Week ahead: All eyes on Trump budget

President Trump is releasing his fiscal 2019 budget on Monday, days after signing a two-year bipartisan deal with major boosts to military and domestic spending.

The administration has been working on Trump’s budget request for months, meaning their document will adhere to older spending cap figures that lawmakers raised in the recent budget deal.

The bipartisan budget deal Trump signed on Friday increases the defense discretionary spending cap by $85 billion for fiscal 2019 and the nondefense discretionary spending cap by $68 billion for the year. Fiscal 2019 starts on Oct. 1.

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When the White House releases its budget on Monday, it will also release an addendum on how to utilize the higher spending caps, a senior Office of Management and Budget official said.

Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget called for sharp cuts to domestic programs and a big boost for defense spending. 

Also on Monday, the administration will unveil Trump’s long-awaited infrastructure proposal. The $1.5 trillion plan is expected to call for using state, local and public-private partnerships. It’s expected that the federal government will contribute $200 billion toward the proposal.

Trump’s 2019 budget and infrastructure blueprint will drop with Republicans deeply divided over the bipartisan deal signed on Friday.

Defense hawks were on board, but fiscal conservatives revolted against the plan.

Even Trump on Friday expressed displeasure with the government funding bill just moments after he signed it into law, ending a brief federal shutdown.

In a pair of tweets, Trump said Republicans were “forced” to increase spending because there are too many Democrats in Congress.

More than two-thirds of Republicans in the Senate voted for the spending package early Friday morning after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held up the vote. Paul was trying to seek a vote on an amendment to keep the budget caps in place. His decision sent the government into an overnight shutdown at midnight Friday, the second of 2018.

Frustrated Senate Republicans lashed out at Paul early Friday for refusing to speed up the budget vote.

The upper chamber’s No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), on Friday night accused Paul of shutting down the government “for no real reason.”

The Senate eventually passed the budget deal shortly before 2 a.m., followed by the House in a 240-186 vote despite opposition from most Democrats.

Democrats had sought a firmer commitment from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that he will bring legislation that would protect immigrants who came to the United States as children from deportation to a vote.

House Democrats just barely made up for the defections on the GOP side. A total of 73 Democrats voted for the legislation, while 67 Republicans voted against it.

Lawmakers now have until March 23 to take the budget’s numbers and craft an omnibus spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year.

Hovering over that effort will be the immigration debate.

Both Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Democrats in their respective chambers a chance to reach a bipartisan agreement to give “Dreamers” a pathway to legal status.

McConnell said earlier this week that he would use a nonimmigration bill as the base for the debate, essentially letting the Senate start from scratch. McConnell has teed up a vote on Monday to open debate. The free-wheeling debate is expected to take up the Senate’s entire schedule in the coming week as lawmakers struggle to reach a deal that could get 60 votes.

But Ryan has promised to only bring to the floor an immigration bill Trump would sign into law.

“I know that there is a real commitment to solving the [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] DACA challenge in both political parties. That’s a commitment that I share. To anyone who doubts my intention to solve this problem and bring up a DACA and immigration reform bill, do not,” Ryan told reporters Thursday at his weekly news conference in the Capitol.  

“We will bring a solution to the floor — one that the president will sign.”

 

Your week ahead:

Wednesday:

House Financial Services Committee: Hearing on “Examining the Current Data Security And Breach Notification Regulatory Regime,” 10 a.m. http://bit.ly/2nNOmea.

House Science, Space and Technology Committee: Hearing on “Beyond Bitcoin: Emerging Applications for Blockchain Technology,” 10 a.m. http://bit.ly/2nNGk51.

House Financial Services Committee: Hearing on “Legislative Proposals Regarding Derivatives,” 2 p.m. http://bit.ly/2nOhrq4.

Thursday:

House Financial Services Committee: Hearing on “Examining De-risking and its Effect on Access to Financial Services,” 9:30 a.m. http://bit.ly/2nO9UHL.

A House Financial Services Committee hearing on “Exploring the Financial Nexus of Terrorism, Drug Trafficking, and Organized Crime,” originally scheduled for 2 p.m. has been postponed. http://bit.ly/2nQjn1j

Recap the week with Overnight Finance:

Monday: Dow down over 1,000 in biggest one-day point drop | GOP to play hardball with Dems on funding bill | Mulvaney reportedly freezes Equifax probe | Powell sworn in as Fed chair

Tuesday: Senators near two-year budget deal | Trump would ‘love to see a shutdown’ over immigration | Dow closes nearly 600 points higher after volatile day | Trade deficit at highest level since 2008 | Pawlenty leaving Wall Street group

Wednesday: Senate leaders agree to two-year budget deal | Fiscal hawks revolt | Pelosi wants assurances on immigration | Trump calls stock sell-off a ‘big mistake’ | Lawmakers push Trump to preserve NAFTA

Thursday: Shutdown looms | Paul holds up Senate vote | House GOP scrambles for budget votes | What’s in the deal | Dow falls 1,000 points for second time this week | Conservatives threaten Fed nominee | Trump announces IRS pick

 

Today’s stories:

Trump signs budget deal ending shutdown, by Ben Kamisar, Melanie Zanona and Cristina Marcos

Trump: Republicans were ‘forced’ to increase spending, by Jonathan Easley

Frustrated Republicans accuse Paul of forcing pointless shutdown, by Jordain Carney

White House to modify budget request to reflect higher spending caps, by Naomi Jaogda

Hensarling hits party for passing budget, government funding deal, by John Bowden

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