Weekahead Highlight: $$ Negotiations
With Congress out of session again next week, our team will be tracking preparations and informal negotiations with lots of dollar signs attached.
Committees will be preparing for hearings as lawmakers try to make good on the goals of their hard-fought budget resolution, and federal agencies will be working on their fiscal 2026 budget wish lists — which in the current environment, may largely turn out to be don’t-spend-on-this lists. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for completing a massive domestic policy bill that will try to deliver on spending cuts, Ken Tran reports.
House Republicans also will be diving into permanent extensions of the 2017 tax cuts. As for the within-the-administration discussions, one proposal to watch would zero out money for some refugee services, Ellen M. Gilmer reports.
And a program that has political patrons of all parties, especially in cold-weather states, is on the administration’s chopping block, Kellie Lunney reports. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program provides aid to about 6 million families who can’t afford to heat or cool their homes. It would get no funding next year under a draft document.
Dig into the details:
- House GOP Aims to Pass Tax, Spending Cuts Bill by Memorial Day
- Refugee Money Cut, Migrant Child Fund Launched in Trump Plan
- Trump Proposes Eliminating Low-Income Energy Assistance Program
- Congress Is Prioritizing SALT Break That Few Americans Claim
Date Set for Ukraine Deal-Signing ‘I Guess’
Remember when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy clashed with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in a no-diplomacy-as-usual Oval Office exchange? In addition to way too much online conversation about suits and ties at the White House, a bilateral deal on minerals fell apart.
Now it’s back on. “We have a minerals deal which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday,” Trump said. “And I assume they’re going to live up to the deal.”
Trump had demanded a development deal as compensation for the weapons and other aid the US provided after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Once it’s signed, the next steps to watch will be ceasefire negotiations with Russia.
Zelenskiy says Beijing supplied gunpowder and artillery ammunition to Moscow, and that China is involved in the production of some weapons on Russian territory. Read More:
- Trump Says US to Sign Ukraine Minerals Deal Next Thursday
- Zelenskiy Accuses China of Supplying Russia With Weapons
- Rubio Says ‘Going to Move on’ if Ukraine War Can’t Be Ended
Eye on the Economy
The timing couldn’t be more interesting for finance chiefs from around he world to come to town next week for International Monetary Fund meetings. Uncertainty is something they all have in common now that Trump upset the economic status quo with his tariffs, pauses, and demands for concessions.
How all that plays out has a global ripple effect. The IMF’s mission is financial stability — helping less-prosperous countries so they can grow jobs at home and keep their citizens from migrating in search of work.
“Disruptions incur costs,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. While some countries will see faster inflation, “our new growth projections will include notable markdowns, but not recession.”
The IMF releases its latest World Economic Outlook forecast on Tuesday.
Later in the week we’ll see an updated check on the pulse of American shoppers: the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey. The preliminary figures for April showed a slide to the lowest number in decades except for one month in 2022.
And there’ll be more trade talks. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said administration officials are expected to meet in the week ahead with negotiators from South Korea. “We have a lot of countries that want to make a deal. Frankly, they want to make deals more than I do,” Trump said after yesterday’s meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
See also:
- Trump Says He’s Confident of EU Trade Deal But In ‘No Rush’
- EU Weighs Export Restrictions on US If Trade Negotiations Fail
- China Pledges to Help Tariff-Hit Exporters Find Local Buyers
Musk’s Employees to Vote on Giving Him a Company Town
Elon Musk’s employees living in
The ballot question for a small part of Cameron County is whether to spin off the land where rockets are built and launched into a standalone municipality called Starbase. Of the roughly 250 lots of land within the proposed new city limits, only 10 don’t belong to the company, the Associated Press reported.
The petition to get on the ballot includes the name of a single candidate for mayor: Gunnar Milburn, security manager for SpaceX, and of the 70+ residents who signed the petition, almost all were marked as being SpaceX employees.
Early and day-of (May 3) vote-counting shouldn’t take long, with just under 500 people living in the area, including more than 100 children.
Before You Go
A little more news to know as the Washington workday begins;
- Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) did get to meet with the man from his state in who was deported by the US to an El Salvador prison in an “administrative error.” The senator didn’t say in his post on X where they met, but he would be “providing a full update upon my return.” Read More
- Even though HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made infant formula a priority with his “Operation Stork Speed,” FDA researchers focused on reducing contamination in powdered formula and on developing new ways to kill a sometimes fatal bacteria during manufacturing are now on administrative leave until June 2. Then they’ll be out. Read More
- “We are all afraid,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said at a public forum. “We are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.” — Anchorage Daily News
- More layers to this nominee: Suzanne Monyak reports that “stop the steal” rally organizer, frequent Russian television guest, and acting federal prosecutor Ed Martin also is the author of laudatory-about-Trump coloring books that refer to top Democrats as #SwampTraitors. Read More
Is a friend forwarding Starting Line? SIGN UP to get your own. (It’s free.)
— With assistance from
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editor responsible for this story: