The Alabama Policy Institute (API) on Wednesday released a plan dubbed the “RESTORE Alabama Plan” intended to help Alabama recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. They also called upon Gov. Kay Ivey to call a special legislative session and to include the RESTORE Alabama Plan in her call.
RESTORE — Responsible Efficient Solutions to Open and Revive the Economy — advocates six major points of policy API believes must be addressed to help the Yellowhammer State recover from the novel coronavirus.
“It is clear that there will likely be a special session – and in fact there should be,” explained API President Caleb Crosby. “In releasing the RESTORE Plan, we are asking Governor Ivey to not just call a special session, but to tailor her ‘call’ [to]meet the needs of Alabamians as we slowly crawl toward normalcy in our everyday lives and with the economy. If these policies are enacted, Alabama will be positioned in the best manner possible for a full recovery post coronavirus.”
The six planks of the RESTORE Alabama Plan are as follows:
- Calls for the enactment of a bill sponsored previously by Senator Arthur Orr that would protect businesses, churches, non-profits, and others from frivolous and costly lawsuits related to the coronavirus.
- Asks the governor to include in her special session call legislation that would restructure how future quarantines are handled and clarifies that the burden must be shared by both the legislative and executive branches of government.
- Says budget amendments should be passed to both state budgets, which allows appropriations to blanket the state in full access to broadband internet. To the extent possible state leaders should use one-time federal monies from the CARES Act and supplement that as needed with funds from Alabama’s rainy-day trust fund as API believes this pandemic has made it clear the state’s internet connectivity is inadequate and improved access to online telemedicine and educational opportunities are essential.
- Points to the Governor’s recent “temporary” suspension of restrictive licensure regulations and rules on the establishment of healthcare services. The Governor should call upon the legislature to enact her timely and appropriate current suspension of licensures and CON requirements for the next 12 months to ensure the state gets fully past this current crisis.
- State legislators must return to the debate on the renewal of the Alabama Jobs Act to incentivize the growth of existing businesses and the recruitment of new employers to the State. This legislation must, by necessity, also include incentives to small businesses who have suffered losses during coronavirus to invest in their own infrastructure and to hire/rehire from Alabama’s labor pool. Additionally, this legislation should ensure no business in Alabama is taxed for receiving federal monies due to the coronavirus.
- The pandemic has shown us that the state’s education system must be flexible and nimble; recent school closures should be used as a catalyst to providing educational freedom and allow education savings accounts for any child who is in a failing school and wants to change schools. Education tax dollars are for the education of a child, not to feed a failing system. This is a fair and equitable solution to a problem that is not going away without game-changing action.
“The RESTORE Plan is bold, ambitious, and exactly what our state needs,” added former State Senator and API’s Director of Policy Strategy, Phil Williams. “Everything we have laid out will help Alabama families, Alabama businesses, will improve Alabamians’ lives, will strengthen private enterprise, and will give our children the chance at a brighter future.”
A copy of the report released to the Governor and her Task Force is available here.
