The "Year Five Plan": Team Trump's post-election dream

Axios ^ | May 12, 2019 | Jonathan Swan

[be-baw]

Some of President Trump’s top aides, who assume he will be re-elected, are already planning for an epic 2021 spending battle.

What's happening: Senior administration officials — including acting Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought and fiscally conservative chief Mick Mulvaney — have told Republicans that the president doesn't want Congress to strike a spending deal in September when current funding runs out. Instead, Team Trump wants a short-term solution to preserve the ability to fight for massive spending cuts in the fifth year of a Trump presidency.

The White House thinks the most likely scenario this year is that the president signs a one-year "continuing resolution" (a continuation of 2019 spending levels through 2020), followed by another short-term extension next September to get past the November election.

Why it matters: Some senior administration officials envision a newly re-elected Trump liberated to slash spending. They view 2021 as the year to have that fight — the final year in which the president can threaten hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of automatic spending cuts known as the sequester. (These automatic cuts, which attack both defense and domestic spending, expire in 2021.)

As president, Trump has floated massive budget cuts but signed legislation making the debt and deficits worse.

It's a huge broken promise. During his 2016 campaign, Trump said he would eliminate the $19 trillion debt over eight years. The debt now stands at $22 trillion — the highest ever.

Trump has spent prolifically, cutting taxes without making up the lost revenue. And now, he’s flirting with a $2 trillion infrastructure bill (but doesn't want to raise taxes to pay for it).

The big picture: Trump wants to spend more on prized projects, but still views most of government as a mass of fraud and waste — ripe for slashing.

Aides say Trump wants to spend more on the military, veterans’ programs, NASA, infrastructure and border security.

The bottom line: Trump will entertain cutting almost anything else. "The president feels like he's had to give up ransom" to Democrats, who pressured him to increase domestic spending in exchange for more spending on the military and border security, an administration official told me.

He reserves special contempt for foreign aid and additional disaster relief money going to Puerto Rico, which he believes the Puerto Rican government is unfit to manage.

[RayChuang88]

If Trump wins and get a truly Republican Congress, it's time to seriously look at unprecedented tax reform. Maybe it's time to look at the flat tax proposed by Steve Forbes in 1996 or even the more radical FairTax to really hyper-accelerate the US economy.

[samadams2000]

Call it the 9 year plan. Watch heads explode.

[plain talk]

Trump needs to first ensure he gets elected and ignore all this noise and fake news.

As a part of that he should build a team in Congress to implement his agenda. He can’t do it by himself. He’s got to get them all in a room many, many times and herd the cats.

But even if Congress continues to hate him — his 2nd term will still be a success (compared to the alternatives) if he does nothing but issue EOs, confirm judges and veto stupid legislation.

[Eddie01]

“It’s a huge broken promise.”

This entire piece of fiction was written so the author could say THAT.

Trump hasn’t broken a single promise to me.

He’s faced bone crushing opposition from everyone including his own party.

The only broken in this equation is I’m a broken glass Trump supporter.

[SunkenCiv]

Senior administration officials — including acting Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought and fiscally conservative chief Mick Mulvaney — have told Republicans that the president doesn't want Congress to strike a spending deal in September when current funding runs out. Instead, Team Trump wants a short-term solution to preserve the ability to fight for massive spending cuts in the fifth year of a Trump presidency.

[Nifster]

Axios is a crap source. I trust nothing they pretend to know

[Bommer]

If Trump wins and get a truly Republican Congress, it's time to seriously look at unprecedented tax reform. Maybe it's time to look at the flat tax proposed by Steve Forbes in 1996 or even the more radical FairTax to really hyper-accelerate the US economy.

"So even though we won the 2020 elections with 300 Republicans elected in Congress, and 75 Republicans in the Senate. And the vast majority of Democrats including Schumer and Pelosi as well as Hillary and Obama behind bars. And with the sudden deaths of Ginsberg, Souder, Kagen, Sotomayor and Roberts from sudden heart attacks with Trumps re-election, and record ultra conservatives appointed to replace them, I'm afraid that the moon is not aligned with Mars and Jupiter, and the wind is blowing from the Northeast for us to seriously consider doing anything we promised we would do to improve this country and your lives!"

This message brought to you by Republicans - the party too worthless to accomplish anything.

[Neidermeyer]

Trump needs to first ensure he gets elected and ignore all this noise and fake news.
***********
Comey report... This week? Orange would look great on him and many others and would certainly help Trumps re-election chances...

[be-baw]

“Axios is a crap source.”

I have yet to know of an instance where the author of this article got it wrong.

Is Axios anti-Trump? Mostly. Is The Hill anti-Trump? Mostly. Does that mean they are worthy of being ignored? Mostly...but not always.

The fact is Axios is often quoted as a credible source by other news outlets. Trump has given interviews to Axios and Politco. So he takes them seriously enough to grant them his time.

Oh yeah. We know you don’t like Axios. You’ve said it before. Say it some more, in case you think someone missed it.

[dynoman]

I agree with everything you said.

[OrangeHoof]

Mr. President, feel free to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. How much more evidence of evil is needed to see taxpayers should not be footing the bill for them?

While Trump has done little to curb spending, I think he is pulling us out the same way Clinton did - by growing the economy at a faster rate than government can spend. Don’t get me wrong - I’d love to see a lot of wasteful agencies and departments get the hook but I just don’t see as big a deficit crisis as this author sees.

[plain talk]

Yeah there is no doubt that justice is a dish best served cold. But that’s Barr’s department. Trump just spent two years insulated from the justice dept. He has been playing things straight and by the book.

We will see what Barr does ... if anything. If he does nothing then Trump chose poorly ... again.

[Nifster]

Trump gives interviews to everyone

[Buckeye McFrog]

Well dammit, SOMEBODY’S gotta start drawing the line on spending sooner or later.