To understand the spell Trump has cast on the Republican Party, just listen to the members of the House Republican Conference these days: The same gang that made slashing spending their singular cause in Congress are now entertaining — and in many cases embracing — the president-elect’s pitch to pump billions into the economy in the form of a massive infrastructure package…
The contortions extend to issues beyond government spending on roads and bridges. The GOP is also gritting its teeth over Trump’s plan to slap a 35 percent tariff on American companies that ship jobs overseas — an idea that flies in the face of their free-market orthodoxy. Many lawmakers are visibly uncomfortable answering questions about Trump’s promise to give companies tax breaks to keep jobs in America, after saying for the past eight years that government shouldn’t “pick winners and losers.”…
The irony, expressed privately by lawmakers and leadership aides, is glaring. Privately, House Republicans complain that Trump’s infrastructure plan reeks of Obama’s stimulus package (though some argue that Trump, unlike Obama, is likely to rely on public-private partnerships, not just federal dollars, and is likely to be paid for). They say his tariff proposal is ridiculous and using the White House to force companies to stay in the U.S. is inappropriate.
Many are afraid to publicly oppose Trump because of his fondness for retribution and use of Twitter to publicly shame his critics. So now, they’re left crossing their fingers that his rhetoric doesn’t translate into actual policy proposals next year.
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