12 Republican Senators Turn on Trump

Plus, Pentagon defends its budget request

Senate Delivers Sharp Rebuke to Trump on His Border Emergency

The Senate on Thursday delivered an extraordinary rebuke to President Trump, voting 59-41 to terminate his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border. The vote sets up a likely veto by the president, his first since taking office.

Twelve Republican senators joined with Democrats in supporting a resolution of disapproval to block the president’s executive action. While the president had tried to frame the vote as being solely about border security, supporters of the resolution expressed concerns that Trump’s move represented a threat to the Constitution’s separation of powers and a dangerous precedent that could be used by future Democratic presidents.

The Republicans breaking ranks with Trump were: Lamar Alexander (TN), Roy Blunt (MO), Susan Collins (ME), Mike Lee (UT), Jerry Moran (KS), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Rand Paul (KY), Rob Portman (OH), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Roger Wicker (MS).

“Never before has a president asked for a certain amount of money, the Congress refused to provide that amount, and then the president spent the amount he asked for anyway,” Alexander said.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who wrote an op-ed weeks ago announcing that he would vote for the resolution, changed his mind and backed Trump. Tillis faces a tough re-election campaign in 2020 and had reportedly been warned by conservatives in his state that he could get challenged in the primaries if he supported the resolution.

Trump last month invoked the National Emergencies Act in order to redirect $3.6 billion appropriated by Congress for military projects toward the building of border barriers.

Thursday’s vote followed failed last-ditch entreaties by Republican senators to the president. Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC), Ted Cruz (TX) and Ben Sasse (NE) reportedly “crashed” Trump’s dinner Wednesday evening to discuss GOP concerns over his emergency declaration. Trump rejected their pleas, and he followed up Thursday morning by tweeting: “A vote for today’s resolution by Republican Senators is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!”

Why it matters: This is the first time Congress has voted to block a presidential emergency declaration, and it comes on the border wall, a key campaign promise by Trump. While some analysts and pundits applauded Congress for asserting its constitutional authority, others questioned why more Republicans didn’t buck the president.

“This is an absolute assault by the president on Congress’s Article I authority under the constitution. Their power of the purse authority is being trampled upon,” former Rep. Charlie Dent, a Republican, said on CNN. “So I am really surprised that more [Republicans] haven’t been jumping up and down screaming bloody murder over this assault on their own congressional authority. Some must be very worried about their primaries. That’s the only explanation.”

The bottom line: The vote may be embarrassing for Trump, but it may have little immediate practical effect, as Trump has said he’ll veto the resolution and Congress won’t have the two-thirds majority required to override him. Still, the border wall funding fight will likely be decided by the courts and Congress’ vote could bolster lawsuits challenging Trump.

Share this story →

Chart of the Day

Ben Ritz of the Progressive Policy Institute slams President Trump’s new budget:

“It would dismantle public investments that lay the foundation for economic growth, resulting in less innovation. It would shred the social safety net, resulting in more poverty. It would rip away access to affordable health care, resulting in more disease. It would cut taxes for the rich, resulting in more income inequality. It would bloat the defense budget, resulting in more wasteful spending. And all this would add up to a higher national debt than the policies in President Obama’s final budget proposal.”

Here’s Ritz’s breakdown of Trump’s proposed spending cuts to public investment in areas such as infrastructure, education and scientific research:

Acting Defense Secretary Defends ‘Slush Fund’ Account

Testifying before Congress on Thursday for the first time since stepping into the top leadership role at the Pentagon, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan defended his department’s $718 billion budget request for 2020 against accusations that it deployed a budget gimmick to boost its top line.

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee focused on the $164 billion request for the Overseas Contingency Operations account, a special fund meant to cover war costs that, under the budget request, also includes $98 billion for basic Pentagon activities unrelated to war-fighting. The OCO account is not subject to budget caps that may take effect in 2020, and shifting money into the account would allow the Defense Department to reduce its base budget request to $545 billion while still receiving an overall funding boost (see the chart from Defense One below).

"You're asking at least for $98 billion for things that have nothing to do with contingency operations," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told Shanahan. "What we're really talking about here is the establishment of a slush fund to hide what is happening with defense spending."

Shanahan, a long-term Boeing executive who served as Deputy Secretary of Defense starting in 2017 and was elevated to his current position when James Mattis stepped down from the role in December, said the Pentagon was simply trying to be transparent with Congress. He admitted that the additional money added to OCO request for 2020 and 2021 should be in the regular budget but denied that the OCO was operating as a slush fund.

The acting defense chief also pushed back against reports that the U.S. was asking allies to fully cover the cost of U.S. troop deployments in their territories and pay a premium of as much as 50 percent for the privilege.

"Senator, we won't do cost plus 50 percent," Shanahan said to Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). “We’re not going to run a business, and we’re not going to run a charity. The important part is that people pay their fair share — and payment comes in lots of different forms. It can be contributions, like in Afghanistan,” Shanahan said. “But at the end of the day, people need to carry their fair share, and not everyone can contribute, but it is not about cost-plus 50 percent.”

Shanahan also tussled with senators over the fate of military construction funds that are being shifted to pay for the construction of the border wall. Lawmakers wanted details on which construction projects would be cut or delayed, but Shanahan said that he didn’t have all of the information and would send it the senators later in the day.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin: My Tax Rate Went Up

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers Thursday that the Republican tax law affected his personal tax rate in 2018. “I personally pay taxes in New York and California and my tax rate did go up because I no longer have the SALT deduction,” he told the House Ways and Means Committee.

Mnuchin later clarified his statement, saying that he was referring to his combined federal and state tax rates, and that he didn’t know if his federal tax rate had decreased.

Mnuchin also touched upon these issues:

Debt ceiling: Mnuchin said that Congress should raise the debt ceiling soon and pass legislation that raises the limit whenever additional spending is approved. Asked if the debt ceiling should be eliminated entirely, Mnuchin said, “I’m not sure we need to get rid of it, but like any other business, when you approve spending you have a plan [for] how to finance that spending.”

IRS penalties: Asked about taxpayers who under-withheld on their taxes in 2018, Mnuchin said he would review a request to waive penalties for those who paid at least 80 percent of their tax bill this year, down from already-reduced 85 percent threshhold announced by the IRS in January.

The “post card” 1040: Mnuchin said the new basic tax form has not caused problems — despite what The New York Times’ Alan Rappeport said was “a 200% increase in errors on filings.”

Self-funding tax cuts: Mnuchin again repeated the oft-disputed claim that the tax cuts will not increase the debt: “If we do get the growth we expect, they will pay for themselves.”



Wheels: Mnuchin told lawmakers he owns a Tesla.

-->

Happy Pi Day, 3/14! A Google employee named Emma Haruka Iwao has broken the Guinness world record for calculating the most digits of Pi, computing the number to 31.4 trillion decimal places. Meanwhile, we’re debating whether to go for apple or chocolate pudding pie. Maybe strawberry rhubarb.



Tell your friends they can sign up here to get their own copy of this newsletter.



Send your tips and feedback to yrosenberg@thefiscaltimes.com. Or connect with us on Twitter: @yuvalrosenberg, @mdrainey and @TheFiscalTimes.

-->

Tweet of the Day

From Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis:

News

Views and Analysis