Donald Trump promised to get Congress to repeal Obamacare, enact tax reform, pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, impose tariffs on outsourcers, subsidize child care, and fund a border wall with Mexico--all in the first 100 days of his presidency. Not surprisingly, none of those things happened. What is surprising is that little of this agenda has even been submitted by the president to Congress.
The explanation goes beyond the usual factors that bedevil any new president--over-promising on the pace of action, under-preparing for the challenges of office, trouble in staffing. Trump's failure to get key agenda items to the starting line reflects more fundamental problems in policymaking, problems that will persist even after this administration is fully staffed and acclimated.
First, policymaking at the White House is hard and tedious work that involves digesting reams of paper, weighing difficult trade-offs, and enduring hours of meetings. There is little evidence Trump has any interest in this sort of endeavor. The campaign anecdote that Ohio Gov. John Kasich was offered a vice presidency with control over domestic and foreign policy in a White House where Trump would be responsible only for "making America great again" speaks volumes. Even an "art of the deal" president cannot make policy if he is unaware of key parts of his proposals. Trump's most memorable comment about policy was revelatory: "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."
Second, Trump's career reflects an inconsistency and expediency about ideas that indicate he will never take policymaking seriously. Yes, all political leaders shift their views over time, some dramatically. But no major figure in either party ever has been as helter-skelter as Trump.
Finally, the Trump policy process must surely be gridlocked because--to the extent there is any indication of what Trumpism is as a policy philosophy--it is a jumble of populist slogans and corporatist concessions totally at war with itself. The Trump plan includes a promise to raise taxes on corporations that outsource and a pledge to cut taxes on those same corporations to a record low. Trump has embraced a Democratic plan to restore limits on Wall Street that were removed 20 years ago--while advancing a Republican plan to strip away limits imposed after the 2008 financial crisis. He has called for $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending but proposed a budget without a penny of net new spending or borrowing. He promised voters they would get better health-care coverage, then held a party in the White House Rose Garden for a House bill that would allow insurance companies to slash benefits.
When Trump hit the 100-day mark with no major legislative wins, his allies told the world to give him time. But time is not Trump's trouble: His lack of interest in policymaking and an incoherent agenda are the obstacles.
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Ronald A. Klain served as a senior White House aide to presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
Editorial on 06/23/2017