Having achieved their primary goal of enacting a tax overhaul in 2017, President Donald Trump and the majority Republicans in Congress are looking to tackle an effort to shore up the nation’s infrastructure early in 2018.
In a midterm-election year where all House seats and a third of the Senate’s are up, the GOP will be playing both offense and defense. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), in a move that would appeal to the party’s base, has said he hopes to overhaul federal safety-net programs.
Midterms are generally a challenge for the party controlling the White House in a president’s first term. And special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, and the potential involvement of the Trump campaign, continues to hold peril for the GOP. Democrats during the fall campaigns are expected to cast the new tax law as a boon to the wealthy.
On the economy, the Federal Reserve expects continued improvement and has penciled in three rate increases for the year. The U.S. faces the prospect of a new era in monetary policy when Janet Yellen steps aside as the bank’s top official. And negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement are expected to come to a head, with big implications for the automobile industry, agriculture and for relations among the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
