Mr Trump’s administration is divided and ineffective. Photo: Olivier Douliery - Pool / Getty Images
The President proposes, but Congress
disposes. That vital fact about the American constitution may have
eluded Donald Trump in his career as a tycoon and reality TV star. But
it is shaping his presidency now, as the latest snafu unfolds,
surrounding an ill-designed and unpopular draft budget.
Wise presidents work with Congress—not
just with their own side, but with the others. Congressmen are easy for
presidents to schmooze: you invite them to the White House (perhaps
along with their most important donors). You invite them to play golf.
You built personal ties across the partisan divide. And you do
hard-nosed deals with them.
President Bill Clinton was especially good
at this; Barack Obama was notoriously bad, especially where the
Congressional Republicans were concerned. A naturally chilly and aloof
character, he simply didn’t like hanging out with people he disagreed
with—and in some cases despised.
But Mr Trump has taken this to a whole new
level. Not only does he arouse his political opponents to a spitting
frenzy; he also annoys his own side.
In one sense that’s not surprising. Mr
Trump is a Republican by convenience, not conviction. He has nothing in
common with the austere, gritty, patriotic traditions of people such as
Senator John McCain.
The battle lines were already drawn over
Russia: some Republicans are willing to flip-flop loyally and ignore the
Kremlin’s mischief-making in American politics, but many aren’t. But
that row was, at least for now, mostly political theatre—who will
investigate what, and how.
But Mr Trump’s “skinny budget” goes to the heart of America’s political machine: the big questions of who gets what.
It’s not actually that skinny. For all his
talk of radical deal-making, the president has not used his political
capital to make the big changes that the country really needs.
The Social Security (retirement pension)
system continues to trundle towards a demographic abyss. Of the $3.9
trillion federal budget, about $2.4 trillion goes on “entitlement”
programmes: pensions, and health-care for elderly, poor and disabled
people. Those in work need to pay more to finance the big rise in
payments which is looming in the next decades: a liability which dwarfs
the nominal $20 trillion national debt.
But just like the mainstream politicians he despises, Mr Trump has kicked the can down the road.
Mr Trump promised to spend more money at
home and less on foreigners. That went down well as a campaign slogan.
But it doesn’t add up.
He wants to boost spending on defence by a
tenth, build the border wall with Mexico, and cut a $54 billion swathe
through discretionary programmes: diplomacy, the environment, housing
and the arts. There is no sign of money for the promised infrastructure
blitz, only the promise of an up-coming “package”.
The plan is to cut the budget for the
State Department and the United States Agency for International
Development from $36.7 billion to $25.6 billion. That is enough to
cripple American diplomacy, and make huge dents in efforts to wage
peace, which tend to be a lot cheaper than waging war. But those cuts
amount to just one fifth of the extra spending planned for the Pentagon.
America’s federal spending certainly could
do with a trim — long-distance rail services, for example, are mainly
used by rich enthusiasts. It’s unclear why taxpayers should subsidise
their hobby. The State Department could be leaner and meaner (so, for
that matter, could the Pentagon).
But all the programmes Mr Trump wants to
cut have defenders in Congress. That is why they have survived the
budget shenanigans of previous years. Some of the cuts — to science and
research for example — are particularly hard to reconcile with
rebuilding American greatness.
Mr Trump’s supporters are undaunted. They
say that he has a mandate to take an axe to wasteful spending and that
the cries of protest in Washington DC are from the self-interested
trough-feeders whose easy life is now over.
That is partly true. Voters may well feel
that environmental standards are unreasonably high, and that jobs — for
example in coal mining — matter more. It is hard to explain why American
tax dollars pay for the United Nations, which at least in some of its
agencies is a hotbed of anti-Western, anti-American sentiment.
Many of Mr Trump’s core, white,
blue-collar supporters also feel that the main beneficiaries of federal
programmes are other, better-off people, or feckless members of minority
communities. In reality, they benefit from social programmes too, not
least Obamacare — whose botched reform is shaping up to be the
administration’s next car-crash.
With a skilful mixture of bargaining and
vision, the presidency could persuade politicians that an overall
budget-cutting plan makes sense, and make sure that enough gains blunt
the pain.
So far, Mr Trump’s divided, ineffective
administration shows no sign of either bargaining or vision. It is hard
to see it getting a workable budget through Congress — or indeed
succeeding in anything else.
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