The Latest Threat to Trump’s Tax Plan: Trump

By Yuval Rosenberg How Trump’s Feud with Bob Corker Endangers His Tax Cut Plan President Trump’s escalating series of [back-and-forth barbs]( with Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) threatens what the administration says is its top priority: tax reform. The GOP’s slim majority in the Senate means Trump can ill-afford to further alienate Senators from his own party if he’s serious about passing his tax cut package. “Make no mistake, going after Corker will make it harder for Trump to get his way on both tax cuts and the Iran deal,” The Washington Posts’ James Hohmann [wrote]( Monday. And a “top lobbyist” was even more emphatic in a poorly punctuated [text message]( to Axios’s Mike Allen: “Bye, bye tax reform." On the other hand, Corker’s vote on tax reform wasn’t assured even before the latest spat. The senator has said he won’t vote for a plan that adds “one penny to the deficit,” though he’s left himself some room on that calculation by adding that he is willing to accept a [“reasonable”]( measure of economic feedback effects as well as budget baseline for calculating the tax plan’s cost that critics call [a gimmick](. And the White House has tried to create some additional wiggle room for the tax plan by [courting]( a few moderate Democratic senators up for reelection in states that he won in 2016, including Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Even so, if Corker — freed from some political reckoning because of his decision not to seek reelection after his term ends next year — won’t support the tax plan, its path to passage gets very narrow, as Vox’s Dylan Matthews [explains]( “Without Corker’s support for a package, Trump would be down to only 51 Republican senators supporting a tax plan. When you consider that includes relative moderates like Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and wild cards like Rand Paul (R-KY), who has [criticized the tax reform package already]( Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have very little room to maneuver and can’t afford basically any defections. "Under such conditions, the normal political play would be to avoid antagonizing any potential GOP opponents of the law, to keep them all on board as long as possible. It seems Trump has chosen a somewhat different strategy.” That strategy won’t go unnoticed by other Senate Republicans, meaning it carries risks beyond Corker. Many of those GOP senators now also face the prospect of primary challenges backed by Trump’s former chief political strategist Steve Bannon, who is targeting every GOP senator up for reelection next year except Ted Cruz (R-TX), as Bloomberg [reported]( last night. As The Washington Post’s Tory Newmyer [writes]( the question then becomes “how many of these incumbents will decide, all things considered, it’s simply not worth it to hustle for reelection in a GOP that feels increasingly unfamiliar — and follow Corker’s lead instead?" The combination of the president's attacks and Bannon's political machinations could mean that, as Newmyer suggests, "Trump could soon be facing a lame-duck caucus full of once-reliable votes for a tax overhaul that would be suddenly less responsive to appeals for party unity.” [Share]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( Trump’s Tax Pitchmen Taking Heat Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and chief White House economic adviser Gary Cohn ”are endangering their reputations in their attempts to sell a tax cut,” columnist David Leonhardt writes in [The New York Times](. He goes on to slam “blatantly false” claims the two have made about how the wealthy won’t benefit from the plan and how the plan won’t balloon the deficit. “It is not too late for Cohn and Mnuchin to take a different approach. Doing so still won’t win over many people to their tax plan (including me). But they can make a free-market case for lower taxes that is based on something other than lies,” Leonhardt writes. But those criticisms are downright tame when compared to the condemnation expressed by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in a [Washington Post op-ed]( this morning. Summers calls the Trump tax plan “an atrocity” before slamming the claims made by Mnuchin, Cohn and Council of Economic Advisers Chair Kevin Hassett as “some combination of ignorant, disingenuous and dishonest.” More Summers: “I have strong disagreements on tax policy with Republican economists such as Greg Mankiw, Glenn Hubbard and Martin Feldstein and with Treasury alumni such as Nick Brady, John Snow and Hank Paulson. Nothing I have ever heard or read from them seems absurd or dishonest in the way that almost everything coming out of this administration does.” [Share]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( Fiscal Flashes Pentagon Pushes for Faster F-35 Cost Cuts: The Pentagon has taken over cost-cutting efforts for the F-35 program, which has been plagued by years of cost overruns, production delays and technical problems. The Defense Department rejected a cost-saving plan proposed by contractors including principal manufacturer Lockheed Martin as being too slow to produce substantial savings. Instead, it gave Lockheed a $60 million contract “to pursue further efficiency measures, with more oversight of how the money was spent,” The Wall Street Journal’s Doug Cameron reports. F-35 program leaders “say they want more of the cost-saving effort directed at smaller suppliers that haven’t been pressured enough.” The Pentagon plans to cut the price of the F-35A model used by the Air Force from a recent $94.6 million each to around $80 million by 2020. Overall, the price of developing the F-35 has climbed above $400 billion, with the total program cost now projected at [$1.53 trillion](. ([Wall Street Journal]( [CNBC]( Budget ‘Chaos’ Threatens Army Reset: One thing is standing in the way of a major ongoing effort to reset the U.S. Army. “The problem is the Washington, D.C., budget quagmire,” writes Carter Ham, a retired four-star general who’s now president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army. The problem is more than just a matter of funding levels. “What hurts more is the erratic, unreliable and downright harmful federal budget process,” which has forced the Army to plan based on stopgap “continuing resolutions” instead of approved budgets for nine straight fiscal years. “A slowdown in combat-related training, production delays in new weapons, and a postponement of increases in Army troop levels are among the immediate impacts of operating under this ill-named continuing resolution. It’s not continuous and it certainly doesn’t display resolve.” ([Defense One]( How Much Did Mike Pence’s NFL Statement Cost Taxpayers? Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to walk out of an NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers yesterday after some 49ers players kneeled during the national anthem was quickly criticized by some as a planned piece of political theater — and a somewhat expensive one at that. “After all the scandals involving unnecessarily expensive travel by cabinet secretaries, how much taxpayer money was wasted on this stunt?” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) [tweeted]( Sunday afternoon. The answer, based on information [tweeted]( by CNN White House reporter Kevin Liptak, is “likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least.” But President Trump defended Pence’s trip, [tweeting]( that it had been “long planned.” How Are We Doing? We want to hear your thoughts! Send me your feedback, or your tips. Email me at yrosenberg@thefiscaltimes.com or tweet me [@yuvalrosenberg](. 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Here's How to Fix It]( – USA Today - [With Tax Cuts, GOP Pays Lip Service to Limited Government]( – Joel Slemrod, The Hill - [Nobel Prize Winner Richard Thaler May Have Added $29.6 Billion to Retirement Accounts]( – MarketWatch Copyright © 2017 The Fiscal Times, All rights reserved. You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed at our website, thefiscaltimes.com. Our mailing address is: The Fiscal Times 712 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10019 [Add us to your address book](//thefiscaltimes.us1.list-manage.com/vcard?u=40d2c5373681f5cd830b6d823&id=714147a9cf) If someone has forwarded this email to you, consider signing up for The Fiscal Times emails on our [website](. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](