Republicans Press Trump to Back Off Emergency Declaration

Plus, the cost of Trump's Space Force

GOP Senators Press Trump to Back Off Emergency Declaration

Republican senators are turning up the pressure on President Trump, urging him to abandon his national emergency declaration and rely on less controversial pots of money to fund construction of his wall on the southern border.

Three Republicans have already said they’ll support the Senate version of a resolution of disapproval passed by the House to block Trump’s emergency declaration and his redirecting of funds toward wall construction. One more, together with all 47 Senate Democrats, would give the measure enough votes to pass, forcing Trump to use his veto power.

It’s a confrontation Senate Republicans would prefer to avoid with a president who remains popular among GOP voters. "People are caught between the need for border security and agreeing with (what) the president's trying to do, but not how he wants to do it," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on Thursday warned Trump to avoid setting a “dangerous precedent” by using the national emergency declaration to circumvent Congress on the issue of border wall funding. “It is unnecessary and unwise to turn a border crisis into a constitutional crisis about separation of powers when the president already has congressional funding authority to build the 234 miles of border wall that he requested,” he said.

Trump’s border wall plan relies on a few separate pots of money: about $601 million from a Treasury Department Forfeiture Fund, some $2.5 billion from Department of Defense funds for fighting illegal drugs and up to $3.6 billion from military construction funds. Trump’s national emergency declaration was made in order to access only that last pot.

Alexander urged Trump to use only funds that he can get without resorting to an emergency declaration. Alexander suggested that by transferring $3.7 billion (instead of the planned $2.5 billion) from the drug interdiction programs, Trump could wind up with a total of $4.5 billion in funding and avoid setting off a constitutional crisis over Congress’ power of the purse.

“He’s got sufficient funding without a national emergency, he can build a wall and avoid a dangerous precedent,” the Tennessee senator said.

Alexander, who has announced that he will not seek reelection in 2020 after three terms in the Senate, did not say how he’ll vote on the resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration — but his speech sent a pretty clear signal.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also signaled he may vote against Trump. "I think it's a bad idea to run government by emergency and the power of the purse should remain with Congress," he said, according to CNN.

And Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) said that he may vote to overturn Trump’s declaration if he determines that it would jeopardize military construction funds. “I think it’s probably good that the president, if he has to get this done, go ahead and do it on an emergency — but not at the expense of the military,” Inhofe said, according to The Washington Post. “And if it ends up at the expense of the military, that it’s going to inflict damage on the military, then I have to act accordingly.”

The bottom line: Congress likely still doesn’t have to votes to override a presidential veto, and Trump has given no indication of backing down on the emergency, telling Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Republicans who vote against him may “put themselves at great jeopardy.” GOP senators may not want to take a tough vote, but Trump may not care.

Tax Refunds Rebound

Smaller refunds in the first few weeks of the current tax season were shaping up to be a political problem for Republicans, but new data from the IRS show that the value of refund checks has snapped back and is now running 1.3 percent higher than last year. The average refund through February 23 last year was $3,103, while the average refund through February 22 of 2019 was $3,143 – a difference of $40. The chart below from J.P. Morgan shows how refunds performed over the last 3 years.

Most Americans Say Drug Prices Are ‘Unreasonable’

A majority of Americans say that new prescription drugs have made life at least a little better over the last 20 years, but they also think that drug prices are unreasonably high — and drug company profits are to blame.

The data come from a new poll released Friday by the Kaiser Health Foundation, which found that:

  • 80 percent of respondents blamed “profits made by pharmaceutical companies” for the high cost of prescription drugs, followed by the cost of R&D (cited by 69 percent of respondents), profits made by benefits managers (63 percent) and the cost of marketing and advertising (52 percent).
  • Most Americans favor a variety of policies to lower drug prices, including allowing the government to negotiation Medicare drugs prices (86 percent), allowing Americans to buy drugs from Canada (80 percent) and placing an annual limit on out-of-pocket spending for drugs for those on Medicare (76 percent).
  • While most respondents said the cost of their prescription drugs wasn’t a financial burden, about one in four said its’ difficult for them to afford their medications and about three in 10 said they hadn’t taken medicines as prescribed at some point in the last year due to the cost.

     
  • The public does not trust pharmaceutical companies to price drugs fairly.

Quote of the Day

"Only in our crazy, market-driven, bureaucratic mess of a system would we think about this kind of a solution."

– Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics for New York University's School of Medicine, in a worthwhile CNN story about a lawsuit that accuses insurers of directly paying patients more than $1.3 million, and forcing providers to try to recover the money, all allegedly as part of an effort to pressure the providers to join their networks.

Chart of the Week

Business Insider created this graphic to show how prescription drug prices get set, and how much various players in the chain get, using industry averages. It’s based on a theoretical monthly prescription with a list price of $100 for someone covered by an insurance plan that has a $20 co-pay.

Space Force to Cost $2 Billion in First 5 Years

The Pentagon says it will cost about $2 billion over five years to establish a U.S. Space Force, according to a legislative proposal sent to Congress this week. The proposal calls for lawmakers to approve Space Force as a sixth branch of the military, joining the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

At the same time, the Pentagon is proceeding with plans to create a Space Command, a combatant command residing within the Air Force. The new organization, which does not require congressional approval, would get rolling in the 2020 fiscal year with about 200 staffers at a cost of $72 million. About 15,000 personnel would transfer in over the next four years, with the cost rising to roughly $500 million a year. Those costs are in addition to the $10 billion the Pentagon already spends annually on space-related operations.

The proposal could encounter significant resistance in Congress. Some lawmakers have expressed doubts about the need to create a separate branch of the military, and others aren’t sure why the Pentagon wants to build both a new combat command and a new branch of the military at the same time. “It is kind of a confusing thing when you talk about a Space Force and you talk also about the combatant command and part of the two are similar,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said at a hearing earlier this week. Defense officials are expected to provide more details on the proposal in the coming weeks.

Your Prize for Making It Through the Week

If a documentary on the global economy hosted by Kal Penn and produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay sounds intriguing, well, you’re in luck. Amazon Prime has released an 8-part series, “This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy,” assembled by these award-winning comedians. We haven’t seen it yet but hear that it’s wide-ranging analysis touches on killer robots and monster truck rallies and may help explain the Sharknado franchise. Here’s the preview on YouTube.

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