “fewer people insured, less comprehensive insurance, and higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions.”

Your Prize for Making It Through the Week

National Geographic says these are the best trips to take in 2019. Even if you don’t have the time to make it to the Peruvian Amazon or the Canterbury Region of New Zealand this year, the photos are worth the click.

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