WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's agenda has slowed to a crawl in Congress.
Daily distractions and a pair of major controversies in the past week are diverting lawmakers from their day jobs. While the Trump administration delegates many decisions on legislation to more experienced GOP leaders in Congress, the turmoil at the White House is an additional complication.
"I think it would be helpful to have less drama emanating from the White House," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The Senate has no legislation on its agenda this week -- business is instead limited to three low-profile nominations. The House -- fresh off an 11-day recess -- is devoting the week to mostly symbolic, feel-good legislation designed to show support for law enforcement. Another 11-day recess, for Memorial Day this time, is just around the corner.
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Separately, a small group of Senate Republicans is meeting in hopes of finding a way forward on keeping Trump's promise to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But that effort appears likely to take several weeks -- with no guarantee of success.
"It's hard to make things happen here, right? It's really hard. I mean you've got all kinds of forces working against you," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. "And so unless everybody's aligned, everybody, throughout the White House and the Cabinet, it's almost impossible. I think they're all very aware of that and hopefully they're going to move to address that."
In the meantime, must-do legislation on the military, children's health and a full slate of spending bills are all slipping behind schedule. Trump's promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is dead in the water after being rejected during negotiations on a catchall spending bill -- the only major bipartisan legislation to advance this year -- and his promised $1 trillion infrastructure bill is still on the drawing board.
Trump's tax plan is simply a set of talking points and for procedural reasons is on hold until health care is completed.
"I don't think I've ever seen an administration that was so lacking in substantive proposals this late in the beginning of their term," said No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland. "The tax bill is a one-page minimal suggestion of what might be considered. There is no jobs bill. There is no infrastructure bill."
McConnell, in an interview, didn't commit to completing tax legislation this year, but said he and other congressional leaders have begun regular meetings with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump's chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, on potential legislation.
McConnell said that any tax overhaul can't add to the growing U.S. budget deficit.
"I'm confident we can get it done," he said. "I'm not going to put a deadline on it."
The lack of Democratic support for a GOP tax package will require Republicans to use budget rules that require revenue neutrality in exchange for pushing through permanent tax changes with only 50 votes, McConnell said. The GOP controls only 52 of the chamber's 100 seats.
Meanwhile, the clock ticks toward potential crises this fall, as deadlines collide on several measures, including legislation to prevent a government shutdown and a bill to increase the government's borrowing cap and avert a potentially catastrophic default on U.S. government obligations. A popular program that provides health care to children of parents ineligible for Medicaid expires at the end of September, as does the federal flood insurance program and authorization for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The GOP-controlled Congress has had just a handful of legislative successes since it convened in January. The most significant bill, so far, was a long-delayed House health care measure that squeaked through earlier this month. The House bill polls poorly with voters, however, and faces a wholesale rewrite in the Senate.
So far, just a single piece of major legislation has advanced that required the votes of Democrats -- a catchall $1.1 trillion spending bill opposed by more than 100 House Republicans. Beyond that, many of the bills Trump has signed into law were fast-track measures to rescind regulations issued by former President Barack Obama last year. The clock ran out on further repeals and this week, the biggest Senate vote is on confirming Iowa GOP Gov. Terry Branstad as ambassador to China.
"Well, we have nominations and we've repealed billions of dollars of regulations," said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. "Hopefully we'll see some other action come to the floor."
Information for this article was contributed by Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press and by Laura Litvan of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 05/17/2017