Ok, if we can ask for everyone to take their seats, our next panel will focus on the first 100 days of the new administration in congress. This is a milestone that dates back to the roosevelt era. He used the first 100 days to launch the new deal program, so the first 100 days has become a nomenclature we use. I dont know how relevant it is they are going to tell us how relevant it is. Im pleased to introduce this panel. It is a politically balanced panel and we are pleased to have david wessel moderate the panel. David of course is the director of the Hutchins Center on fiscal and Monetary Policy at brookings. After three decades at the wall street journal where he was economics editor and chair, two pulitzer prizes. David thank you for being here. , we have the president and ceo of cato, the senior fellow at the bipartisan policy center, ruth marcus, famous columnist from the Washington Post and the executive director of the independent womens forum. David and panelists, welcome. David if this is politically balanced, i must be the Bernie Sanders delegate here. [laughter] congressman walker was saying that the 100 day threshold is meaningless and when the gingrich revolution came in 1994, they made the 100 day target for the contract for america and regretted it. What struck me is that it has only been 100 days. It seems like a decade already. [laughter] i think this panel will flow nicely from the last one and i thought i would start by asking each of you if we look back on the first 100 days of the trump presidency, a couple of years from now, what is the one thing that has happened that we will consider noteworthy since the president took office . Bill, do you want to start . Senior Vice President of the bipartisan policy center. Is this on . Im looking back and trying to think what would be the one thing. I cant come up with anything specifically, but let me put it this way i have a word i think would describe the first lets put it so far, the first 90 days because we still have 10 days to go and who knows what is going to happen. David it is a family audience, so be careful of your choice of words. So my word is showing my military many years ago, in a time of crisis, we had a word called vuca which stood for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. That would describe the first 100 days. David was it really a v or was it an f . I think we will know in history with a potentially most history, what the potentially most important things are. Im going to throw out just a few possibilities. One is the president s famous remark to the governors that who knew health care could be so complicated . We did a best quotes of the Trump Administration bracket for the ncaa, and we matched off the quotes and that was the one that won. And i actually think it should have won because it really did reflect a complicated and slightly bumpy transition from campaigning to governing. Historians could look back on that and say it was the beginning of the dawning of the realization that this was going to be harder than he promised and a transition to a more normal form of governing and they look back at it and say this was a reflection that he was completely not ready to govern and it has lasted throughout all of the next four years, eight years, whatever of his presidency. The other thing, i think this one is related and the significance of it has yet to be fully developed is what i have called, not in the terms of the antitrump resistance, but the normalization of trump. Not that we are defining acceptable behavior down, but he is behaving, as many president s do, Campaign Promises are meeting governing reality, so we just saw this remarkable spate over the last several days and weeks of abandoning or transforming Campaign Promises into a different approach to governing. That, too, could be as we look back on it in history an interesting moment of, ok, America First also includes bombing syria when we have chemical weapons and things like that. I think we have potential seeds of what historians will say, but we dont know what is most ripe for seizing . There were plenty of lost opportunities when they look back over the first 100 days, but you have to remember we have many more days. We will talk more about what agenda is being set. The nomination and confirmation of neil gorsuch is a monumental moment, whatever side you are on. In many ways, it is going to be everlasting compared to what may happen on tax reform or health care. This is a much longer lasting moment it is one i feel like lasting moment. It is one i feel like people have not given quite as much attention to. Sabrina stole my answer. I would like to go first on the next one. It is not easy to go first either. One of the reasons bill had to sift through what has happened it seems like years but it has only been 90 days because weve seen so much. I have thought about that quite a bit. Decades after the president s twitter feed has fallen dormant and we dont even remember what parts of the anatomy celebrities may grab with impunity, neil gorsuch is still going to be deciding cases on the supreme court. So that is very consequential. Also, depending on how things play out over the next couple of years, the resolve of the tpp, which i review as an intemperate and unfortunate action. At something we might look back and say was that a moment where the liberal order in trade we have been building for decades since world war ii began to either unwind or take a number of steps back. That could take a long time to recover. I would not have thought of tpp. I think another one is if the attack on regulation continues, whether undone by executive order or through the creative use of the congressional reform act review act, you can see that has lasting effects and will be something he actually got done as opposed to the long list of missed opportunities. I do have this image of the trump president ial library where you walk in and theres a giant screen and a continuing flow of trump tweets forever. Im not totally convinced with the advancements of Artificial Intelligence that the trump tweets will necessarily die when he does. There could be some ai thing, what trump would have tweeted in 2075. So be careful. Twitter may not be around, but trumps tweets will be. There are some that we might not want to die. They are very funny to recall. Is maralago where theyre going to build the library . Its going to cost 200,000. [laughter] and it will have 18 holes. [laughter] where ever it is, it will have 18 holes. David i will start with you, peter on something. As i listened to the earlier panel on the politics of all of this, the discussion about the divisions within the republican and democratic parties within the white house and republicans in congress, among the democrats, the polarization of the country, i think there was a general sense we could go on and go on in this situation for some time. This does not strike me as a sustainable equilibrium, but i cannot figure out what is likely to change the dynamics. What do you think . I dont think it can go on. It has to stop and we have to move forward. Let me put it this way. I have worked for republicans all my life. I was a senate staffer, not a house staffer and therefore, i focus on the senate. To accomplish the things that need to be accomplished, whether thats passing a continuing resolution or increasingly statutory debt limit, whether its doing tax reform and i think tax reform will have to be done on a regular order basis, that is going to require 60 votes. We have not done away with the legislative filibuster. Therefore, i think that is going to force because republicans are not going to want to be in the position into shutting down government. That perspective is going to force work across the aisle in the United States senate and that is where it will have to come that there will have to be some reaching out and im not saying vast numbers, but to get progress going, it is going to require the United States senate and 60 votes will be the key there. David bill says we have to have progress, therefore it will happen but we might not have progress. You are saying it is a week away. They will have to have 60 votes next friday. There are things that have to get done, but im not quite so optimistic. Maybe i am optimistic. As a libertarian, i dont necessarily have a problem with that. We have seen a receding of static for lack of a better word and some of it seems to be a seems to be attributable to the shifting of who is on top at the white house. Theres been this discussion of ideological Staff Members and the rise of what has been termed as the new york democrats. There seems to be a more temperate tone. David when you say new york democrats, you mean gary cohen . Jared kushner. Ivanka trump. We were talking about this a little bit i think the 100 years david it feels like 100 years. [laughter] 100 days is an artificial construct. Administrations in the past, theres not necessarily a lot that happens in the first 100 days, and i think we probably should try to toss this construct aside. Ronald reagan did not sign his first piece of legislation until march 31. It was on a breakfast tray in his hospital room after he was shot and it was to cut dairy price supports. George h. W. Bushs first meaningful piece of legislation, as im sure you already, the whistleblower protection act. And that was in april. Theres not necessarily a lot that does get done in the first 100 days. Recent memory, obama, because we were in an economic crisis, there was a lot that happened. The stimulus bill i kind of handicap that one because getting politicians to spend money is usually not a heavy lift, but the auto bailout and the ledbetter act, a lot happened. That has been more the exception than the norm. Looking forward, what i think is different and distinct about this administration is the divide has seemed to harden a little bit and to get anything meaningful done, the regulation reform is meaningful to me. But you have to be able to legislate and that means 60 votes. On any of the big and meaningful stuff, it is difficult to see that happen, even though in previous administrations, a lot of the big stuff got done in the summer. Its hard to look out in the summer and have any confidence that theres going to be an ability to get tax reform done or Health Care Reform. David lets turn to tax reform. Do you think the failure of the repeal of the Affordable Care act reveal has an impact . I think we would say that this is a correlation, not causation. Because the Health Care Bill did not pass and go smoothly, it does not have a direct effect on the way tax reform will go. I hope it was a lesson for what this period is supposed to be, for a president to set their agenda. It is supposed to be a honeymoon. With congress so this is time to build alliances, recognize where honeymoon. With congress so this is time to we have opportunities for bipartisan support. I think this is been chugging along for the last eight years and desperately need some gas. If i were in the white house, i would start with tax reform and be comfortable with the idea of an approach of starting with something to get jobs created and give companies the options to invest in resources that they need. I think we forget often thats that will put upward pressure on wages. I think theres going to be a messaging problem. That comes back to the political divide. How do we get beyond some of the hostilities that were not new to american politics but put into sharp relief during the election. I will give my answer to your question. I actually think both the failure of the repeal and replace, at least so far, has a bad impact and it is causative in some ways on tax reform. I would actually throw out, though i dont disagree with either of you who gave gorsuch as the answer, that that also has a negative impact. The accomplishment there is that the aca still stands. The failure of repeal and replace has a negative impact on tax reform and the Gorsuch Nomination and the way it was done has a negative effect on the prospect for tax reform. On the aca repeal, i think the president , the inability of Congressional Republicans to coalesce around things, the president s inability to force them to coalesce around things lessened his sway. It empowers and influences republicans to push for their things. The baseline changes in revenue changes on the ability to get some of the tax reform done through saving money in repeal and replace has a practical realworld effect. I think the affect of the Gorsuch Nomination and the limits of nuclear option, i think that senators on both sides regrets. Its raises the tension level and raises lowers in significant ways the willingness which was very low of democrats to find any areas of compromise with their republican colleagues. Congress will get done what it must get done. It will continue to fund the government. It will raise the debt ceiling. It will have a very hard time doing anything much more complex than that. A lot has been said. First of all, i agree that this was a mistake on parts of the administration to proceed with Health Care Reform. They should have proceeded with tax reform to begin with. Having said that, and i will also say that Health Care Reform is finished yet. I think you will see something next weekend, the supplemental, that will be a major funding to provide for some stability in the market. As a republican, one thing i regret is that republicans didnt learn from the democrats. You dont take on major Public Policy changes in a partisan manner. If you do that if republicans do that, we will have another 4, 5, 6, 7 years over debate and health reform. I think we need tax reform. I think we need Corporate Tax reform. There are a couple of little issues here. Number one is the passthroughs. It is a difficult one. I think its difficult to sell a tax reform bill that only deals with corporate and not individual. If you try that, i think you are not going to be successful. Finally, on the democratic side, i think a 60 votes are necessary. I think you should do this through regular order. I dont think you will be able to do this through the reconciliation process. There is one big other issue that david and i talked about, and that is that it is going to be very difficult for congress and democrats to provide thats provide that 60 votes for tax reform unless the president releases his tax forms. My guess is that [applause] i would say dont clap prematurely. [laughter] i think it was a vote of confidence in bill. [laughter] my guess is, this panel is on tax reform and health care so im going to stop on tax reform on this one and talk about things that arent on the bill later. The odds are growing that we would get a tax cut. Anything i will consider reform wont get through. The easiest thing would be to cut rates, say you did something, dont worry about the deficit, and move on. Does anybody have a strong disagreements with that prediction . Whose taxes are you cutting . Although mostly i believe that nobody will believe any prediction that we make here, im trying to make them vague enough to have a reasonable chance of them not being disproved. [laughter] i knew you mentioned this to me earlier, there is an interesting dynamic going on. Theres a lot of concern on the american family, about the pressures on working people, ivanka trump has raised to a level that we wouldnt have seen otherwise. I know you have an interest in this, do you think this is an area for something to happen and might this be something to move the rightwing of the Republican Party and pick up democrats . I think this is a great topic. I come at it not only as the head of the independent womens forum, everybody is out on Maternity Leave at the same time. This is an issue that is close to our hearts. I have three kids of my own, i have a father that is not well and lives on the west coast. The issue of paid leave is one that is personal to me. I am sure it is personal to everyone in this room. We need times in our lives to care for a baby, another Family Member, or just for life. Things happen. I think there has been certain tone deafness to what a lot of American Workers are going through. When you dig down on the issues, its not an issue of paid leave, or childcare. These are issues that affect the working poor. These are issues about poverty. I think, from our perspective, and certainly and many other forums of thinking, we dont want to create any more areas of ears ba bear rriers of entry into the workplace. Theres a tremendous opportunity to advance legislation, but i think it needs to be marketbased. We have proposed on the paid leave front and this is something we are seeing the white house very receptive of producers a twopronged approach where you would offer personal savings accounts for individuals to save tax preferred accounts up to a certain level, and then on the other side, incentive tax credits for small businesses. We can help alleviate some of the costs associated with offering benefits. We can also pay for some of this by consolidating some of the existing programs out there, especially on the childcare front. I think there is a great opportunity for republicans and we have people that are interested in moving that forward. You do feel you get favorable responses from republicans in congress . We absolutely do. There are several bills floating around right now. There was a Massive Survey project that was done and what they are finding is that the public is very favorable to a tax credit approach. I thought it was a striking comment on the current zeitgeist in washington that you could come to the committee and look at all the topics on their agenda, and the word deficit or debt doesnt appear. I think we are in a time where people dont want to think about the debt and the deficit. I dont think there is any action forcing event. The u. S. Treasury is borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars at low interest rates. Despite some of the polls that you see from the peterson foundation. I dont think well see a demonstration on the mall with people saying get rid of my medicare. Am i right about the complete lack of political interest in dealing with the debt and deficit, and what is it that changes what i perceive and that . To answer your second question, i think a crisis precipitates action on this. On your first question, as you know, it seems like for all my career i have been aimed toward reducing the level of debt out there. The current projections, to be fair, our way out of proportion. Even this is with relatively stable Economic Growth of 2 or 3 . 150 of gdp. I think that debt is still an issue. It is natural i guess but we worry about children and worry about the future, and yet, whats we are doing is reducing our childrens future and standard of living. Somebody will have to pay for this at some point. Yes, it is off the table right now, kind of. Even though the president will submit his budget on may 15, even his skinny budget will sound like it is reducing the deficit, but it is not. If you are reducing 52 billion out of defense and adding 52 billion onto defense, that is not achieving anything. The fastestgrowing component of the federal budgets will be paying interest on the public debt. I think that is an issue. I dont think that is on the agenda, unfortunately. When we get to the statute of raising the debt limits, we will have more discussion about this. We know if we want to do something about the debt in the future, we have to raise taxes, cut spending on entitlements or both. I dont see any prospect of either of those in the next two years. Do you see anything . No, and why would i . I have been listening to both the congress and the president [laughter] is that combat pay . Yeah. We have seen massive tax cuts that make the promises of previous massive tax cuts look like chump change that you found in the couch cushions. No particular anxiety about the consequences of that and tossing off faith and unrealistic promises of unrealistic growth. When you talk about the new type of republican, it is a remarkable spectacle of the republican nominee and now the republican president putting entitlement reform off of the table. You have a complete recipe for can kicking. It is remarkable. I agree with bill, we have tried other mechanisms and everything else. President obama came to the Washington Post right before his swearing in and promised that this visit was going to have a fiscal reform commission, and he was going to stop kicking the can down the road. Feeling thing that happened as a consequence of that, we kept kicking him with that quote for the next eight years so he never came back. [laughter] for the rest of his presidency, and the only i have become increasingly a believer of the only thing that can really force action in washington, in terms of unpleasantness, washington is good at doling out money. It is bad at inflicting pain. The only thing that will force action is a crisis, which is the worst type of moment to be creating a plan, but i think that is what we got. You look like you were bursting with some response. No . I robustly agree. Leon panetta says that he used to think that the things that moved washington were are either leadership or crisis. You his theory is being tested because we dont have any leadership and we have crises and nothing still happens on this front. A [laughter] that is why he went to pick walnuts or whatever he did. [laughter] we always frame it at its debt and deficit. To me, it is a spending problem. When you think of the portion of the budget, the growing portion of the budget that is being taken up by entitlements, these trends are easy to forecast. They are demographic trends. You look at how much money we are going to have to spend. You we have 40 , more than 40 of the people in this country under medicaid or medicare. I dont have to turn on my calculator to know that wont a work. You its a failure of trying to come to grips with cutting spending and politicians are bad and spending and politicians are bad at that. I just agree with that. When you break it down it is youwhen you break it down it is Social Security, medicare and medicaid. The house did go after medicaid in in a big way. A a about 880 billion. They used to that to offset the you will tax cuts. Will will there was a lot of will will skepticism about whether those cuts would happen. Is you were going to basically go based upon enrollment at the time. And you will you there was probably going to be enrollment bubble now and then and i know people work saying 2020, we are really going to do this in a president ial electionyear . That it was going to become the next version of i agree with you but im trying to get to this point. Take medicaid off the table, and then it is just Social Security and medicare. When the president takes those two off of the table, there is nothing else. The problem we had is that we promised to pay benefits in the future, most of it to the elderly, that exceed what we are going to collect in texas. At some point, we will have igher taxes. Im sympathetic to the tax code reform. I hope it has the productivity enhancements that the proponents say. Even thats, will be insufficient. I dont think the American People will lect members of congress who will cut Social Security and medicare enough to avoid a higher level of taxes. Im not saying all im saying is the problem cant be solved by raising taxes. I do agree with you. The way you describe it, im glad you tried it. But you describe it as a spending problem. You can do find it only has a spending problem if you put raising taxes off of the table. Will know because there is no way to fix it with tax. Im saying it is a spending problem because we made promises that are too generous. Im with peter. We cant raise taxes high enough in order to i did not say that we could solve this by raising taxes alone. What i said was we cannot sell salvage its bite only cutting spending. Neither thing is going to happen in the near term, and lets move on. After all these months of not having it. There are things we can do in between those two. I believe that is a spending cuts. Except there is a lot of fight. Im not saying you shouldnt do it. Peter, another thing that is not on the bill today is that frank and financial reform. Frank in response, largely with emocratic votes, we got frank, under a lot more regulation and a lot more regulation. The capital of the Banking System was inadequate, and we built it up. Have we gone too far, is it hurting the economy, or, on the other hand, is our memory so short we will emphasize the cost of the regulation and underestimates the benefits of of avoiding a crisis . That is a long question, and to explain, he is new to the Cato Institute on wall street for many years before that, so you come to this with some expertise compared to the rest of us. On the libertarian investment banker so i have you have multiple reasons to dislike me. Well played. I think there are a lot of people in both sides that see dodd frank is a destructive law. They are very asymmetrically divided between irms that can afford them. You basically created an incredible compliance cost, burden on inancial institutions. The larger ones are able to afford 15, 50 or 20 of expenses dedicated to compliance, and 15, 50 or 20 of expenses dedicated to compliance, and smaller ones arent able to bear that the burden. In the dynamic, there is a significant contraction and the number of small banks and community banks, and really no new banks being started. So a further aggregation of assets at the large financial institutions, at the same time, too big to fail wasnt eliminated by dodd frank. It was in effect codified by dodd frank. What would you do for the bigger banks if you did that regulation for the small ones . With respect to the financial choice act that was introduced last year, the cornerstone is to allow inancial institutions to opt out of the dodd frank institution if they hold a higher level of capital. That is a good solution to us out of the dodd frank because you are saying, we dont need to heavily regulates banks that are holding 10 or more capital because the track record of banks with that level of capital failing do you think that will be the law of the land . I think many of the things we are talking about has a better chance of happening because i think we there are lots of democratic staffers and members who will privately eight knowledge. Do you think big banks would take that to deal . Know, the big banks would bear the regulatory urden. The big banks dont like this type of idea because, like this type of idea because, i think, some of the ceos of the large financial institutions, and new york went on file on record im not sure they said that they ike it. That might be your ever to rotation your interpretation. We have about seven minutes, there are questions. Stand up and wave your hands madly buried in there is a woman right here. Tell us who you are and keep it hort. The president ran on dealing with the disastrous nafta agreement and we had the earlier panel talking about the irst hundred days. And how important trade was to tapping important trade was to tapping into that space. Tapping into that base. What is holding impatient wanting to move forward. Why cant he . Mr. Light has or has not been confirmed. I come from the idwest and a farm community, and i can tell you that the votes that trump got in indiana are starting to look a little bit difficult right now. If you start putting up barriers with mexico, mexico will start buying its corn from brazil and further down. If you start dealing with areas with china, you end up with soybeans not being purchased by china. I think there is rethinking going on on nafta. I think i would quickly say that nobody knew nafta could be so complicated. I think the answer, lisa from lex said that some ceos like ks and she was implying this was a deliberate Management Strategy from the president. I dont buy that. I think there s a real battle here for what, will the policy beyond trade. Be on trade. You can go round the country saying i was tough on trade. Whats we have, 16 dumping cages cases and china. The president seems greatly influenced by who we who you talked to. I dont think we know where it is going, but i do think that there is rethinking of the harsh protection rhetoric, the bumper stickers of the trumpet campaign, and i would suspect in this room, that is met with a sigh of relief. In my Bernie Sanders role, i have to say this terrible. I agree. I hope there will be a reassessment. President trump what in the been elected if there werent people in economic distress in our country. I think it is a misdiagnosis to blame it on trade. It we go down that route, we will make everyone four. To peters point, there is a big difference misdiagnosis to blame it on between campaigning and governing. I think it is very easy to get inside crowds of people hurting because of economic policies now and to his is what we need to do. When we actually get down to the governing, we have to emember the free society has two sides. It is not suddenly jobs, but it is also affordable goods and services. That is a big part of the discussion that is happening. I will take to other questions and let people answer them. The gentleman two sides. It is not suddenly there and the lady there. I dont you start . Im sara robinson, and my question is for ms. Schaper. Miss schaper shaffer. I agree with the messaging problem and i would like you to expand it n a little bit and maybe the others. I will take a couple questions and then we will answer that. The gentleman back there. My name is bill simon. Why do we think the egislative filibuster will survive . The script has been written, you made us do it, cript. Whether it is tax reform, another try at health are, budget, why, what magic sauce is there to keep the legislative filibuster . Ok, good question. One more . I guess not. Messaging. What is the message issue. I guess it depends on what we are talking bout. Whether its policy or the national debt. I think there has been forgetfulness thats we need to communicate these issues in a personal and emotional weight. The reason we dont to get anywhere with the debt in my opinion is that it is boring. When you Start Talking about deficits, peoples eyes glaze over and dont know what youre talking about. We have to remember that politics is personal and you have to connect with people in a way that resonates with their life. If we are talking about paid leave, it is not about hether the business down the street is going to get out of this, it is about the fact that the Hardware Store wants to retain workers, or the Family Member needs to leave. Street is going to get out of we need to talk about these things in ways people can identify with. Things that are more complicated or more boring, tax policies and the like, it is not that hard but conservatives have failed to do that. It is a very good question. My sense is a former senate separate for many years, the senate is different than the house. It was set up that way. It is meant to be the great deliver to body deliverative body. I think this judicial filibuster wasnt started by mcconnell. It mr. Reid started this with his actions. The legislative filibuster is something i still hink the United States senate, from a historical perspective, will want to protect to protect the minority. We dont want the passions of the house to override the passion of the senate. I could be wrong. I came 24th out of 26 and my ncaa. You get the from a historical perspective, last words. I dont have a mortgage anymore but if i did, i wouldnt bet it on the ilibuster. The majority of enators in both parties want to see it kept, but there is a lot of behind the scene angst that this staff is turned off y what the senator did when he was the leader. It is going to be very hard to resist president ial clamor and public clamor to do away with the legislative filibuster. I think my bet is on the side of its remaining, but i dont think it is near a short thing. Steve, over to you. Lease join me and thanking the panel