Plus, will Florida import cheaper drugs from Canada?
Pelosi Prepares a Trump Smackdown
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday night that the House will “move swiftly” to vote on a resolution to terminate President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the border with Mexico.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter to members of Congress — both Democrats and Republicans — Pelosi urged lawmakers to back the resolution, which would represent an extraordinary rebuke to the president after his announcement last week that he would look to bypass Congress to get funding for his border wall.
Pelosi said Trump’s declaration “undermines the separation of powers and Congress’s power of the purse” under the Constitution. "All Members take an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution," Pelosi wrote, according to CNN. "The President's decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated.”
House Democrats on Friday will introduce the disapproval resolution authored by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX). It’s not clear when the measure will come up for a vote — it would be reported out of committee within 15 calendar days and considered on the House floor within three calendar days after that, Pelosi’s letter said — but it is expected to pass easily in the Democratic-controlled House.
The resolution would then have to be put to a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate within 18 days, and the outcome there is far less certain. Just four GOP senators would have to join with all the chamber’s Democrats to approve the resolution, and a number of Republicans have been critical of Trump’s declaration — though some have backed away from their earlier criticisms. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) on Wednesday became the first Republican senator to say she would vote against Trump's emergency declaration.
If the measure does pass the Senate, Trump would surely veto it and lawmakers likely would not have the votes to override him.
Whether the resolution ultimately passes both chambers or not, Democrats are intent on forcing Republicans to go on record about Trump’s invocation of executive power. Democrats are reportedly likely to also sue the administration or join another lawsuit challenging Trump’s emergency declaration.
The White House, meanwhile, is reportedly pushing ahead with its plans to reallocate $3.1 billion in federal funds not contingent on the emergency declaration for use in wall construction.
The bottom line: Legal challenges are still the best bet for those seeking to block Trump’s emergency declaration and border wall, but the disapproval resolution will be politically fraught for Republican lawmakers.
Florida’s New GOP Governor Wants to Import Cheaper Prescription Drugs from Canada
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday said he wants to launch a program to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada into his state — and that President Trump backs the idea.
Under the federal Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, the state would require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to certify to Congress that the imports would reduce costs and would not threaten public health and safety, according to the SunSentinel.
“I spoke personally to President Trump on both Sunday and Monday about this,” DeSantis reportedly said. “He's not only supportive, he's enthusiastic, and he wanted me to tell all of you here today that he supports what we're doing and he will take the necessary executive actions to make sure that we can act under this 2003 law.”
Why it matters: The idea of importing drugs from Canada has long been advocated by liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), but it may be gaining momentum.
“If Trump were to approve drug importation, it would be a major step that would buck the traditional Republican position and the pharmaceutical industry, which strongly opposes the idea and warns that there are not safeguards to ensure imported drugs are safe,” The Hill’s Peter Sullivan writes. But he notes that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar last year dismissed the idea as a “gimmick” and said Canada does not have enough drugs to sell to the United States, a claim backed up by some Canadian health experts. “The Canadian shelves would run dry,” Steve Morgan, a Canadian health economist, told Politico.
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Column of the Day: The US’s Developing Dysfunction
The United States is a rich country, but that wealth “masks a number of glaring areas” where the country looks more dysfunctional than its developed-nation peers, writes Bloomberg’s Noah Smith.
Take construction costs, for example: “It costs much more to build each mile of train in the U.S. than in heavily unionized France," Smith writes. "No one seems to be able to put their finger on the reason -- instead, the U.S. simply seems riddled with corruption, inefficient bidding, high land-acquisition costs, overstaffing, regulatory barriers, poor maintenance, excessive reliance on consultants and other problems. These seemingly minor inefficiencies add up to a country that has forgotten how to build. Unsurprisingly, much of the country’s infrastructure remains in a state of disrepair.”
Or health care: The hybrid public-private American system “ends up costing much more than other countries’ government-dominated systems,” Smith says. “But for all this lavish spending, the U.S. tends to get worse health outcomes on many measures.”
How does the country avoid backsliding toward resembling a developing nation? Smith’s answer: “[T]here needs to be a national focus on reducing excessive costs in key industries, improving the population’s health, increasing density in the country’s sprawling cities, upgrading public transit, and reducing corruption and waste in both the public and private sectors. If the U.S. wants to remain a developed country, it should try to look and act more like one.”
Read the full column at Bloomberg.
News
- Spending Forecast Offers Ammunition — and Some Alarm — for Democrats Pushing Medicare Expansion – Washington Post
- Some Republicans with Bases in Their Districts Break Ranks with Trump Over Wall Funding – Roll Call
- Report: Pentagon Official Gave Out $280K in Fraudulent Bonuses – USA Today
- Amtrak's Big, Unlikely Idea – Axios
- $375,000 Price Leads Disabled Mom to Ration Meds – CNN
- The Difference Between a ‘Public Option’ and ‘Medicare for All’? Let’s Define Our Terms – New York Times
- What’s Covered Under Medicare? A New App May Leave You Still Wondering – New York Times
- The Medical Tech that Helps You When Your Doctor Can’t – New York Times
- How Drug Company Ads Downplay Risks – Scientific American
- Worry About Debt? Not So Fast, Some Economists Say – Wall Street Journal (paywall)
- The S&P 500 Lost 11% of Value from Trump’s Trade War, Research Says – Bloomberg
- Migrant Families Still Being Separated at the Border, Report from Texas Group Says – NBC News
- Of All the Teachers' Strikes, This One Is Especially Consequential – CNN
Views and Analysis
- Trump’s War on California – Michael Grunwald, Politico
- In Halting Calif. Rail Funds, Trump Sends Multiple Messages – Susan Crabtree, RealClear Politics
- Trump’s Presidency Is Getting Weaker – Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg
- ACLU on Border Wall 'Emergency': We'll See You in Court, President Donald Trump – Anthony D. Romero, USA Today
- Elizabeth Warren’s Ideas Could Win the Democratic Primary — Even If She Doesn’t – Perry Bacon Jr., FiveThirtyEight
- A Green New Deal is Technologically Possible. Its Political Prospects Are Another Question. – Lisa Friedman and Trip Gabriel, New York Times
- You Can't Build That: The Regulatory Reality of the Green New Deal – Richard B. Belzer, RealClear Policy
- On Paying for a Progressive Agenda – Paul Krugman, New York Times
- Modern Monetary Theory Is Not a Recipe for Doom – Stephanie Kelton, Bloomberg
- Women Are Setting the Health Care Agenda – Winnie Wong, Morning Consult
- What Cancer Taught Me About the US-UK Healthcare Debate – Joshua Chaffin, Financial Times (registration required)
- Medical Expenditures Are Likely “Worth It.” But Can We Measure How Much They Are Worth? – Abe Dunn and Lasanthi Fernando, Health Affairs
- Are Megadeals a Bad Idea? Lessons from Amazon’s Canceled Plans in New York – Donnie Charleston and Megan Randall, Urban Institute
- Washington’s Backward Funding: How National Parks Are Encouraged to Defer Maintenance – Don Striker, The Hill
- Congress Needs to Bring Family and Medical Leave Policies into the 21st Century – Ellen Kahn, The Hill