Republicans cut College Aid and Medicaid

[Moses]

This vote seems to have been suppressed in the media:

clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2006&rollnumber=4

[Moses]

Only two votes

Friday, February 03, 2006

BY EDITORIAL


In the end, it was so close. The budget bill that cut $40 billion from the budget and will inflict hardship on those who need Medicaid, student loans, child support enforcement and other federal programs passed the House of Representatives by two votes: 216 to 214.

Thirteen Republicans voted with the Democrats to reject the bill, including, to his great credit, Rep. Chris Smith, R-Hamilton, the only New Jersey Republican to oppose it. Four of those 13 Republicans had voted for the measure in December but changed their votes to "no" Wednesday after becoming fully aware of its damaging effects. If only two other Republicans had joined them, this bad bill would have been sent back to committee for revision.

Unfortunately, the other House Republicans -- including the remaining five from New Jersey -- stood fast with the House leadership and enabled the bill to pass. Because the Senate had approved it earlier, with Vice President Cheney casting a tie-breaking vote, it now goes to President Bush for his promised signature.

Under its provisions, by 2010 13 million low-income people eligible for Medicaid will be faced with significantly higher costs for medical care and prescription drugs because of co-pays that states will be allowed to impose. Many of these folks will forgo the treatment and medicine they need because they will be unable to afford it. Elderly persons in need of nursing-home care will find Medicaid eligibility requirements more stringent. Student financial aid will suffer the biggest cut in history, forcing students and parents to pay higher interest rates for their loans and making college unaffordable for some of them. The Congressional Budget Office says 255,000 fewer children in working families will get child-care help in 2010 than received it in 2004. And hundreds of millions of dollars in child-support payments from deadbeat dads will be lost because of cuts in aid for the enforcement of court orders.

These are some of the cruel consequences of a bill that slashes entitlement spending but extends generous breaks to health insurers whose lobbyists worked with GOP leaders of Congress behind closed doors. One Republican who switched his vote from "yes" to "no," Rep. Jim Gerlach of Montgomery and Berks counties, Pa., said he was "very concerned about how the legislation reduces funding for mental health and education as well as important health-care areas that will ultimately target our nation's most needy citizens."

Five New Jersey Republicans didn't see it that way, and their failure to oppose this bill made the difference: Jim Saxton, R-Mount Holly; Frank LoBiondo, R-Ventnor; Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Harding; Mike Ferguson, R-Warren, and Scott Garrett, R-Wantage. Some of the five are thought of as "moderate" members of the GOP. There was nothing moderate, or compassionate, about their votes on Wednesday.




© 2006 
© 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

[Moses]

House narrowly passes cuts aimed at social spending


By Robert Marus
Published: February 2, 2006



WASHINGTON (ABP) -- The House of Representatives gave final approval Feb. 1 to a deficit-reduction package that cuts programs for the poor and elderly -- over the objections of religious leaders and Democrats, who called the bill "immoral."

The measure's margin of victory was razor thin, passing on a 216-214 vote. That mirrored the Senate's action on the same bill Dec. 21, when that chamber deadlocked 50-50 on the $40 billion in cuts to growth in federal programs. Vice President Dick Cheney had to cut short an overseas trip to return and cast the deciding ballot in favor of the cuts.

Because most of the programs being squeezed -- such as Medicaid and student-loan programs -- serve the poor, many religious and anti-poverty leaders have spoken out against the budget package.

"My colleagues, the truth is, almost every religious denomination in this country has been lobbying against this legislation," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in debate on the measure. "They call it a budget deprived of spiritual hope and nourishing resources. That is the truth about the Republican budget, and Democrats insist that the public know it."

Among those voting against the bill were 13 Republicans -- many of them moderates, but also some conservatives who said they had been motivated to split from their party's leadership after hearing constituents who would be hurt by the cuts.

But President Bush, who backed the cuts, issued a statement praising the action. "The House today passed a significant spending reduction package that will curb the growth of entitlement spending for the first time in years and help us stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009," he said. "I look forward to signing this bill into law. The budget I propose next week will continue to build on the spending restraint we have achieved."

The bill also contained a little-noticed feature that concerned some religious leaders because it could discourage charitable giving by some elderly people on Medicaid.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty sent a letter to members of Congress Jan. 26 asking them to remove the provision before passing the final bill. According to BJC officials, the provision in question would change the so-called "look-back period" for Medicaid eligibility and alter the program's rules in ways that could cause seniors to fear their church offerings and other charitable gifts would count against them.

"While this legislation is intended to prevent wealthy individuals from taking advantage of the Medicaid program, it, in fact, punishes routine charitable giving by seniors of all income levels," the letter said. "For many people, giving to their church is a tenet of their religion. For many churches and non-profit entities, contributions by senior members are critical. One should not have to modify his or her religious practice out of fear of losing necessary Medicaid support."

Bush is required by law to provide his budget proposal for the following fiscal year to Congress on the first Monday in February.

He also is backing further tax cuts that could increase the federal deficit by $60 billion over the same five years for which the cuts are intended.

-30-


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[Moses]

EDITORIALS

Class war in Congress

In our opinion
02-03-2006

The nation is at war — class war. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill cutting benefit programs such as Medicaid and student loan subsidies. Several moderate Republicans voted against the cuts, which passed by two votes. But our own Mike Rogers supported the bill, enabling it to clear the House.

The budget-cutting provisions, which will be signed into law by the president, save a mere $39 billion over the next five years. That’s a tiny fraction of the total $1.3 trillion or more in debt that the federal government is projected to amass through 2010.

But the cuts will hit many struggling Americans hard. Nearly $12 billion in student loan subsidies will be slashed, and interest rates for repaying loans will rise.

The legislation also reduces Medicaid spending and will force most low-income Medicaid recipients to fork over higher co-payments for health services. And according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the cuts will increase the costs of prescription drugs for 13 million Americans, half of them folks below the poverty line.

But don’t get the idea that our representatives in Washington are all that serious about trimming the fat from the federal budget. House and Senate GOP negotiators, meeting behind closed doors in December, changed a Medicare provision in order to hand out an extra $22 billion of your taxes to HMOs.

Guess those lobbyists are still earning their keep on Capitol Hill.

Of course, Congress and the White House have no intention of rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, even though we’re facing a severe fiscal crisis in the years ahead.

But maybe a crisis is what conservatives really want. As influential right-wing activist Grover Norquist once said, the goal of movement conservatives is to get the federal government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” What charming folks.


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[Moses]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FEBRUARY 1, 2006
5:46 PM

CONTACT: Families USA
Dave Lemmon, Geraldine Henrich-Koenis
[phone]

 
House Passes Budget Bill; Medicaid Beneficiaries are the Big Losers
As Congress Prepares to Pass Multi-Billion Dollar Tax Cut, Huge Medicaid Cuts Will Disproportionately Harm Low-Income Children, Seniors, and People with Disabilities


 
WASHINGTON - February 1 - The following is the statement of Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, regarding the passage of the Budget Reconciliation bill in the U.S. House of Representatives:

“The draconian cuts to the Medicaid program that were passed by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier today will cause tremendous hardship for millions of low-income seniors, children, and people with disabilities. Those depending on Medicaid as their health care safety net will see a significant increase in their out-of-pocket expenses and, in exchange will receive even fewer benefits. To make matters worse, many of them will completely lose all access to Medicaid for their health care services.

“What makes this particular reconciliation package so insidious is that the House and Senate leadership are saying it needs to be done in the name of fiscal discipline and deficit reduction. However, Congress is poised to enact a massive tax cut bill that primarily favors the wealthy and ultimately dwarfs the size of this spending cut package. So, instead of reducing the size of the deficit, the net result of the budget and tax bills will be to add tens of billions of dollars to our already massive deficit.

“To make matters worse, the scope of this budget bill is very different from what the Senate originally approved late last year. The original Senate bill would have improved the cost-effectiveness of the Medicare and Medicaid programs through the elimination of big windfalls to the drug and insurance industries. Unfortunately, through closed-door deals in the conference committee, these laudable proposals were dropped, and Medicaid beneficiaries were instead targeted as the ones to absorb these massive cuts.

“It is wrong to balance another round of massive tax cuts for the rich on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens, especially when the resulting cuts will make needed health care unavailable.”

###

[Moses]

Reuters:
House passes, sends Bush $39 bln spending cuts 

 
Wednesday, February 01, 2006 7:08 p.m. ET
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives narrowly won passage on Wednesday of a controversial bill to trim about $39 billion from domestic spending over five years, capping a yearlong push to cut health care for the poor and elderly and other programs.

By a partisan vote of 216-214, the House approved the bill, sending it to President Bush for signing into law.
Bush said in a statement he was eager to sign the measure and that he would propose further "spending restraint" in the fiscal 2007 budget he will unveil on Monday.

The bill, approved in the Senate in December after Vice President Dick Cheney cast a rare tiebreaking vote, was approved by the House late last year. A small change made by the Senate forced another House vote.
The spending cuts are a high priority of conservative Republicans who want to continue cutting taxes amid huge budget deficits, which could top $400 billion this year.

"Today we can begin the process of controlling out-of- control government spending," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a conservative Republican.

Referring to $70 billion in proposed Republican tax cuts, Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said, "You don't have to be much beyond sixth grade to know that's going to add to your deficits" when offset by only $39 billion in spending cuts.

The Senate on Wednesday began debating a $70 billion tax-cut measure that would extend alternative minimum tax relief through 2006, ensuring that millions of middle-class families will not end up paying the tax that originally was intended for the very wealthy. [Is this an editorial comment?]

Besides the debate over whether the "Deficit Reduction Act" would actually live up to its name, lawmakers argued over how the spending cuts were being carried out.

Republicans said the reductions would begin to rein in "entitlement" programs that will account for a growing part of federal spending as the baby-boom generation qualifies for government health benefits. [Then why did they cut aid to young people who desire a college education?!]
"These programs need our reform," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican, who said the spending cuts would force improvements. [Oh, right. He's the REform candidate, isn't he?]

Democrats blasted provisions to save about $8 billion over 10 years by cutting federal enforcement of child-support payments and saving billions by allowing college student loan costs to rise.

MEDICAID CUTS
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that cuts to Medicaid spending would affect 13 million poor people, 20 percent of the program's participants. Many of those would be children, the CBO said. [NOT "baby boomers, notice]
The savings would include higher out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs and other medical care for the poor.

Lonny Lefever, 53, who lives in the small town of Rosewood in western Ohio, is a Medicaid participant diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1995.

Lefever told Reuters in a telephone interview that higher co-payments on the $1,800 in life-saving prescription drugs he takes each month would erode his only source of income, Social Security disability payments.

Asked how he would cope with higher out-of-pocket costs, Lefever said: "I'll be honest with you. My thought would be to get it (money for prescription drugs) any way I could. But I don't want to go to jail." He added: "I would just hope I'd last until we got some other responsible government in position to change these laws. It's scary."

Besides slowing the growth in many domestic programs, the legislation has a wide impact on U.S. policies.
It would change some banking regulations and increase the premiums companies would pay to the federal pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.

It also would end a U.S. trade law, declared illegal by the World Trade Organization, that let the government distribute duties it collects on foreign goods to American companies.

The bill also sets February 17, 2009, as the deadline when television stations must switch to airing only new digital broadcasts. It provides up to $1.5 billion to help some consumers buy converter boxes so existing televisions do not go dark after the transition.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. This story and its comments expire 30 days after original

[Moses]

Medicaid Cuts to Affect 13 Million


Thursday February 2, 2006 11:16 PM




By ANDREW TAYLOR

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Roughly 13 million people, or about one-fifth of the nation's Medicaid beneficiaries, will face new or increased co-payments and premiums for doctors visits, non-emergency hospital visits and prescription drugs under soon-to-be-enacted budget cuts. Those payments and premiums will be set by individual states.

Nine million of these beneficiaries - about half of them children exempt from such charges under current law - would face cost-sharing burdens for the first time under the $39 billion package of cuts passed by the House on Wednesday and now awaiting President Bush's signature.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2015, the new charges will drive 65,000 people off of the Medicaid program for the poor, either because they will forego care rather than pay premiums for co-payments or get dropped for failing to pay their share of Medicaid bills.

In fact, about 80 percent of the $9.9 billion in savings will accrue from people dropping out of the program, with only 20 percent coming from the higher cost-sharing requirements, according to CBO. [In other words, they are deliberately depriving people of medicaid -- the copays force them off]

States also would be able to scale back Medicaid benefits for about 1.6 million beneficiaries who have higher incomes and aren't disabled or pregnant, saving $6.1 billion over 10 years. Services such as eye and dental care and mental health treatments are likely to be affected.

Seniors, meanwhile, will find it more difficult to give away their assets to their children or others to qualify for government subsidized nursing home care.

On Medicare, Congress left beneficiaries pretty much alone rather than provoke the powerful seniors' lobby. However, better-off Medicare patients will face accelerated premium increases for doctor visits, and a provision that saved doctors from fee cuts will have the effect of increasing such Part B premiums - presently at $88.50 a month - for all Medicare beneficiaries by about $2.30 a month in 2007.

It's not all cuts, however.

For example, a program championed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, will expand Medicaid coverage to about 115,000 disabled children in families with incomes up to 300 percent of the poverty line. The cost is $6.4 billion over 10 years.

States also will find it easier to provide home- and community-based services to elderly patients who do not need the level of care provided by nursing homes. That program will cost $2.6 billion over 10 years.

---

On the Net:

Congressional Budget Office: www.cbo.gov

[Moses]

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4673252.stm


...."The sad truth is all of this is to pay for tax cuts to for the wealthiest people in our country," House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said, referring to $70bn in tax cuts proposed by Republicans.

The cuts - amounting to some $8bn a year - account for about 2% of the budget deficit, which this year is likely to top $400bn.

Overall federal government spending in the US is about $2.6 trillion a year, swelled by huge spending backed by the Republican-controlled Congress in recent years and by earlier multi-trillion-dollar tax cuts.

But most Republicans welcomed the bill, which they argue is a step toward curbing the federal deficit.

"Today we can begin the process of controlling out-of-control government spending," Representative Jeb Hensarling said.

However, correspondents say some members of the party were reluctant to support the cuts, especially in a year of mid-term elections.

The bill must now be signed by President Bush. He is due to release his 2007 budget plan, which is expected to call for more cuts, next week.