Public Policy Network

Washington is at a major policy inflection point, driven by two significant developments: one expected and one that surprised many. The first is the increasing signs that the 2018 mid-term elections will be every bit as challenging as history would suggest for the party of a first-term president. The second is the deficit impact of the Republican tax cut legislation of late December (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) and the bipartisan omnibus spending bill of late March (the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018), which will sharply increase government debt. These two developments will make governing in the coming years even more challenging.

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Everyone is watching the stock markets with some anxiety and wondering what investments will generate nice earnings this spring. Gold? Health care? Energy? One area that is seeing increased business is television, especially where the outcome of the 2018 mid-term election is in doubt. Just look at recent special elections, where television spending has been off the charts. Expect election costs to break new records this year, with television advertising being a big part of that.

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The year 2018 is a remarkable time in Washington. No one, and that means not a single person, knows what the president will say in any given 24-hour period. Congressional leaders are learning how to operate in this new environment. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demonstrated this skill when passing a government budget on Feb. 9. This bill flies in the face of the recently released administration FY 2019 budget, raises the debt ceiling through March, 2019, and provides hundreds of billions of dollars of additional defense and non-defense spending over two years. This ended up being a bipartisan effort with the White House in a supportive, not leading, role.

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Change was promised in the 2016 elections, and change has been delivered. As Winston Churchill liked to say, "There is nothing wrong with change... if it is in the right direction." Unfortunately 2018 has begun in Washington with even more of the dysfunction and partisanship that characterized last year. While these political dynamics have been brewing for many years, it looks like the brew could now be boiling over.

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2017 was a wild year in Washington that ended with a massive tax-cut law, the signature achievement for Republican congressional leaders and President Trump. The Republicans' laser focus the past two months on this massive effort has resulted in many pressing matters awaiting Congress when it returns Jan. 3. This tax bill will continue to be a major focus of policy debates throughout 2018. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that Republicans must now convince voters the bill was a good idea. Democrats, who unanimously opposed the law, will continue their negative messaging that has, thus far, turned a majority of the public against the bill. The only opinion poll that will matter will be November's elections.

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Chinese revolutionary Mao Tse-Tung once described politics as "war without bloodshed." In keeping with that often-relevant analogy, Washington today looks very much like a burning, chaotic policy battlefield. Nasty partisanship affects a wide range of policy debates, and while there are oases of cooperation and problem solving, they are often out of the public spotlight.

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