President-elect Trump’s selection of Elaine Chao, the consummate Washington insider and former cabinet secretary, to head the Transportation Department is already helping to clear a path for his $1 trillion infrastructure package.
But lawmakers say exactly how Trump plans to pay for it is where the rubber will really meet the road.
On the campaign trail, Trump railed about the dilapidated state of the nation’s roads, bridges and airports and vowed to fix it all with a massive investment of tax dollars. The unprecedented $1 trillion spending promise drew high praise from top Democrats and equally adamant derision from budget hawks who questioned his commitment to getting the nation’s fiscal house in order and reducing the government’s nearly $600 billion budget deficit.
The selection of Chao, the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who previously served as deputy Transportation secretary and Labor secretary, already appears to be easing some fears on Capitol Hill that the massive 10-year spending bill won’t simply be a job-creating stimulus package but will include a very real plan to offset the costs.
“She’s superbly qualified and she’s got great relationships on the Hill,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who chairs the Commerce Committee that will be charged with passing the infrastructure bill. “She knows how to manage the bureaucracy, and I think she knows how to drive an agenda.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he knows Chao well from having traveled “all over the country” with her stumping for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012.
“I think Elaine knows the system … I like her,” he said. “I would be very inclined to accept her counsel and advice.”
The fact that she’s married to the most powerful Republican in the Senate is just an added benefit for Hill relations, he said.
“She was deputy Transportation secretary so in terms of knowledge base, she’s a really good pick and she happens to be the wife of the majority leader, and it probably makes for interesting conversations in the McConnell household,” Graham added with a chuckle.
Even top members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus seem to be shifting from open skepticism of the $1 trillion proposal to careful optimism about finding realistic ways to pay for it.
“I’m on [the Transportation Committee] so I know the need and I believe we will find a way to just not increase the deficit to actually invest in our infrastructure,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said in an interview.
Meadows, who announced Tuesday that he is running to chair the Freedom Caucus, had previously warned that the plan must not add to the national debt or conservatives in the House would reject it.
Trump’s team has floated the same type of financing plans that rely on hypothetical future boosts to the economy that make stalwart fiscal hawks nervous, including proposals to overhaul the tax code to lure companies back to the United States to pay more taxes here instead of abroad.
But Meadows mentioned some new “creative ideas out there” that include royalties from increased drilling on public lands that has the potential to reap $1.5 trillion in tax dollars. He cautioned that it was just one idea in its early stages and the Congressional Budget Office might discover that the federal spending has already tapped into some of those resources.
“It’s more a concept” right now then a concrete plan, he said, though he was hopeful that the royalties could provide a long-term source of funds. He also mentioned “public-private partnerships” for the use of air and seaports and the possible revenue from the return of U.S. companies who have fled offshore for cheaper taxes.
“I think it becomes a combination of several different factors on how we get there and I look forward to working with the secretary and her plans and what she wants to roll out,” he said. “I think she’ll hear a very willing group of both moderates and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, who are willing to at least explore a number of different vehicles to do that.”
Others, however, have criticized the selection of Chao as a glaring example of nepotism that could undermine Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp” in D.C. In addition to her marriage to McConnell, Chao’s family owns a major shipping company, so the Transportation job would require some form formal separation agreement similar to the one Trump himself has agreed to follow.
Thune says the conflicts of interest issues are sure to come up during her hearings, and the committee will ensure that she abides by all relevant federal laws.
McConnell himself was downright giddy about his wife’s nomination the day Trump announced it, telling reporters that she is an “outstanding choice” and volunteering that he has no plans to recuse himself from her confirmation vote. Senate rules have no requirements that lawmakers recuse themselves from voting on spouses’ nominations to the executive branch.
In fact, then-Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, voted in favor of his the nomination of his wife, Elizabeth Dole, to be Labor secretary for President George H.W. Bush in 1989. She was confirmed 99-0.
Still, it’s difficult for Republicans to dismiss conflict-of-interest concerns about Chao’s marriage to the most powerful Senate Republicans without some awkward moments.
Pressed on the issue, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, insisted there were “no conflicts” to her nomination but declined to elaborate further on it and quickly turned to another reporter’s questions.
Others pointed to her serious conservative credentials that she earned on her own as Labor secretary during the George W. Bush administration. During her eight-year tenure helming the department, she consistently frustrated labor unions and liberals for overturning regulations and actively ignoring their push to persuade her to aggressively enforce overtime, wage and workplace safety laws.
Other Republicans said her marriage to McConnell and close ties and long relationships to other veteran GOP lawmakers would play little role in pushing the infrastructure package through Congress.
“Cabinet secretaries usually do what the presidents says they will do,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
For Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., how easily the transportation package moves through Congress will all boil down to the plan to pay for it.
“That’s the $1 trillion question,” he said. “There’s a lot of us who are very concerned about the deficit and the debt that we have – not interested in adding to that.”
Conservatives like himself, he said, acknowledge the “dramatic” need for infrastructure investments in the nation’s roads, bridges and ports and the “benefit it can bring” but want a “real, tangible” plan to offset the spending.
Huizenga said Chao’s relationships in the Senate might help there, but he played down the influence her ties would have in the House where scores of Republicans have been elected since the end of the George W. Bush administration in which she previously served.
“I don’t know if it helps smoothes the path or makes it more rough,” he said.
“She might have a few relationships here in the House from her time, but you look at just the sheer numbers of who has been elected at least on the Republican side since the end of the Bush administration, it’s huge,” he said.
