Forbes | Warning Republicans (Part 2) On Presidential Expectations Forbes Donald Trump is now President of the United States so let the expectations games begin in earnest! Of course, every new presidency brings a great deal of hope for the future. Historically, they also bring more expectations than could not possibly be ... |
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Warning Republicans (Part 2) On Presidential Expectations - Forbes
In the same week as the March for Life and the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, congressional Republicans are presenting strikingly different messages on the issue. While the House of Representatives on Tuesday approved legislation (H.R. 7) that would prohibit federal funding of abortions, with all House Republicans present voting for the bill, on Monday four Republican senators introduced a bill that would allow direct taxpayer funding of abortions.
That legislation, the Patient Freedom Act (the PFA, Senate Bill 191), introduced by senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), would go further than Obamacare in funding abortion coverage. Whereas Obamacare provides federal funding for insurance plans that cover abortion, the Patient Freedom Act would allow for direct federal funding of abortion procedures themselves.
The PFA (text here, and a summary here) gives states a choice of three options regarding the health care system within their borders. They can:
The text of the legislation indicates a clear bias towards option two. If a state does not choose any of the three options, that state will automatically be placed in the second.
If a state chooses the second option, most of the provisions of Title I of Obamacare would not apply. That repeal would include the individual and employer mandates, and some (but not all) of the federal benefit mandates included in Obamacare.
Crucially, for states that select the second option (or the third, for that matter), the PFA would repeal Section 1303 of Obamacare, which imposes some restrictions on federal funding of abortion plans. Section 1303 permits states to prohibit abortion coverage on their insurance exchanges, and requires insurers to set up a segregation mechanism intended to keep federal insurance subsidies separate from funds that pay for abortion procedures.
Pro-life groups have attacked the Section 1303 restrictions as an accounting sham because money is fungible, and therefore the segregation scheme meaningless. Further, a September 2014 Government Accountability Office report noted that many insurers had not even followed the segregation regime.
However, Obamacare made an attempt, albeit a largely meaningless one, to prevent taxpayer funding of abortion. By contrast, the PFA makes no such attempt to do so.
Because the PFA itself includes no restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion, its critical to examine the source of funding for the new state-based allotments. While the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding of abortion, it does so only for appropriations provided through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spending bill. Other agencies covered through other spending bills must explicitly prohibit funding of abortion coverage, otherwise federal funding of abortion would be permittedand potentially required by courts as a necessary medical service.
The Patient Freedom Act includes only one new appropriation, for a population health initiative created by Section 103(c) of the bill. Therefore, the bill relies on Obamacares existing funding streamthe insurance subsidies provided in the form of refundable tax creditsto finance the allotments to individuals Roth HSAs. Because that funding stream goes through the Department of the Treasury via the Internal Revenue Code, the Hyde Amendment restrictions do not applymeaning that federal funds can, and will, finance abortion coverage.
The legislation the House passed on Tuesday (H.R. 7) included an explicit ban on using Obamacare subsidies to fund abortion, or plans that cover abortion. (The ban is in Section 201(a) of the bill.) Because the Patient Freedom Act uses the exact same funding stream to finance its allotments, the sponsors needed to include an explicit ban on abortion funding in their legislation. They did not.
Not only would the Patient Freedom Act provide federal funds to insurance plans that cover abortion, it would allow individuals to fund their abortions directly with federal funds. The federal allotments would be directly provided (using a state-based formula developed by the Department of Health and Human Services) to eligible individuals using the new Roth Health Savings Account option. Recipients can use Roth HSA funds to fund health insurance premiums, provided those premiums are for plans that meet several federal mandates, or they can use their account to fund qualified medical expenses.
The definition of qualified medical expensesavailable at Section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code hereincludes no prohibition on abortion as a medical expense. Because the Internal Revenue Code is not subject to the Hyde Amendment, that laws restrictions would not apply. Therefore, individuals could use federal dollars deposited into their Roth HSA to fund abortion procedures.
Current law does permit some tax breaks for abortion coverage. The tax code exempts employer-provided health insurance premiums from income and payroll taxes. Because some employer plans cover abortion, individuals receive a tax benefit for abortion coverage. Likewise, individuals can currently use their HSA funds to pay for abortions, given the definition of qualified medical expenses.
However, in both those cases, individuals and employers are using their own money to fund abortion procedures, and receiving a tax break from the federal government for doing so. By contrast, the Patient Freedom Act goes further, allowing the direct use of the federal governments money to cover abortions, and plans that cover abortions.
That is a significant expansion of federal abortion funding that exceeds anything in Obamacare. And its a strikingly odd message for the senators to send on a week when many conservatives are focusing on protecting innocent life, not using taxpayer funds to destroy it.
Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, a policy consulting firm based in Washington. He's on Twitter @chrisjacobshc.
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Four Senate Republicans Want To Make Taxpayers Pay For Abortions - The Federalist
The healthy school lunch program championed by former first lady Michelle Obama has had its fair share of criticism -- but with a new administration in place, the program could be rolled back.
A document released by the office of Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., called for repealing certain aspects of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 the legislation that helped put Michelle Obamas hallmark program into law. The initiative is part of a broader plan released by Meadows titled, First 100 Days: Rules, Regulations, and Executive Orders to Examine, Revoke and Issue.
The document calls for the Trump administration to reverse nearly 200 rules and regulations, including the requirements of the 2010 law.
The regulations have proven to be burdensome and unworkable for schools to implement, reads a related report from the House Freedom Caucus, of which Meadows is a member. Schools are throwing food away that students are not eating.
Since 2012, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has implemented the requirement tied to the 2010 law that schools include either a fruit or vegetable for lunches subsidized by the federal government. However, a report published in August 2015 by researchers at the University of Vermont found even though students added more fruits and vegetables to their plates, children consumed fewer [fruits and vegetables] and wasted more during the school year immediately following implementation of the USDA rule.
Titled Impact of the National School Lunch Program on Fruit and Vegetable Selection, the report noted that average waste increased from a quarter cup to more than one-third of a cup per tray. Observing students at two northeastern elementary schools during more than 20 visits to each, researchers took photos of students trays after they chose their items, as they were exiting the lunch line and again as they went by the garbage cans.
The study's conclusions comport with widespread complaints from school officials and parents that the program encourages food waste. It also has drawn criticism for cost, implementation difficulties and unpopularity with students.
Further, since the restrictions on calories, fat, sugar, sodium, whole grains, fruits and vegetables went into effect, it is estimated that over 1.2 million students have stopped eating school lunches, according to EAGnews.org. School systems also dropped out of the program because it led in some cases to compliance costs exceeding the amount of federal subsidies received.
According the education news site, some schools had to get creative in disposing of the food waste, feeding leftovers to pigs and other animals at nearby farms.
There have been positive results from the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, a report was released earlier this month in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics in which researchers from the University of Washington Nutritional Sciences Program concluded the standards had a substantial impact on the quality of food provided at schools.
The researchers looked at the nutritional value of nearly 2 million meals selected by 7,200 students in several middle and high schools in an urban school district in Washington state. The scientists compared data collected in the 16 months before the standards were carried out with data from the 15 months after the standards were put in place -- and found an increase in six nutrients: calcium, vitamin C, vitamin A, iron, fiber, and protein.
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Republicans look to scrap Michelle Obama school lunch plan - Fox News
South Dakota Republicans are on the verge of doing something that backfired spectacularly for congressional Republicans earlier this year: Getting rid of an independent ethics commission.
What is a politically tricky endeavor for any lawmaking body could beeven more precarious for the state's lawmakers, given that the commission they want to cut was approved by51 percent of voters in a ballot initiative this November. The independent commission was part of a larger voter-approved ethics reform package thatput limits on campaign finance and lobbying access.
State lawmakers metMonday to debate repeal of the entire law, and Republican leaders say the bill could be on the governor's desk by the end of the week. Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) has indicated he would sign a repeal. In his December budget address, he lambasted the ethics package, declaringthat voters were hoodwinked by scam artists who grossly misrepresented these proposed measures.
As Daugaard's rhetoric suggests,Republican opposition to the voter-approved ethics package has been fierce.
Days after the election, 25 GOP lawmakers and a conservative lobbying group challenged the law in court, declaring that voters were tricked into supporting something that could be unconstitutional, for a variety of reasons. A South Dakota judge subsequently paused it from going into effect. Though the judge said some parts of the law could be saved, GOP lawmakers decided it was better to start from scratch.
It would only stand to reason from that logic that we repeal it in its entirety, said state Rep. Larry Rhoden, one of the Republicans leading the repeal effort.
Rhoden said lawmakers are considering other ethics reform legislation and added there was no rush to do something: We are pretty squeaky clean, and I can say that with a great deal of pride in South Dakota; the ethics among the people that serve the state in the legislature, I would call impeccable.
Lawmakers are also debating a bill that would double the required signatures to get an initiative on the ballot in South Dakota.
Democrats and progressive groups in South Dakota don't see it that way. They are accusing Republicans of picking apart the law to get out of having an independent ethics commission look over their shoulders.
Support for the anti-corruption act was wildly nonpartisan, said Doug Kronaizl, a spokesman with the grass-roots group Represent South Dakota, which advocated for the ethics package. He pointed out that no ballot initiative in South Dakota can pass without Republican support, because there simply aren't enough Democrats in the state. (Out-of-state money on both sides poured into the referendum.) At least two former Republican state senators campaigned for the reform package. It's troubling when legislators tell us we were 'hoodwinked' or don't know what we were voting for.
Did I agree with everything in Initiative Measure 22? said state Senate Minority Leader Billie Sutton (D). Probably not, but I think it's our job to respect the will of the voters and to fix pieces that may be considered unconstitutional.
The nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity recently ranked South Dakota 47th in the nation for accountability, largely because of its lax lobbying laws. Little to none of [state legislative and lobbyist interaction] is reported to the public in any detail, the report said.
Proponents of the ethics commission say South Dakota has earned its F rating on integrity. The state has been wracked by two major ethics scandals in the past two years: Investigations into misuse of the federal green card program for wealthy immigrant investors and the theft by a private company of more than $1 million of federal grant money to help Native Americans get ready for college.
As a grim aside, people implicated in both scandals either committed suicide or murder or both.
Republicans counter that this new ethics commission would not have been able to stop those scandals because they involved misuse of federal, not state, funds.
The whole saga has echoes of what happened three weeks ago in Washington.
On the eve of Congress's first day back insession in 2017, Republicans in control of the House of Representatives pushed a provision that would have gutted an independent ethics officethat investigates them. Republicansabruptly dropped the planafter public backlash from their constituencies and two tsk-tsk tweets from then-President-elect Donald Trump.
In South Dakota, the battle is largely along partisan lines. More than two-thirds of Republican lawmakers have signed onto the repeal effort; not one Democrat has. (That may also be a function of just how small the Democratic Party is in South Dakota: There are 16 Democrats in the entire 105-person legislature.)
All thatproponents of the ethics law can do is watch Republicans undo it and try to point out what, from their vantage point, looks like irony. More than a century ago, South Dakota was the first state in the nation to create a referendum process as a check on its legislature.
This isn't the first time South Dakota lawmakers have tried to change a voter-approved ballot initiative. In 2014, voters passed a ballot measure increasing the minimum wage; GOP lawmakers again claimed voters didn't realize what they had done and passed legislation excluding anyone under 18 from the paycheck boost.
Minimum-wage advocates successfullygot a referendum on November's ballot to override the legislature's changes to the law. That referendum passed by 71 percent, and the minimum wage went back up to $8.50 an hour for all workers.
We think it's pretty clear that the voters don't like when the legislature comes in and messes with our laws, Kronaizl said.
Advocates won't get a second chance to reinstate theirethics package. Lawmakers are considering the repealunder a protection known as state of emergency, which effectively prohibits a referendum on it.
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South Dakota Republicans are about to get rid of the state's first independent ethics commission - Washington Post
As the gavel fell on a critical vote advancing the global trade agenda, Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) pumped his arm, fist-bumped three Republicans and high-fived another.
That was June 2015.
On Monday, President Trump delivered a knockout blow to that agenda. On his first full work day in the Oval Office, Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade pact among a dozen nations that was supposed to have been eased into passage by Ryans leadership 19 months ago.
Trumps move was largely symbolic because Ryan, who was elevated to House speaker a few months after that celebrated vote, had already waved the political white flag on what would have been the worlds largest trade deal.
Throughout 2016, Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled that support for the deal had collapsed in both chambers in large part because presidential candidates including Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had successfully portrayed it as a bad pact for American workers.
Still, Trumps actions demonstrate his seriousness about reversing decades of Republican orthodoxy on globalism a pledge he renewed during Fridays inaugural address, when he committed to an America first agenda.
These actions also show the rocky road that may lie ahead for congressional Republicans on a range of policy issues. On Thursday, Trump and Vice President Pence will join their Republican brethren at an issues retreat in Philadelphia to talk about getting on the same page.
If past is prologue, Trump wont be asking for the Hills help. Hell be telling his fellow Republicans to get on board or step out of the way. They, in turn, will be figuring out how to stick to their principles while also positioning to play a role in Trumps success.
The abandonment of the TPP came a short time after Trumps meeting with business executives, during which he again voiced support for tariffs or a border tax on U.S. companies that build products with cheap foreign labor and ship them to the United States. That policy has already caused friction between the new president and traditional conservatives such as Ryan.
Trump then met with several labor leaders, whose unions had backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race to tout his infrastructure agenda. And White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that more executive actions on trade are likely to come later this week.
Its a stunning reversal for a party that, just two summers ago, continued to support a free-trade agenda.
[TPP trade deal is dead until a new president revives it, McConnell says]
Ryan, who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at the time, played the lead role in legislation granting special fast-track rules for trade deals for the last months of Barack Obamas presidency and the first few years of the new administration. The measure won support from 194 Republicans in the House and 48 in the Senate; thats nearly 80percent and 90percent, respectively, of the GOP caucus in each chamber.
It was one of the most important pieces of legislation Ryan ever shepherded into law, as his emotional response on the House floor indicated. It reflected an ideology that was part of the Republican bedrock since at least the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Throughout the Obama years, Ryan became the public face of that brand of conservatism, projecting faith in U.S. leadership in open, global markets. It gives America credibility, Ryan said during final debate over the 2015 fast-track bill. And boy, do we need credibility right now.
That period created a deep rift among Democrats who bitterly fought their president on the issue, particularly those in the Midwest, where the manufacturing sector has been crushed by the movement of jobs overseas and automation in the plants that remain here. In an odd twist, Democrats provided some of the biggest applause to Trumps formal withdrawal from the trade treaty.
Its a pleasant surprise to me. Im glad that we have a president thats joining us, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), a leader of the opposition to TPP, said Monday evening. She shook her head at the work that McConnell and Ryan put into passing the fast-track legislation intended to lay the groundwork for passing the Pacific trade deal.
I think their heads must be spinning right now, Stabenow said.
Ryans advisers say the opposite, that the politics of trade had shifted long before Trump won the presidential election an election in which Clinton, who helped negotiate the initial contours of TPP, reversed course and became an opponent of the deal.
President Trump is wasting no time acting on his promises, Ryan said in a statement Monday after the new president issued a string of executive orders. On trade, Ryan noted: He has followed through on his promise to insist on better trade agreements.
[ Its mostly kumbaya so far for Trump and GOP in Congress ]
Republican advisers are quick to say that the bulk of GOP lawmakers still believe in negotiating trade deals. Except now the focus is on smaller, bilateral deals with one nation at a time, as opposed to the more sweeping multilateral deals involving many nations.
Wilbur Ross, a billionaire financier who is Trumps nominee for Commerce secretary, voiced support for that approach during his confirmation hearing last week.
This reorientation on trade is one of several key policy areas that the Ryan and Trump wings of the party must work through in the months ahead. In his address Friday, Trump returned to his dream of pushing a massive new infrastructure bill for roads, bridges and airports the kind of largesse that House Republicans have furiously fought in the past.
And all sides within the party are struggling to explain the process and details of how theyre going to replace the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have promised to repeal.
On Monday evening, Trump met privately with Ryan after a larger, bipartisan huddle at the White House with congressional leaders. The speakers aides said the meeting focused on every major policy issue of the moment.
What they didnt say is what the two men agreed on and what they didnt. Which leaves a burning question for Ryan: Will he get on board or step out of the way?
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Trump is going after Republican orthodoxy. How will Paul Ryan adapt? - Washington Post