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Tuesday, December 18, 2007
PeachCare lives on - for now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Congressional leaders on Tuesday unveiled a new plan that would keep Georgia’s PeachCare, a program that provides health insurance to poor children, running into 2009, a breakthrough after nearly a year of political haggling.
Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), two leading voices in the SCHIP debate, put the 11th hour proposal together and attached provisions making Republican-sought changes in Medicare in hopes of drawing more GOP votes in the House.
Times for House and Senate votes were still unknown late Tuesday. Officials involved i the process expect the measure to pass because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to enter the 2008 congressional campaigns having failed to act on the popular program.
The latest plan would extend funding for PeachCare and other programs like it around the country through March 2009 - a timeline first proposed by Rep. Nathan Deal, a Duluth Republican who took a leading role in previous negotiations on SCHIP.
The Baucus-Grassley measure would keep PeachCare funding at its current levels. But it would add additional funds to prevent Georgia and about 20 other states from running out of money early - a problem that this year forced Georgia lawmakers to freeze and cap enrollment for the state’s eligible children.
Georgia’s Department of Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows called the measure a “responsible approach” that would “provide the longer commitment and assurances needed by parents, providers and states.”
Congress failed twice this year to renew SCHIP for another five years after President Bush vetoed very similar Democratic proposals that would have expanded the program by $35 billion through 2012. Unable to override Bush’s vetoes, lawmakers gave up on an expansion and refocused their efforts on extending current SCHIP funding.
“The (Baucus-Grassley) proposal provides continuing health care coverage to those already enrolled while the national debate about expansions, etc., continues,” Medows said.
“With appropriate funding,” she said, “children already enrolled and eligible for PeachCare can continue without interruption of their health care.”
Since Oct. 1, PeachCare has been operating under month-long - and, in the latest case, weeklong - extensions of its current funding, leaving Georgia officials worried about running out of money in early 2008.
Deal, who took a leading role in private, convoluted negotiations over SCHIP’s expansion, described the experience as “the most unusual process I’ve seen in my life.” He declared himself pleased with the proposal announced Tuesday.
“I’m just glad they’re going to put us out of our misery,” he said.
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Tax breaks: The gift that keeps giving
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State lawmakers pushed for multi-million-dollar tax breaks for the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center earlier this year, and now they’ve got a new use for the facility - as a place to hold political fundraisers.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) are hosting a “reception” for Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) at the center Jan. 3 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The cover charge - known in political parlance as the “suggested minimum donation” - is $500.
The Rogers “reception” will be one of dozens lobbyists will likely get invited to before the 2008 session starts Jan. 14.
Lawmakers aren’t allowed to accept campaign contributions during the session, but this year’s later-than-usual start gives them two weeks to pile up the re-election money before they begin passing laws that are of interest to many of their pre-session donors.
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Sunday booze battle continues
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Senate leaders stalled popular legislation last session to allow beer, wine and spirits sales at stores on Sundays, but that doesn’t mean the fight is over.
The Distilled Spirits Council launched the first salvo of the 2008 Sunday booze battle Tuesday, sending our colleague James Salzer a release arguing that Georgia’s “outdated Blue Law” will hurt their businesses on two of the busiest shopping days of the year.
“It seems like the only people who benefit from Georgia’s prohibition-era laws are retailers from outside the state,” said Michael Greenbaum, owner of Tower Package Store in Atlanta. “As a businessman, I’m disappointed that in the state of Georgia, I’m forced by a 1930’s law to shut my doors for two full days during the busiest shopping season of the year.”
Some liquor-store owners who didn’t want the expense of being open on Sundays or the competition from grocery stores helped convince the Senate to kill the measure last session.
But the Distilled Spirits crowd said the trend is toward legalizing Sunday sales. Since 2002, it said, 12 states have passed legislation allowing Sunday spirits sales.
“It’s unfortunate that Georgia consumers are still inconvenienced by a law so outdated,” said Council Vice President Jay Hibbard, whose organization has supported rolling back Sunday sales bans in states across the country.
“Archaic Blue Laws hinder consumers’ ability to purchase spirits for their holiday parties, deny businesses the holiday sales rush and deprive state coffers from additional sales tax revenue that would be gained from Sunday Sales.”
This year the sales will be banned two days before Christmas and two days before New Year’s Day, Dec. 23 and Dec. 30. Both are major shopping days.
Council officials say that year-round Sunday sales of distilled spirits in Georgia would lead to estimated sales of $29.1million to $40.7 million and between $3.4 million and $4.8 million in additional state sales tax revenue.
Water War II (and counting)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The never-ending battle over water that’s raging between Georgia and two neighboring states is so far from resolution that the Peach State’s congressional delegation is now asking Congress to intervene and help put the 20-year-old dispute to rest.
The move comes less than two months after the Bush administration was barely able to work out a modest, temporary compromise that helped the three states cope with this year’s record drought.
Led by Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat and dean of the delegation, Georgia lawmakers are asking a House committee with jurisdiction over water resources to convene a hearing as early as January to work out how water from Lake Lanier and other sources should be shared.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue insists that more of the lake’s water be used to address water shortages in the Atlanta metro area. But Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist protested loudly that they need the water for power plants, drinking water and to protect two endangered species of mussels.
In a letter sent to top officials on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and signed by 13 Georgians in the House, lawmakers said they hoped the hearing would produce “workable solutions” to the tri-state water woes.
The hearing would include all three Republican governors and federal agencies that could be involved in any solution - the same crowd the Bush administration brought together months ago.
Lewis’ office said Tuesday that committee leaders sent a letter saying the panel was interested in scheduling a hearing.
Here’s an update from the Governor’s office: Perdue spokesman Marshall Guest said late Tuesday that the governor has not received notice of any congressional hearings though he remains glad to work with federal lawmakers.
“We hadn’t heard about that,” Guest said.
Three months late, deal nears on 2008 spending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Don’t run your home budget this way.
The federal government ran out of money, officially, on Sept. 30. Today, finally, the Senate will take up a huge, messy end-of-the-year spending bill to keep the government running for another nine months.
Only one of Congress’ 12 spending bills - the Pentagon’s budget - was signed by President Bush. Bush vetoed two others budgets for health and human services and transportation. Now, with the clock ticking down on the 2007 session, the other 11 bills have been wrapped into a massive, dense omnibus spending bill.
The scene on Capitol Hill over the past two weeks has been one of barely controlled chaos. Lawmakers are scrambling to figure out whether their own pet projects - including $1 million to continue work on Atlanta sewers and drought relief for southeastern farmers - are still in the bill. Meanwhile, senior lawmakers are inserting projects in the bill that were not in any of the previous spending measures, squeezing out projects by the less-powerful.
Congressional aides are often stymied by questions about whether their bosses’ budget requests are funded, semi-funded or dead in this last week of the session. And with all the backroom deal making, they often have only one response: “Last we heard, it was….”
The House late Monday night approved the $516 billion omnibus bill. The Senate is taking it up this afternoon. It includes $485 billion in regular funding and $31 billion for the war in Afghanistan - though it forbids spending that money on the Iraq war.
One high-priority issue for Georgia, the funding for PeachCare, the program that provides health insurance for poor children, has been moved out of the omnibus bill and left on its own for later action.
The White House early on signaled cautious optimism that Bush would sign the massive bill, but later issued a veto threat saying the final version has to have the Iraq money. That money will be added Tuesday.
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