A year ago, President Trump told Americans watching his joint address, “Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people.”
President Trump will deliver his first official State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday night and while he’s ticked off many items on his to-do list in his first year in office — like reducing “massive job-crushing regulations” and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, there are several items he called for a year ago that have yet to be accomplished.
A month into his presidency, Mr. Trump delivered a joint address to both houses of Congress on Feb. 28, 2017. He called on lawmakers to send a bill to his desk that would repeal and replace Obamacare; he claimed a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would soon be built; he said that the military would receive a boost in funding and that the nation’s roads and bridges would be repaired.
None of those things has come to fruition.
The GOP tax bill, and Mr. Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to serve as a Supreme Court justice were the two major pieces of the agenda he highlighted in that first address that have been completed. His administration, he said at the time, with the help of the Republican majority, would “provide massive tax relief for the middle class.” In December, the president signed a major tax bill into law, though some critics contend that it will only benefit the wealthy and hurt the middle class.
Here are some of the items he called for last year that remain unfinished business:
OBAMACARE REPEAL
In that first address, the president called for Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare “with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and, at the same time, provide better healthcare.” Lawmakers, however, repeatedly failed to reach a comprehensive agreement last year that had enough votes to pass even under a simple majority. That goal also became a little more difficult with a Senate that’s even more closely divided, 51-49.
Under the tax bill, Republicans have repealed the 2010 health care law’s individual mandate.
IMMIGRATION
Immigration is one issue he’s expected to revisit Tuesday following the White House’s broad outline of a plan that would seek to enhance border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for people who came to the U.S. illegally as children, known as “Dreamers.” The framework calls for a $25 billion trust fund for the wall and a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers. Lawmakers have been negotiating a congressional proposal on immigration for weeks.
Last year, the president said in his joint address to Congress that “we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border.”
“As we speak tonight, we are removing gang members, drug dealers, and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our very innocent citizens,” he added. “Bad ones are going out as I speak, and as I promised throughout the campaign.”
Democrats, however, have managed to block border wall funding from passing Congress and as a result, only prototypes of a wall have been developed in San Diego. A wall is not yet under construction, and it’s unclear if Democrats will ultimately agree to enough funding to subsidize the administration’s plan.
INFRASTRUCTURE
The president also vowed last year that “crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land.”
But his administration has not yet unveiled a concrete plan for infrastructure reform.
In his initial response to the Amtrak train derailment in Washington state, President Trump pointed to his forthcoming infrastructure plan. The tweet did not take into account that the accident had, in fact, occurred on a newly constructed section of track when it derailed — not on one that was damaged.
MILITARY FUNDING
The president promised that the military would be “given the resources its brave warriors so richly deserve.”
In his speech last year, he said, “I am sending Congress a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester — and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history. My budget will also increase funding for our veterans. Our veterans have delivered for this nation, and now we must deliver for them.”
Congress is currently mandated to keep discretionary spending — including military spending — tightly controlled, or risk sequestration — automatic across-the-board spending cuts. Mr. Trump has repeatedly called on Congress to eliminate sequestration for the military, but lawmakers have not yet reached an agreement to lift spending caps for defense programs and non-defense programs. Congress twice passed such budget deals since 2013 that lifted those ceilings and the last one expired in September.
