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Democrat Kanew seeks to challenge Republican Rep. Blackburn Kansas City Star A film writer and producer says he is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee next year. The Tennessean reports that Justin Kanew says he was inspired to run for the heavily Republican 7th ... and more »

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Democrat Kanew seeks to challenge Republican Rep. Blackburn - Kansas City Star

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health research group, Pennsylvanians would see a 72 percent increase in out-of-pocket premium costs under the new bill, compared with a national average increase of 74 percent.

Mr. Alexanders carefully worded statement is technically accurate, but leaves a misleading impression.

The bill places a limit on the federal governments share of Medicaid spending for different groups at different times. In 2020, it pegs funding growth to the medical inflation rate for children and adults at 3.7 percent, and at 4.7 percent for disabled adults and older Americans. In 2025, growth for all groups would be tied to the Consumer Price Index.

But Medicaid spending for adults and children under the current law is expected to grow faster, at 4.9 percent per year a substantial difference in funding, the budget office said.

The budget office estimated that the bill includes tax cuts totaling $700 billion over the next decade. People at all income levels would see some of the money, but characterizing the cuts as a boon for the middle class is misleading.

More than $230 billion comes from repealing two taxes that apply only to individuals making over $200,000 a year. The bill would also eliminate a tax on health insurers, amounting to a cut of $145 billion.

Middle-class households would see an average tax cut of $280, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. In contrast, a household in the top 1 percent would get a cut of $250,000. Looking at overall distribution, two-thirds of the $700 billion would line the pockets of the richest one-fifth of Americans.

A reader asked The Times to check a graphic circulated in the White Houses newsletter, Your 1600 Daily, stating that premiums are up by 105 percent since the A.C.A.s enactment. Mr. Trump later bemoaned a 206 percent (actually 203 percent) increase in Alaska specifically.

The figures come from a May report from the Department of Health and Human Services that said premiums increased to $476 this year from $232 in 2013. According to the report, Alaska saw a huge jump in average premiums, to $1,041 from $344.

As The Times explained in a fact-check of Mr. McConnell, the comparison is imperfect and Mr. Trump errs further by selectively choosing the second-highest increase to exaggerate the reports findings.

Mr. Trump compares two fundamentally different universes of plans: all the plans on the individual market in 2013 and those only on the federal exchange in 2017. The plans are different, with Affordable Care Act plans covering more and sicker people and offering more comprehensive benefits.

The report also does not take into account premium tax credits that most Obamacare enrollees 93 percent in Alaska, according to a different Health and Human Services report receive to help blunt the cost of premiums. Subsidies in Alaska this year averaged $976 a month, so people actually paid significantly less under the current bill than they did in 2013.

An estimated 2.6 million people are uninsured because they live in states that did not expand Medicaid, but earn too little to qualify for premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act markets. Blaming the health care law for the coverage gap distorts a chain of causality.

As written, the health law provides subsidies for marketplace insurance for people with moderate annual incomes, from 100 to 400 percent of the poverty level (about $22,160 for a family of four). It simultaneously increases Medicaid eligibility for low-income individuals, to 138 percent of the poverty level from the previous threshold of 44 percent.

But the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the federal government could not compel states to expand their programs, with 19 states then declining to do so. In those states, people making 44 to 100 percent of the poverty level did not qualify for Medicaid or marketplace subsidies.

The A.C.A. intended to provide coverage across the income spectrum, said Rachel Garfield, a Medicaid expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The only reason that gap exists is because of those state decisions.

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Five Misleading Republican Claims About Health Care - New York Times

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Republican efforts to impose voter ID laws and redraw election districts both wound up in federal court. Dale Schultz ended 30 years in state politics lamenting the recent displays of partisanship.

Republican efforts to impose voter ID laws and redraw election districts both wound up in federal court. Dale Schultz ended 30 years in state politics lamenting the recent displays of partisanship.

by Topher Sanders ProPublica, July 3, 2017, 2:37 p.m.

Dale Schultz, a Republican, served in the Wisconsin Legislature for more than 30 years, from 1983 to 2015.His Senate district is located in south Wisconsin, much of it rural farmland. Schultz was considered a moderate, and so much of what happened in state politics near the end of his tenure dismayed him: partisan fights over the rights of unions, a gubernatorial recall election, and claims of partisan Republican gerrymandering that will now be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And then there was the prolonged entanglement over voting rights in the state who could vote, when they could vote, how they could vote. In the face of years of political combat and federal court fights, the legislature ultimately adopted a vast array of changes to election laws. Among them:

Voters would have to produce certain types of identification.

Early voting was reduced.

Restrictions on absentee balloting were implemented.

Time frames for how long people had to be residing in the state before they could vote were lengthened.

Republicans hailed the moves as overdue steps toward improving the integrity of state voting. Democrats cried foul, alleging a conspiracy to suppress votes among people of color and others inclined to vote Democratic.

Schulz was in office for the birth of the efforts to tighten voting procedures and often present for the Republican deliberations about their aims. Schultz, before leaving office, voted for the initial voting measures, a decision he came to regret. He opposed some of the subsequent measures as litigation over the issues made their way through the courts and his career wound down.

ProPublica had a rare interview with Schultz recently about the issue of voting in Wisconsin. The Q&A follows. It has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

ProPublica: You were initially in favor of Republican efforts to tighten voting and reconfigure districts. What first appealed to you about those ideas?

Dale Schultz: Well, the blunt truth is, as a partisan politician, your knee-jerk reaction is to protect the standing of your party because that solidifies your power to accomplish what you want to do. My good friend and former colleague, Tim Cullen, also served as Senatemajority leader but on the Democrat side, and weve said wereboth guilty of voting for redistricting maps which were politically motivated. This isnt a one party sin. It happens on both sides, and thats why we introduced our bipartisan bill to change how we redistrict in Wisconsin.Im happy the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the issue this fall.

TheRepublicans pushing the voter ID effort cited voter fraud as a concern and a reason to tighten voting rules and requirements. Did anyone ever show you compelling evidence of that?

No, in fact, quite the opposite. Some of the most conservative people in our caucus actually took the time to involve themselves in election-watching and came back and told other caucus members that, Im sorry, I didnt see it.

In terms of voting laws, look, I dont have a fundamentalproblem with having to show a photo ID in order to vote, but what I do have a problem with are the severe restrictions on what kind of photo ID is allowed and also using these laws to suppress the votes of specific groups.

We had more than 1,000 people watching the vote on Election Day. If millions of people voted illegally, we would have seen some sign of it. Read the story.

You need to understand, I come from the old school of the Institutionof the Senate. When I was coming up through the ranks, and even when I was majority leader, I put great stock and respect into the chairmanship system. When you were given a chair of a committee, you were expected to put the good of the Senateabove all else. So when the chair of the Senate elections committee says theres a problem with voter fraud in the state, and the committee passes a bill out, you take them at their word.

But thats on me.

Anyway, I ultimately ordered my staff to launch our own investigation and come up with three concrete examples of voter fraud in Wisconsin. Well, guess what? They couldnt do it, and you need to understand the time, I had graduates from the University of Wisconsin journalism school on staff whod worked for national publications. But we did come up with two examples. One was a Republican legislative staffer whod voted in the Madison area as well as back in her hometown in the same election. The other was the estranged wife of a Republican. Thats it, and both examples were on the Republican side.

Did you ever raise the lack of evidence with your Republican colleagues?

Our caucuses were quite raucous. Our meetings and how we dealt with one another was blunt.

I asked my colleagues to show me three specific examples, and all I got was a bunch of hand-wringing and drama-filled speeches about the buses of Democrats being brought up from Chicago. I said, Show me where that was ever prosecuted or even charges brought. It was crickets. Nobodycould give me an answer, and that was both an eye-opening and sad moment for me because I think it finally hit me that time-honoredtradition of the Institution of the Senate was all but dead.

You know, I had, I think its fair to say, a reputation for challenging the thinking of our caucuses. But if you find yourself in a situation where youredissenting too often, pretty soon people go, Well, he never agrees with us, hes not really one of us. Were not going to bother to listen. So, you learn to pick your spots and try to make a difference where you can.

I want to be clear. I dont want to cast myself as some sort of superhero. Look, Im a politician. I was for 30 years. Inherently, that means that you compromise and that everybodys hands get a little dirty as they try to work out a solution that is the best for people.

People were very frank and this is not a game for the timid. People were very emotional, but you know when it comes to casting votes, people know that once the decision is made, the team pretty much sticks together.

Talk about why you later came to regret ever voting for the measures.

I voted for the first voter law bill, and then I did what Id done since I first got elected in 1982; I went out and did my regular scheduled district office hours. It took all of my first stop to realize I didnt do my homework. I had town and village clerks coming up to me saying, Dale, are you nuts? Do you realize how restricting voting hours and early voting and absentee voting is going to affect how people can vote let alone making our jobs all the harder? They also made it clear that there was no voter fraud happening that they were aware of. Because of the feedback from my constituents, I voted no on the subsequent bills.

I enjoyed all the people I represented and it was a great honor. But there were occasions where people said, Dale, Ive heard your explanation on what youve done and why youve done it, but I think you got this wrong. And I think voter ID was one of those.

A long time ago my father told me on the farm, if you happen to, when youre out in the pasture, put your foot in a cowpie, dont sit there and explain why you stepped in it, just take it out. And its been my experience politically, that when you do that, and you explain the reasons, people tend to see that as a politician evolving and thinking and listening, and I think most people are hungry for that. And theyre supportive of that, as long as it doesnt become a daily flip-flop.

The numbers are in from the 2016 election in Wisconsin. The state surprised the pollsters by going for Trump. And now theres likely to be a long debate and examination of whether the voter ID and other measures played a role in that outcome. Any early thoughts?

Oh, yeah, all of these things have an impact. Even just constantly keeping up a steady drumbeat of claims about election fraud has an impact. It motivates a base. How big an impact probably varies from state to state. In very close elections, even seemingly small impacts can have great consequences.

You got out of elective office after 32 years. Why?

Well, because I like to think Im old enough and wise enough to know that theres more to life than politics, as important as its been to me and as enjoyable as it has been to me for all those years. Then again, its not that I havent been bothered by the changes Id seen around me or just the simple reality that it was less fun than it used to be as people stopped thinking and became more Pavlovian.

Topher covers racial inequality for ProPublica.

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A Wisconsin Republican Looks Back With Regret at Voter ID and Redistricting Fights - ProPublica

WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)- Today's rally in Wilkes-Barre centers around the ongoing debate over the controversial Republican healthcare bill.

Right now, lawmakers are discussing reforming and possibly repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Some of the biggest concerns from Democrats with the two proposals? Dramatic cuts to Medicaid- spending would be cut by 26%. Those cuts would start in 2021 and accelerate into 2025.

Opponents of the healthcare bill, which will be front and center in Washington after the July Fourth holiday say it wil lhave a devastating impact on people who rely on Medicaid for healthcare.

Among those impacted- the poor and those who are caught up in the ongoing opioid epidemic.

They all came from all walks of life, but with a single mission: stop the Republican driven healthcare bill.

"How absolutely inhumane," says Representative Eddie Pashinski. "We're going to cut the program and we're going to take the money away from the program so people who need it won't have it and give it to people who don't need it. The millionaires and billionaires."

The folks here are concerned the legislation would eliminate funding for all types of treatment programs. The biggest concerns? The opiod crisis. Based on the current pace, 142 people are expected to die from overdoses in LuzerneCounty this year.

"If you do the math, that breaks down to one person every two and a half days," says Steve Ross, Director of theLuzerne-WyomingCounty Drug-Alcohol Agency.

"We are making progress because of Medicaid expansion," says Senator Bob Casey.

Casey is one of the Democrats leading the charge against both versions of the Republican replacement for Obamacare.

"We cannot afford this Senate bill to pass," says Casey. "It will cut that Medicaid, city those services to people who are benefiting right now from the kinds of services, those kinds of treatment."

Other folks in the crowd like Martha Hart say they rely on Medicaid for their basic healthcare. If it's not there, they will be out in the cold.

"Medicaid means so much to me," says Hart. "I'm on disability. I worked for 35 years in healthcare myself. The only way for me to get anything is to go on disability."

Casey also says he's concerned about the recent rise in the numbers of people addicted to meth. He says those people are being forgotten in the broader concern with the opioid epidemic. He wants to make sure funding is available to help those folks as well.

Senators return from break the week of July 10th. That gives them three weeks before the Republican-imposed deadline of August 1st to make changes to their bill, pass it, and then send it to the house.

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Rally in Wilkes-Barre over Republican healthcare bill - PA home page

The debate promises to test the enduring relevance of one of the most fundamental principles of modern conservatism supply side economics, the idea that if you cut taxes far enough, the economy will expand to the point that it generates new tax revenue.

With the federal deficit growing and economic growth sputtering along in the low single digits, the Republican Party is facing questions from within over what many see as a blind faith in the theory that deep tax cuts are the shot of economic adrenaline a languid economy needs.

Tax cuts good. And thats about as much thinking that goes into it, said Chris Buskirk, a radio host and publisher of American Greatness, a conservative online journal. Now, he said, Republicans in Washington seem to be in an arms race to the lowest rates possible.

Everybody is trying to overbid each other, Mr. Buskirk said. How much more can we cut?

Outside Washington, Republicans are discovering there are limits.

In South Carolina, Republicans overrode their governors veto and a blocked a filibuster to increase the gas tax. They also rejected a series of broader tax cuts on the grounds that they were too expensive and voted instead to create a smaller tax incentive for low-income families.

The Republican governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam, signed into law the first increase in the states gas tax in almost three decades. He defied conservative groups that said a state with a $1.1 billion budget surplus had no business asking people to hand over more of their money.

And in the most striking rebuke of conservative tax policy in recent memory, Republicans in Kansas have undone much of the tax overhaul that Gov. Sam Brownback held up as a model for other states and the federal government to emulate.

A fantastic way to go, he said this year, urging Mr. Trump and Congress to follow suit with deep reductions to corporate and individual rates. But Republican lawmakers in Kansas decided that they could cut only so much without doing irreparable harm to vital services and voted to increase taxes by $1.2 billion last month. Mr. Brownback vetoed the plan, but Republicans overrode him.

Much of the devotion to tax cuts as an inviolable Republican principle stems from the success that President Ronald Reagan and Congress had in 1981 when they agreed to an economic recovery package that included a rate cut of about 25 percent for individuals.

But at that time, the highest marginal tax rates approached 70 percent, leaving much more to cut and a much larger chunk of money to be injected back into the economy. At some point, economists said, tax policy that is too aggressive leaves too little money to inject to make a difference.

Bruce Bartlett, who advised Reagan on the 1981 tax cuts, chastised Republicans for what he described as their reflexive desire to drive rates lower.

The essence of what the supply-siders were trying to accomplish was accomplished by the end of the Reagan administration, Mr. Bartlett said.

Yet, he added, Republican policy still mimics what was done under Reagan. Theyve got to keep pressing ahead no matter what, he said.

The situation in Kansas was, for at least some conservatives, a jolting realization that tax cuts can be too blunt an economic instrument.

After Mr. Brownback took office in 2011, he pursued a plan that included cuts and, in some cases, an outright elimination of taxes for businesses and individuals to help invigorate the states underperforming economy. He described it as an experiment in conservative governance that could demonstrate what Republicans were capable of if they controlled legislative and executive branches across the country. (He is Kansas first Republican governor since 2003.)

The conservative movement got behind him. The plan was approved with the lobbying muscle of the billionaire Koch brothers political network, which is overseen from Wichita, where one of the brothers, Charles G. Koch lives. It had the blessing of prominent conservative economists like Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer, the Republican Partys foremost supply-side evangelist.

In urging the Kansas Legislature to act, Mr. Laffer and Mr. Moore said the cuts would have a near immediate positive impact on the economy. Mr. Brownback said the plan would pay for itself.

That is where the parallels with Washington start to trouble those who are critical of the plan the Trump administration has laid out. The plan would slash the rate paid by businesses to 15 percent and shrink the number of individual income tax brackets from seven to three 10, 25 and 35 percent.

Mr. Laffer and Mr. Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist, have both helped shape the presidents tax policy.

Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said the Trump tax cuts would pay for themselves with the economic growth they would inevitably create.

In Kansas, the predicted economic bloom did not materialize. Employment and economic growth have lagged far behind the rest of the nation. The state treasury had so little money to spread around that the Kansas Supreme Court found that the states spending on public education was unconstitutionally low.

If there were three words I could say to Congress right now, said Stephanie Clayton, a Republican state representative from a district in the Kansas City area, they would be, Dont do it.

She criticized what she said was a desire by her party to be more faithful to the principle than to the people Republicans were elected to help. Mr. Brownback and many conservatives, she said, overpromised on the tax cuts as a sort-of Ayn Rand utopia, a red-state model, citing the author whose works have influenced the American libertarian movement.

And I loved Ayn Rand when I was 18 before I had children and figured out how the world really works, Ms. Clayton added. Thats not how it works, as it turns out.

Mr. Trump and Republicans in Washington are undeterred. Kansas, they argue, is not an economic microcosm for the country, with its unique dependence on energy, agriculture and aircraft manufacturing. And lawmakers there never could reduce spending enough to correspond to the much lower level of tax revenue coming into the state treasury.

Many conservatives who support a tax overhaul said they anticipated considerable growth with a reduction in corporate rates, which are among the highest in the world. If those are lowered to 15 percent, down from the current 35 percent, businesses will not only reinvest in the United States but relocate here, they said.

At 15 percent, Swiss bankers will move here, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

But restraining federal spending is still going to be a key part of the equation. What you need is not an explosion of spending, Mr. Norquist added. And you need the economy to grow faster than the size of the government.

In a world in which Mr. Trumps deconstruction of the administrative state reduces the size and cost of the government, the tax cuts make sense. But if lawmakers do not have the nerve to find savings somewhere, like in the social safety net for retirees, the outcome could end up resembling something close to Kansas failed experiment.

The question is whether you can put together some kind of revenue-neutral tax reform, said N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. I dont see the political will to do that right now. Certainly not in this environment.

A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2017, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Cut Taxes? In States, G.O.P. Goes Other Way.

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How Low Can Taxes Go? Outside Washington, Republicans Find ... - New York Times