Page 26 - MetalForming January 2017

A New Game in Town:
What to Expect
from Washington, D.C.
As the “what-ifs” of the 2016 cam- paign have faded to questions of “what now,” one thing has become clear: The new administration will bring anything but business as usual to Washington. Republicans con- trol the White House, both chambers of Congress, and soon the U.S. Supreme Court, for only the second time since the Great Depression.
Democrats failed to not only take back the Senate, but to even make any
Omar Nashashibi is a founding partner atTheFranklinPartnership,LLP,abi- partisan government relations firm retained by the Precision Metalforming Association in Washington, D.C.; tel. 202/393-8250, www.franklinpartner- ship.com.
significant gains, leaving them poorly situated to defend 25 seats in 2018 to only eight for the GOP. This means Trump likely has a full Republican Con- gress and Supreme Court for all four years of his first term, giving the ques- tion of “what now” even more weight.
Every successful campaign faces the sudden reality of how to implement elec- tion-year promises and how quickly. The Trump administration will continue to take many of its cues from the Trump campaign when deciding which policy priorities to pursue. We will likely see the administration take action on most of the points raised during the campaign but may not go to the lengths proclaimed at rallies and with the speed promised, either due to legal constraints or of their own volition.
The election of Donald Trump, backed by a Republican majority in Congress, promises a decidedly different course of action by the U.S. government. Read on
to see what may be in the offing.
BY OMAR NASHASHIBI
The Priorities
At least five big-ticket items have already emerged as top priorities for the incoming administration:
1) Repeal Obamacare
2) Infrastructure spending
3) Tax reform
4) Roll back regulations
5) Trade enforcement/agreements. Repeal Obamacare—The new Con-
gress is poised to quickly send the incoming White House a bill repealing a number of provisions related to man- dates, fees and penalties under Oba- macare and setting an end-of-2019 deadline to replace the Affordable Care Act. While the GOP still lacks a unified approach on a comprehensive replace- ment, a 3-yr. delay allows it time to coalesce around an alternative.
Infrastructure spending—Trump’s personal top priority is an infrastruc- ture-spending measure, about which some Congressional Republicans have raised concern over how to fund.
24 MetalForming/January 2017
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