So, What Happens Next?

Let me start with a disclaimer. No one knows what will happen next in Washington, because there are so many players who want different things, and because the ever-changing whims of our new President move too fast for most of his desires to gain any traction.

But, there are some things we know. Let’s call them facts. And there are some things we can reasonably assume, and there are even some things which fit neatly into the “probably” category.

So, let me give you two versions of the likely future events in Washington. The fast version and the slow version.

We’ll start with fast. Someone is at fault. Someone is to blame. The target has to be someone relatively high up in government, and someone who is not related to Donald Trump by birth or marriage. Or who he likes on the radio or Fox news.

No, the likely target will be someone who has praised the president for his wisdom and negotiating ability, and who have made sacrifices to help him. Why? Just two words: Chris Christie.

We can also rule out putting the blame on low-level people. Not even President Trump will believe that the late-night capitol cleaning crew just left a copy of a health care plan on every Republican’s desk after being paid $25 each by Nancy Pelosi, although I did hear someone in a position to know say that such a thing was still possible and should be investigated by the FBI or a bipartisan Republican-led congressional committee.

No, the fall guy - darned few women to blame this on - has to be someone who has voted dozens of times to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and promised the president he was ready to repeal and replace it. “Go ahead, Mr. President,” he probably said. “You can promise the American people that you will do it on on your very first day in office, or the first day you get back from your first vacation at Mar-a-Largo.”

Give you a hint who I think it will be. He’s Irish, and when he is gone, there will be lots of  others in Congress who can move up the status chain, gaining power and some very nice pay increases. And, here’s the best part  - Trump doesn’t have to do anything complicated like rigging a no-confidence vote in the House of Representatives. All  he has to do is twitter something like “Let Down by Ryan. Tragic” and the avalanche will be started. Going downhill fast in Washington these days is easy. 

So what happens next legislatively?  Well, that’s the slow version of events. Mostly because there are so many moving parts. A budget has to be presented. Committees have to hold hearings. The changes have to be evaluated and that pesky Congressional Budget Office has to throw in its two cents. 

And, we all know what happens when special interests find their cash cow being milked by someone else or, worse, led off to the slaughterhouse. You can cut the budget of the National Institutes of Health and no one will complain unless a real disaster hits the nation or their uncle catches a rare disease. 

Or, you can cut the state department budget to the bone and no one will say a word until, suddenly, those canny Russians or those even cannier Chinese start gaining influence and business deals in what has traditionally been our part of the world. Even worse, some radical ISIS cell will attack one of our far-flung embassies which had its security budget reduced and some Democrat in Congress will yell something that sounds like “Benghazi.”

Those things will take some time to play out, especially since a week in politics is like a month in real life. It’s the same thing as measuring time in dog years. The time will seem longer that it really is.

But the budget will come. And after a while, all those newly-elected Republican governors across the country will start to realize that the federal aid they counted on to cover things like road repairs and homeless shelters will suddenly be cut or even eliminated. That should start the creative process in every state’s laboratory of democracy - how can I feed an extra 30,000 people who have lost their jobs without raising taxes?

It won’t be pretty.

And, it will be slow. Maybe Congress will do what it has already done for several years, which is to simply pass a contingency budget that keeps the United States going, but which doesn’t call for any new programs or eliminating existing ones. Maybe people will notice that.

So, sometime later this year, we are likely to see something come out of Washington that looks like change. Some things will be dropped, other things will be disguised with a name change and continued. And, the President will claim credit for all of the jobs that are being created by industries which planned to create them a year or two ago.  You see, it takes a company some time to decide to expand, then implement the changes needed to do it, and finally hire and train new people.

Maybe that’s happening now, and 2017 will turn out really great, bigly. And maybe and 2018 will look better still. That would be good news for Republicans and for President Trump. After all, it’s a deadline of sorts.

It’s an election year.