Senate committee undoes Medicaid cut, revives old budget
A Senate budget committee on Friday resurrected a cut-filled budget that Gov. Robert Bentley vetoed in June as lawmakers remain at an impasse over taxes and revenue. The action essentially puts state politicians back to where they started when summer began, with state agencies facing more than $200 million in cuts and no agreement on how to fill the shortfall. Lawmakers anticipate a second special session later this fall. “I think we will be back in a second special session,” Senate Finance and Taxation Committee Chairman Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said. The Senate committee rejected a House-passed budget that would have focused the bulk of the cuts on the state Medicaid Agency to try to build pressure for a solution. Senators said that was too risky of a strategy, adding that could lead to the collapse of the healthcare program for the elderly, poor and disabled. However, they weren’t happy with the cuts they approved in the absence of a revenue solution. “We’re replacing a sorry budget with a crappy budget,” Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said. That spending plan, which Bentley vetoed in June and would likely do again, would have cut funding to Medicaid, the Department of Human Resources, prisons and the Department of Mental Health by about 5 percent. Other state agencies would see deeper reductions. Orr said Alabama citizens would be negatively affected by the cuts if they went into effect when the fiscal year begins Oct. 1. “You would see state parks beginning the shutdown process. You would see employees beginning to get pink slips. You would see programs beginning to be cut, shut down and abolished,” Orr said. The Senate is expected to vote on the budget Monday. The special session must end Tuesday. Lawmakers have been working since March on how to fill a projected shortfall in the general fund Proposals such a cigarette tax, a soda tax, ending income tax deductions, tightening corporate tax loopholes and yanking the money from the separate education budget haven’t gotten enough support to get to a floor vote. Senate and House leaders are meeting with Bentley on Friday to talk about the final days of the special session and the outlook for a second. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Phil Kerpen: Stop Obama’s Clean Power grab
In President Obama’s first big speech to Congress, just a month after he took office, he said: “I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon.” They didn’t. Indeed, largely because of Obama’s own words on the campaign trail, it became clear that under his plan for a cap-and-trade system, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” and that if “somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” These facts became well known and contributed directly to the smashing defeat of his proposed cap-and-trade legislation during his first term, when it barely squeaked the through the House and was dead-on-arrival in the Senate even though Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were running the places. Yet this week, the president had his EPA issue the Clean Power Grab, a 1,560-page rule coercing states to adopt precisely the cap-and-trade policies he previously admitted required legislation from Congress. They did it with wildly creative lawyering to twist the Clean Air Act of 1970 into a global warming law. Longtime liberal Congressman John Dingell said: “This is not what was intended by the Congress and by those of who wrote that legislation.… So we are beginning to look at a wonderfully complex world which has the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth.” The failed 2009 cap-and-trade bill called for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 11 years and 42 percent reduction over 21 years. The Clean Power Grab splits the difference, requiring a 32 percent reduction over 15 years. Otherwise it is nearly identical. The administration is simply acting as if the law they wanted passed. If they succeed, it would mean steeply higher electric bills and major manufacturing job losses for what, according to conventional climate models, would avert less than 0.02 degrees Celsius of global warming by the year 2100. Can they get away with it? There will certainly be litigation, and President Obama’s own Harvard law professor, liberal legal giant Laurence Tribe, has said of the Clean Power Grab: “Burning the Constitution should not become part of our national energy policy.” But the recent history of a related rule, and the insidious structure of the Clean Power Grab, suggest that President Obama and the EPA may succeed even if they ultimately lose in court. In June, the Supreme Court caught the EPA failing to even consider billions of dollars in costs, and struck down another expensive anti-coal rule. The EPA’s response was a smug press release saying the illegal rule had already accomplished its purpose: “EPA is disappointed that the Court did not uphold the rule, but this rule was issued more than three years ago, investments have been made and most plants are already well on their way to compliance.” In those three years , the value of the country’s three largest publicly traded coal companies was crushed from $25 billion to just $1 billion. That’s 96 percent of the wealth of a vital American industry already wiped out. The Clean Power Grab similarly seeks to lock itself in permanently, even if eventually found illegal, by coercing states to do most of the dirty work of enacting draconian caps on fossil fuel use into state law. Those laws would continue in effect after the EPA rule is struck down, and would create permanent rent-seeking corporate cronies who benefit from emissions trading and renewables mandates that would make the laws almost impossible to repeal. All state leaders should protect their citizens from higher electricity prices and job losses by rejecting the Obama administration’s call to submit a state plan. And they should join the effort to defeat the Clean Power Grab in court, in Congress, and at the ballot box. Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment and a free-market policy analyst.
Martha Roby: What Obama’s Clean Power Plan really means
This week, President Barack Obama announced his Clean Power Plan and with it a costly national energy tax that will negatively impact American families and jobs. Of course, the administration touts the plan as “the single most important step America has ever taken in the fight against global climate change.” But what you didn’t hear the president say is that despite the significant increase this will cause in energy bills for hardworking middle-class families, this plan actually does little to nothing to alter the impact of future climate change. Under the plan, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will implement stringent regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, hiking rates and shutting down energy plants, especially in the coal industry. And while I think we can all agree that achieving more affordable, reliable and safe energy is a priority, more regulations and burdensome expenses to American families are not solutions. It’s no surprise that the EPA is once again going beyond its authority, pushing for overly burdensome regulations that have the potential to significantly affect our economy, discourage investment and stifle job creation. This agency is one of the most egregious offenders of “backdoor legislating” by frequently attempting to circumvent Congress to set policy. But Congress is responsible for writing the laws of our nation on behalf of the priorities and interests of those we represent. The House of Representatives has passed legislation to push back on the administration’s environmental agenda and to rein in the EPA’s overreach. One such bill recently passed, the Ratepayer Protection Act, allows states to opt out of the EPA’s proposed rule capping carbon emission rates for existing power plants. If a state shows that energy prices would increase under the EPA’s plan, it is not required to participate. Through the appropriations process thus far, we have used the “power of the purse” to prevent the EPA from implementing harmful regulations like the “Waters of the U.S.” rule, which will cost Alabamians greatly. Also included in our Fiscal Year 2016 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill are provisions to prohibit implementation of the Clean Power Plan, to prohibit regulations on the lead content of ammunition and fishing tackle and to prohibit a change in the definition of “fill material.” It’s disappointing, but not surprising, to see the president is once again more focused on his “legacy” than he is on the priorities and needs of the American people. As your representative, I will not let up on the EPA and will continue to support legislation to protect Alabama’s interests. Martha Roby represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. She is in her third term.
Donald Trump: “I don’t recognize” insults of women
GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump says he can’t recall specifics of insulting women, though news reports paint a long history of him comparing women to animals. Trump said Friday he doesn’t recognize the words Fox News‘s Megyn Kelly used during a debate on Thursday. Kelly asked about him having called women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and “disgusting animals.” In the debate, Trump joked that he was only referring to talk show host Rosie O’Donnell but didn’t deny having used the insults. “I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness,” Trump said during the debate. The issue is important because women are a majority of registered voters. On Friday, Trump questioned whether he actually used those insults. “You know, some of the statements she made about the women, I don’t recognize those words whatsoever,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We’re going to take a very serious look at it.” He said on MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe,” “Not that I’m an angel, by the way. But I don’t recognize those words, so you know, she was spewing out these words, and I’m sitting there. … We’re going to have it checked out.” In fact, news outlets have reported on the incidents Kelly mentioned. Trump wrote New York Times columnist Gail Collins that she had the “face of a dog,” the columnist wrote in 2011. Trump called a lawyer “disgusting” when she wanted a break to pump milk for her baby, The New York Times reported last month. Trump has called O’Donnell a “fat pig,” a “slob” and an “animal,” according to several published reports. Kelly also mentioned that Trump had once told a contestant on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
