Legislative Report
August 12, 2019
Federal Items:
The House and Senate are on break until Labor Day, making them slightly less productive than usual.
Congress did manage to pass a stop-gap funding and debt bill before leaving Washington: Under Trump, Republicans have abandoned any semblance of concern for the deficit – much as they looked the other way during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The legislation allows for a Fiscal Year deficit of about $1.3 trillion, and, adds hundreds of million in funding to both domestic and defense line items above what sequestration rules would allow.
(By the way, that deficit will grow by more than $1.74 million a minute for the entire fiscal year.)
Congress will not have to vote to expand the national debt until after the 2020 elections.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is proudly stalling many necessary proposals.
The administration refuses to allow its staff to testify before most House and Senate committees. Besides delaying high-profile actions relating to the 2016 election, this approach has also stymied agriculture, environmental and other topic areas from Congressional oversight.
Don’t worry, the bureaucrats are staying busy. They continue to eliminate or ignore regulations business doesn’t like. And, they have now taken aim at food stamps. Under rules now up for review, about 3.1 million Americans – overwhelmingly senior citizens – would lose their benefits. And, the rules for setting benefits would change, reducing monthly amounts by around $50 per person over a decade.
The administration and Congress are unlikely to consider any changes to gun laws and regulations, despite the recent actions in Texas and Ohio. (By the way, “red flag” laws backed by some GOP members of Congress would not have identified either the Dayton or El Paso shooters before they attacked.)
State Items
In a surprise move, Governor Mike Parson vetoed a few bills passed by the legislature, including allowing adults with health insurance to ride motorcycles without a helmet. (The governor claimed the veto was forced by other aspects of the late-session transportation “Christmas Tree” bill.)
The restrictive abortion bill and many other pieces of legislation passed by the Republican supermajority were signed into law. Most new laws become effective on August 28th.
As noted by the Post-Dispatch and other media, the governor enjoys giving former legislators state paychecks: Kirk Mathews, a former state rep from Pacific, now earns $142,500 per year as an assistant to former speaker Todd Richardson ($250,000) running Medicaid.
Speaking of Medicaid, more than 95,000 kids have lost coverage in the past few months. While the state says that the “improving economy” and federal abandonment of “Obamacare” have caused the decline, it appears likely that the major culprit is the state’s horrid “Call Center” based client management.
For example, this June 53% of people calling the state about their benefits received an automated message asking them to leave a call back number. (Some other callers just got busy signals.) Those who did get to a worker waited, on average, 30 minutes for their call to be answered.
Glenn Koenen