Danny K. Davis was chosen by the people of the 7th Congressional District of Illinois as their Representative in Congress on November 5, 1996. He has been re-elected by large majorities to succeeding Congresses.
In the 117th Congress, Representative Davis has been reappointed to the Committee on Ways and Means and is the Chairman of the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee. Davis also serves on the Oversight and Reform Committee. Congressman Davis is a member of several Congressional Caucuses including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Urban Caucus, the Community Health Center's Caucus, the Congressional Sugar Caucus, the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys and Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Re-entry.
Immediate Access to Insurance for Uninsured Individuals with a Pre Existing Condition. Provides eligible individuals access to coverage that does not impose any coverage exclusions for pre existing health conditions. This provision ends when Exchanges are operational.
Small Business Tax Credit. Initiates the first phase of the small business tax credit for qualified small employers for contributions to purchase health insurance for employees. The credit is up to 35 percent of the employer's contribution to provide health insurance for employees. There is also up to a 25 percent credit for small nonprofit organizations.
Eliminating Pre Existing Condition Exclusions for Children. Bars health insurance companies from imposing pre existing condition exclusions on children's coverage.
Prohibiting Rescissions. Prohibits abusive practices whereby health insurance companies rescind existing health insurance policies when a person gets sick as a way of avoiding covering the costs of enrollees' health care needs.
Eliminating Lifetime Limits and Restricting Use of Annual Limits. Prohibits lifetime limits on benefits in all group health plans and in the individual market and prohibits the use of restrictive annual limits.
Covering Preventive Health Services. All new group health plans and plans in the individual market must provide first dollar coverage for preventive services.
Extending Dependent Coverage. Requires any group health plan or plan in the individual market that provides dependent coverage for children to continue to make that coverage available up to age 26.
Bringing Down the Cost of Health Care Coverage. Health plans, including grandfathered plans, must annually report on the share of premium dollars spent on medical care and provide consumer rebates for excessive medical loss ratios.
Reducing the Cost of Covering Early Retirees. Creates a new temporary reinsurance program to help companies that provide early retiree health benefits for those ages 55 64 offset the expensive cost of that coverage.
Strengthening Community Health Centers and the Primary Care Workforce. Provides funds to build new and expand existing community health centers, and expands funding for scholarships and loan repayments for primary care practitioners working in underserved areas.
Improving Consumer Assistance. Requires that any new group health plan or new plan in the individual market implement an effective appeals process for coverage determinations and claims.
Improving Consumer Information through the Web. Requires the Secretary of HHS to establish an Internet website through which residents of any State may identify affordable health insurance coverage options in that State. The website will also include information for small businesses about available coverage options, reinsurance for early retirees, small business tax credits, and other information of interest to small businesses. So called "mini med" or limited benefit plans will be precluded from listing their policies on this website.
Cracking Down on Health Care Fraud. Requires enhanced screening procedures for health care providers to eliminate fraud and waste in the health care system.
Rebates for the Part D "Donut Hole". Provides a $250 rebate for all Part D enrollees who enter the donut hole. Currently, the coverage gap falls between $2,700 and $6,154 in total drug costs.
Improving Public Health Prevention Efforts. Creates an interagency council to promote healthy policies at the federal level and establishes a prevention and public health investment fund to provide an expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs.
Strengthening the Quality Infrastructure. Additional resources provided to HHS to develop a national quality strategy and support quality measure development and endorsement for the Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP quality improvement programs.
Extending Payment Protections for Rural Providers. Extends Medicare payment protections for small rural hospitals, including hospital outpatient services, lab services, and facilities that have a low volume of Medicare patients, but play an important role in their communities.
Establishing a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Establish a private, non profit institute to identify national priorities and provide for research to compare the effectiveness of health treatments and strategies.
Ensuring Medicaid Flexibility for States. A new option allowing States to cover parents and childless adults up to 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and receive current law Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) will take effect.
Non Profit Hospitals. Establishes new requirements applicable to nonprofit hospitals beginning in 2010, including periodic community needs assessments.
Expanding the Adoption Credit and Adoption Assistance Program. Increases the adoption tax credit and adoption assistance exclusion by $1,000, makes the credit refundable, and extends the credit through 2011. The enhancements are effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2009.
Encouraging Investment in New Therapies. A two year temporary credit subject to an overall cap of $1 billion to encourage investments in new therapies to prevent, diagnose, and treat acute and chronic diseases. The credit would be available for qualifying investments made in 2009 and 2010.
Tax Relief for Health Professionals with State Loan Repayment. Excludes from gross income payments made under any State loan repayment or loan forgiveness program that is intended to provide for the increased availability of health care services in underserved or health professional shortage areas. This provision is effective for amounts received by an individual in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2008.
Excluding from Income Health Benefits Provided by Indian Tribal Governments. Excludes from gross income the value of specified Indian tribal health benefits. The provision is effective for benefits and coverage provided after the date of enactment.
Establishing a National Health Care Workforce Commission. Establishes an independent National Commission to provide comprehensive, nonbiased information and recommendations to Congress and the Administration for aligning federal health care workforce resources with national needs.
Strengthening the Health Care Workforce. Expands and improves low interest student loan programs, scholarships, and loan repayments for health students and professionals to increase and enhance the capacity of the workforce to meet patients' health care needs.
Special Deduction for Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS). Requires that non profit BCBS organizations have a medical loss ratio of 85 percent or higher in order to take advantage of the special tax benefits provided to them under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 833, including the deduction for 25 percent of claims and expenses and the 100 percent deduction for unearned premium reserves.
Indoor Tanning Services Tax. Imposes a ten percent tax on amounts paid for indoor tanning services in lieu of the tax on cosmetic surgery. Indoor tanning services are services that use an electronic product with one or more ultraviolet lamps to induce skin tanning. The tax would be effective for services on or after July 1, 2010.
2011
Increasing Reimbursement for Primary Care. Provides a 10 percent Medicare bonus payment for primary care physicians and general surgeons.
Increasing Training Support for Primary Care. Establishes a Graduate Medical Education policy allowing unused training slots to be re distributed for purposes of increasing primary care training at other sites.
Improving Health Care Quality and Efficiency. Establishes a new Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation to test innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce health care costs and enhance the quality of care provided to individuals.
Improving Preventive Health Coverage. Provides a free, annual wellness visit and personalized prevention plan services for Medicare beneficiaries and requires new plans to cover preventive services with little to no cost sharing. Creates incentives for State Medicaid programs to cover evidence based preventive services with no cost sharing, and requires coverage of tobacco cessation services for pregnant women.
Improving Consumer Assistance. Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to award grants to States to establish health insurance consumer assistance or ombudsman programs to receive and respond to inquiries and complaints concerning health insurance coverage.
Improving Transitional Care for Medicare Beneficiaries. Establishes the Community Care Transitions Program to provide transition services to high risk Medicare beneficiaries.
Expanding Primary Care, Nursing, and Public Health Workforce. Increases access to primary care by adjusting the Medicare Graduate Medical Education program. Primary care and nurse training programs are also expanded to increase the size of the primary care and nursing workforce. Ensures that public health challenges are adequately addressed.
Increasing Access to Home and Community Based Services. The new Community First Choice Option, which allows States to offer home and community based services to disabled individuals through Medicaid rather than institutional care, takes effect on October 1, 2011.
Transitioning to Reformed Payments in Medicare Advantage. Freezes 2011 Medicare Advantage payment benchmarks at 2010 levels to begin transition. Continues to reduce Medicare Advantage benchmarks in subsequent years relative to current levels. Benchmarks will vary from 95% of Medicare spending in high cost areas to 115% of Medicare spending in low cost areas. Changes are phased in over 3, 5 or 7 years, depending on the level of payment reductions.
Discounts in the Part D "Donut Hole": Provides a 50 percent discount on all brand name drugs in the donut hole and begins phasing in additional discounts on brand name and generic drugs to completely close the donut hole by 2020 for all Part D enrollees.
Reporting Health Coverage Costs on Form W 2: Requires employers to disclose the value of the benefit provided by the employer for each employee's health insurance coverage on the employee's annual Form W 2.
Standardizing the Definition of Qualified Medical Expenses. Conforms the definition of qualified medical expenses for HSAs, FSAs, and HRAs to the definition used for the itemized deduction. An exception to this rule is included so that amounts paid for over the counter medicine with a prescription still qualify as medical expenses.
Increased Additional Tax for Withdrawals from Health Savings Accounts and Archer Medical Savings Account Funds for Non Qualified Medical Expenses. Increases the additional tax for HSA withdrawals prior to age 65 that are not used for qualified medical expenses from 10 to 20 percent. The additional tax for Archer MSA withdrawals not used for qualified medical expenses would increase from 15 to 20 percent.
Cafeteria Plan Changes. Creates a Simple Cafeteria Plan to provide a vehicle through which small businesses can provide tax free benefits to their employees. This would ease the small employer's administrative burden of sponsoring a cafeteria plan. The provision also exempts employers who make contributions for employees under a simple cafeteria plan from nondiscrimination requirements applicable to highly compensated and key employees.
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Fee. Imposes an annual, non deductible fee on the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry allocated according to market share and not applying to companies with sales of branded pharmaceuticals of $5 million or less.
2012
Encouraging Integrated Health Systems. Implements physician payment reforms that enhance payment for primary care services and encourage physicians to join together to form "accountable care organizations" to gain efficiencies and improve quality.
Linking Payment to Quality Outcomes. Establishes a hospital value based purchasing program to incentivize enhanced quality outcomes for acute care hospitals. Also, requires the Secretary to submit a plan to Congress by 2012 on how to move home health and nursing home providers into a value based purchasing payment system.
Reducing Avoidable Hospital Readmissions. Directs CMS to track hospital readmission rates for certain high volume or high cost conditions and uses new financial incentives to encourage hospitals to undertake reforms needed to reduce preventable readmissions, which will improve care for beneficiaries and rein in unnecessary health care spending.
2013
Administrative Simplification. Health plans must adopt and implement uniform standards and business rules for the electronic exchange of health information to reduce paperwork and administrative burdens and costs.
Encouraging Provider Collaboration. Establishes a national pilot program on payment bundling to encourage hospitals, doctors, and post acute care providers to work together to achieve savings for Medicare through increased collaboration and improved coordination of patient care.
Limiting Health Flexible Savings Account Contributions. Limits the amount of contributions to health FSAs to $2,500 per year, indexed by CPI for subsequent years.
Eliminating Deduction for Employer Part D Subsidy. Eliminates the deduction for the subsidy for employers who maintain prescription drug plans for their Medicare Part D eligible retirees.
Increased Threshold for Claiming Itemized Deduction for Medical Expenses. Increases the income threshold for claiming the itemized deduction for medical expenses from 7.5 to 10 percent. Individuals over 65 would be able to claim the itemized deduction for medical expenses at 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income through 2016.
Additional Hospital Insurance Tax for High Wage Workers. Increases the hospital insurance tax rate by 0.9 percentage points on an individual taxpayer earning over $200,000 ($250,000 for married filing jointly). Expands the taxable base to include net investment income in the case of taxpayers earning over $200,000 ($250,000 for joint returns).
Medical device excise tax. Establishes a 2.9 percent excise tax on the first sale for use of a medical device. Excepted from the tax are class I devices, eye glasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, and any device of a type that is generally purchased by the public at retail for individual use.
Limiting Executive Compensation. Limits the deductibility of executive compensation under Section 162(m) for insurance providers if at least 25 percent of the insurance provider's gross premium income from health business is derived from health insurance plans that meet the minimum creditable coverage requirements. The deduction is limited to $500,000 per taxable year and applies to all officers, employees, directors, and other workers or service providers performing services, for or on behalf of, a covered health insurance provider. This provision is effective beginning in 2013 with respect to services performed after 2009.
Fee for patient centered outcomes research. Annual fee becomes effective on insured and self insured plans to fund the patient centered outcomes research trust fund.
2014
Reforming Health Insurance Regulations. Implements strong health insurance reforms that prohibit insurance companies from engaging in discriminatory practices that enable them to refuse to sell or renew policies due to an individual's health status. Health plans can no longer exclude coverage for treatments based on pre existing health conditions. It also limits the ability of insurance companies to charge higher rates due to heath status, gender, or other factors. Premiums can vary only on age (no more than 3:1), geography, family size, and tobacco use.
Eliminating Annual Limits. Prohibits health plans from imposing annual limits on the amount of coverage an individual may receive.
Ensuring Coverage for Individuals Participating in Clinical Trials. Prohibits new health plans from dropping coverage because an individual chooses to participate in a clinical trial and from denying coverage for routine care that they would otherwise provide just because an individual is enrolled in a clinical trial. Applies to all clinical trials that treat cancer or other life threatening diseases.
Establishing Health Insurance Exchanges. Opens health insurance Exchanges in each State to individuals and small employers. This new venue will enable people to comparison shop for standardized health packages. It facilitates enrollment and administers tax credits so that people of all incomes can obtain affordable coverage.
Ensuring Choice through a Multi State Option. Provides a choice of coverage through a multi State plan, available from nationwide health plans under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management.
Providing Health Care Tax Credits. Makes premium tax credits available through the Exchange to ensure people can obtain affordable coverage. Credits are available for people with incomes above Medicaid eligibility and below 400 percent of poverty who are not eligible for or offered other acceptable coverage. They apply to both premiums and cost sharing to ensure that no family faces bankruptcy due to medical expenses again.
Ensuring Choice through Free Choice Vouchers. Workers who qualify for an affordability exemption to the individual responsibility policy but do not qualify for tax credits can take their employer contribution and join an Exchange plan.
Promoting Individual Responsibility. Requires most individuals to obtain acceptable health insurance coverage or pay a penalty of $95 for 2014, $325 for 2015, $695 for 2016 (or, up to 2.5 percent of income in 2016), up to a cap of the national average bronze plan premium. Families will pay half the amount for children, up to a cap of up to a cap of $2,250 per family. After 2016, dollar amounts are indexed. If affordable coverage is not available to an individual, they will not be penalized.
Promoting Employer Responsibility. Requires employers with 50 or more employees who do not offer coverage to their employees to pay $2,000 annually for each full time employee over the first 30 as long as one of their employees receives a tax credit. Precludes waiting periods over 90 days. Requires employers who offer coverage but whose employees receive tax credits to pay $3,000 for each worker receiving a tax credit up to an aggregate cap of $2000 per full time employee.
Increasing Access to Medicaid. Medicaid eligibility will increase to 133 percent of poverty for all non elderly individuals to ensure that people obtain affordable health care in the most efficient and appropriate manner. States will receive increased federal funding to cover these new populations.
Small Business Tax Credit. Continues the second phase of the small business tax credit for qualified small employers.
Quality Reporting for Certain Providers. Places certain providers - including ambulatory surgical centers, long term care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, inpatient psychiatric facilities, PPS exempt cancer hospitals and hospice providers - on a path toward value based purchasing by requiring the Secretary to implement quality measure reporting programs in these areas and also pilot test value based purchasing for each of these providers in subsequent years.
Health Insurance Provider Fee. Imposes an annual, non deductible fee on the health insurance sector allocated across the industry according to market share. The fee does not apply to companies whose net premiums written are $25 million or less.
2015
Continuing Innovation and Lower Health Costs. Establishes an Independent Payment Advisory Board to develop and submit proposals to Congress and the private sector aimed at extending the solvency of Medicare, lowering health care costs, improving health outcomes for patients, promoting quality and efficiency, and expanding access to evidence based care.
Paying Physicians Based on Value Not Volume. Creates a physician value based payment program to promote increased quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries.
2018
Excise tax on high cost employer provided health plans becomes effective. Tax is on the cost of coverage in excess of $27,500 (family coverage) and $10,200 (single coverage), increased to $30,950 (family) and $11,850 (single) for retirees and employees in high risk professions. The dollar thresholds are indexed with inflation, and employers with higher costs on account of the age or gender demographics of their employees may value their coverage using the age and gender demographics of a national risk pool.
Summary of Overall African American Statistics:
* Nearly one in five African Americans (19%) is without health care insurance.
* African Americans in general spend a higher percentage of their income on health care costs compared to their white counterparts (16.5% vs. 12.2%). However despite spending a larger share of their income on medical care, African Americans face continuing health care disparities.
* African Americans also tend to reside in areas without hospitals or hospitals that have limited resources and may affect the quality care they offer. This is particularly a problem for hospitals in predominately African American communities where Medicaid reimbursements are low, charity cares is higher, and there is a shortage of health care providers who find it more difficult to maintain a practice.
* African Americans suffer from higher percentages of chronic diseases such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes which are perpetuated by a lack of access to quality care. Currently, 48% of African American adults suffer from a chronic disease compared to 39% of the general population. Lowering health insurance costs increases availability to care and can help reduce chronic illnesses over the long term.
African Americans and Disease (from HHS report):
* Higher Rates of Disease: Racial and ethnic minorities have high rates of debilitating disease such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, and AIDS. One of the most glaring disparities is apparent in the African American community, where 48% of adults suffer from a chronic disease compared to 39% of the general population.
* Obesity: Obesity is debilitating and is often a catalyst to chronic disease. Seven out of 10 African Americans ages 18 to 64 are obese or overweight, and African Americans are 15% more likely to suffer from obesity than Whites.
* Cancer: African Americans are more likely to develop and die from cancer than any other racial or ethnic group. African American men are 50% more likely than Whites to have prostate cancer and are more likely than any other racial group to suffer from colorectal cancer.
* Diabetes: Fifteen percent of African Americans suffer from adult onset diabetes.
* HIV/AIDS: HIV bears witness to the most extreme disparity in chronic disease. African Americans experience new HIV infections at seven times the rate of whites.
* Reduced Access to Care: Access to quality care is vital to overall health and wellness, and health insurance plays a key role. In the United States, racial and ethnic minorities and low-income populations experience serious disparities in rates of health insurance and access to health care.
* Health Insurance: Just under one in five African Americans is uninsured. In comparison, only about one in eight Whites lacks health insurance. Four in 10 low-income Americans do not have health insurance, and half of the nearly 46 million uninsured people in the United States are poor. In contrast, 94% of upper-income Americans have health insurance. About one-third of the uninsured have a chronic disease, and they are six times less likely to receive care for a health problem than the insured.
* Lack of a Primary Care Provider and Usual Source of Care: A primary care provider and a facility where a person receives regular care can substantially improve health outcomes. However more than a quarter of African Americans do not have a regular doctor, compared with only one-fifth of Whites.
* Communication with a Health Care Provider: Poor communication with health care providers results in a host of problems including less access to preventive care and higher rates of re-hospitalization. Asian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanics all reported having poor communications with their doctor more often than Whites.
* Lack of Routine Care and Prevention: Disparities in health are also apparent in the variation in routine care and prevention among demographic groups.
* Routine Care: People who do not have access to a usual source of primary preventive health care are more likely to end up in the emergency department or in the hospital. Indeed, African Americans use the emergency department at twice the rate of Whites.
* Prevention: Preventive care is paramount to stopping the root causes of disease as well as detecting diseases in their early stages when treatment is most effective.
* HIV/AIDS: Proper maintenance of HIV slows the virus from progressing to AIDS; high rates of AIDS demonstrate a lack of access to needed care for HIV. African Americans are diagnosed with AIDS at nine times the rate of Whites.
* Cancer: Only 49% of African Americans received a colorectal cancer screening in 2007, compared with 57% of Whites. This contributed to colorectal cancer diagnoses for African Americans at more advanced stages, with a higher mortality rate than any other race. Mammography is a simple screening that is vital to the early detection of breast cancer, but low-income women are 26% less likely than women in the highest income bracket to receive a mammogram. In addition, while African American women suffer from breast cancer at a lower rate than White women, they die from the disease more often.
* Diabetes: Diabetes requires consistent management to prevent progression of the disease - proper management and prevention includes hemoglobin testing, eye and foot examinations, influenza vaccinations, and lipid management. Less than one-third of people living within 200% of the poverty line receive these preventive measures, while more than half of people with high incomes receive proper care. When diabetes is not managed properly, patients can incur kidney disease and foot amputations as late-term consequences - conditions that are much more likely among Hispanics and African Americans, respectively.
African American/Health Reform Q+A:
Q: Even with responsibility, there are some who are uninsured. There are disparities in health care delivery. How do you deal with disparities in African American communities?
A: Disparities are managed primarily by reducing costs and ensuring access to preventive care. A little over 19% of African Americans are uninsured compared to 11% of Whites. The President sees that as part of the moral imperative; that it's not okay to say that we have millions who don't have health insurance, who don't have access to the system. We've solved the problem for older Americans; everybody over 65 can rely on the fact that they will be eligible for Medicare because Medicare will be there. And this plan will do nothing to change that. But we now need to take care of the rest of the population and make sure that we no longer have this huge gap between people who get good care, get primary care, have a healthy home, stay in good shape, and people who have to come in through the doors of an emergency room to access a doctor or the health care their families need. It's time for a change.
Q: How will the Obama plan affect inner city and rural African American communities?
A: The health care disparities that exist in the African American community are prevalent whether you live in the cities, the suburbs or in rural areas. So reducing the overall costs of health care over time and expanding access will result in more African Americans receiving the medical care they need no matter where they reside. This will be done either through their employer or through the health care exchange, and both situations will reap lower premiums for the insured. Individuals and businesses who cannot afford to purchase health insurance on their own will be helped with a tax credits.
Congressman Davis has been a strong supporter and co-sponsor of National Health Insurance to provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents each year since becoming a member of the House. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Conyers of Michigan. In the 111th Congress the bill was introduced on January 26, 2009.
United States National Health Care Act establishes the United States National Health Care (USNHC) Program to provide all individuals residing in the United States and U.S. territories with free health care that includes all medically necessary care, such as primary care and prevention, prescription drugs, emergency care, long-term care, mental health services, dental services, and vision care.
It prohibits an institution from participating unless it is a public or nonprofit institution. Allows nonprofit health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that deliver care in their own facilities to participate and gives patients the freedom to choose from participating physicians and institutions.
It prohibits a private health insurer from selling health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act. It allows such insurers to sell benefits that are not medically necessary, such as cosmetic surgery benefits and sets forth methods to pay institutional providers of care and health professionals for services. It prohibits financial incentives between HMOs and physicians based on utilization.
The bill establishes the USNHC Trust Fund to finance the Program with amounts deposited: (1) from existing sources of government revenues for health care; (2) by increasing personal income taxes on the top 5% income earners; (3) by instituting a progressive excise tax on payroll and self-employment income; and (4) by instituting a small tax on stock and bond transactions. Transfers and appropriates to carry out this Act amounts that would have been appropriated for federal public health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The USNHC Program is required to give first priority in retraining and job placement and USNHC employment transition benefits to individuals whose jobs are eliminated due to reduced administration and requires creation of a confidential electronic patient record system. It establishes a National Board of Universal Quality and Access to provide advice on quality, access, and affordability.
The legislation provides for: (1) the eventual integration of the Indian Health Service into the Program; and (2) evaluation of the continued independence of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health programs.
· The health care law makes key investments in health care jobs. The health care law makes critical investments to alleviate the shortage of primary health care providers, including physicians, physician assistants, and nurses. As a first step, in June 2010, funding was released by HHS to support the training of more than 16,000 new primary care providers, including doctors and nurses, over the next five years.
· By lowering costs, especially for small businesses, the law can help create jobs. A study by Harvard Economics Professor David Cutler and USC Health Policy Professor Neeraj Sood found that, because of numerous cost-containment measures that slow the growth of health care spending, the law could create between 250,000 and 400,000 jobs a year over the next 10 years. The cost-reduction provisions in the law, particularly for small businesses, free up money that otherwise would be spent on health care and allow companies to spend it hiring more workers.
· Despite Republican claims that health reform would destroy jobs, 1.4 million private sector jobs have been created since the health care law was enacted in March 2010. In sharp contrast, under the eight years of President Bush, we lost private sector jobs - losing a total of 673,000 private sector jobs.
· Despite Republican claims that health reform would hurt the health care industry, of the 1.4 million private sector jobs created since the health care law was enacted, 243,000 of them have been in the health care industry.
Congressman Davis is a strong supporter and co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act which amends the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations and provides for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Miller of California.
The Employee Free Choice Act of 2009 amends the National Labor Relations Act to require the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify a bargaining representative without directing an election if a majority of the bargaining unit employees have authorized designation of the representative (card-check) and there is no other individual or labor organization currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit.
It sets forth special procedural requirements for reaching an initial collective bargaining agreement following certification or recognition and revises enforcement requirements with respect to unfair labor practices during union organizing drives, particularly a preliminary investigation of an alleged unfair labor practice (ULP) which may lead to proceedings for injunctive relief.
The Legislation requires that priority be given to a preliminary investigation of any charge that, while employees were seeking representation by a labor organization, or during the period after a labor organization was recognized as a representative until the first collective bargaining contract is entered into, an employer: (1) discharged or otherwise discriminated against an employee to encourage or discourage membership in the labor organization; (2) threatened to discharge or to otherwise discriminate against an employee in order to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of guaranteed self-organization or collective bardaining rights; or (3) engaged in any other related ULP that significantly interferes with, restrains, or coerces employees in the exercise of such guaranteed rights.
It also adds to remedies for such violations: (1) back pay plus liquidated damages; and (2) additional civil penalties.
Education Begins at Home Act of 2009
Congressman Davis introduced the Education Begins at Home act on April 30, 2009 to expand quality programs of early childhood home visitation that increase school readiness, child abuse and neglect prevention, and early identification of developmental and health delays, including potential mental health concerns.
The Education Begins at Home Act of 2009 directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make matching grants to states, Indians, territories, and possessions to establish or expand quality early childhood home visitation programs for families that are expecting a child or have pre-kindergarten children.
It allots funds among state grantees on the basis of their share of children from birth through age five who are from impoverished families and directs the Secretary to award competitive grants to local educational agencies (LEAs) and experienced public or private community-based entities to support and expand quality, local early childhood home visitation programs for families that have English language learners and are expecting a child or have pre-kindergarten children.
The Secretary of Defense is directed to make competitive grants to LEAs, schools, and community-based organizations that serve military dependents to support and expand high quality early childhood home visitation programs for military families that are expecting a child or have pre-kindergarten children.
Each grantee is required to provide: (1) voluntary early childhood home visitation at least once a month to as many eligible families as is practicable; (2) training and technical assistance to program staff; and (3) program participants with access to other early childhood and family services.
The Secretary is directed to develop and implement a public information and educational campaign to inform the public and new parents about the importance of proper care for infants and children under five years of age.
The Federal Prison Work Incentive Act of 2009 is designed to restore the former system of good time allowances toward service of Federal prison terms. Congressman Davis introduced the bill on March 12, 2009. On April 27, 2009 the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary.
The Federal Prison Work Incentive Act of 2009 amends the federal criminal code to allow reductions in the prison term of a federal prisoner whose record of conduct shows that such prisoner has substantially observed all prison regulations and has not been subjected to punishment. It also allows the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to grant a reduction in a prisoner's term for actual employment in an industry or camp or for exceptionally meritorious service or for performing duties of outstanding importance in connection with institutional operations.
America has more of its people in prison than any other developed nation in the world - more than two million. The vast majority, 95% of the men and women in our prisons will eventually return to the community. That means that every year more than 650,000 offenders are released from state and federal prisons and return back to civilian life.
These men and women deserve a second chance. Their families, spouses and children, deserve a second chance and their communities deserve a second chance. A second chance means an opportunity to turn a life around. A chance to break the grip of a drug habit. A chance to support a family, to pay taxes, to be self-sufficient.
Today few of those who return to their communities are prepared for their release or receive any supportive services. When the prison door swings open an ex-offender may receive a bus ticket and spending money for a day or two. Many leave prison to return to the same environment which saw them offend in the first place. But, as they return they often face additional barriers to reentry: serious physical and mental health problems, no place to stay and lack of education or qualifications to hold a job. As a result two out of three will be rearrested for new crimes within the first three years after their release. Youthful offenders are even more likely to re-offend.
One third of all correction departments provide no services to released offenders, and most departments do not offer a transitional program, placing a heavy burden on families and communities. Considering the cost of incarceration (as much as $40,000 per year) and all the social and economic costs of crime to the community it's just common sense to act to help ex-offenders successfully reenter our communities and reduce recidivism.
That's why I have sponsored the bipartisan Second Chance Act of 2007 (HR1593) along with Representatives Cannon, Conyers, Coble, Scott of Virginia, Smith of Texas, Jones of Ohio, Forbes, Schiff, Sensenbrenner, Chabot, Jackson-Lee of Texas, Cummings, Johnson of Georgia, Clarke and 75 other Members of Congress. A companion bill (S1060) has been introduced into the Senate sponsored by Senators Biden, Specter, Brownback, Leahy, Obama and 10 other Senators.
The Second Chance Act will provide transitional assistance to assist ex-offenders in coping with the challenges of reentry. It will reduce recidivism. It will help reunite families and protect communities. It will enhance public safety and save taxpayer dollars. It is the humane thing to do. It is the responsible thing to do. It is the right thing to do.
The Judiciary Committee held hearings on the bill in April 2007 and quickly voted to send the bill to the full House. I fully expect it to pass very soon. The bill has the support of more than 200 criminal justice, service provider, faith based, housing, governmental, disability and civil rights organizations. President Bush has signaled his support of the legislation as well.
No single piece of legislation is going to solve the reentry crisis we are facing, but the Second Chance Act is a good start. I hope that with the passage of this bill we will begin a new era in criminal justice.
I am convinced that any serious effort to facilitate the reentry of men and women with criminal records to civil society must be prepared do two things. First, we must be prepared to help with drug treatment on demand for everyone who requests it. Second, we need to find work for ex-offenders. Programs won't supply jobs. After ex-offenders have undergone rehabilitation and received appropriate training employers will have to open their hearts and put these men and women back in the work force or they will surely and certainly end up back in prison.
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is a legislatively-mandated review that establishes U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and force posture for the next five years to ten years.
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR):
* Outlines the Administration's strategy for implementing the President's Prague agenda for reducing nuclear dangers and pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, including concrete steps we can and should take now.
* Explains how the United States will sustain a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent for us and our allies as long as nuclear weapons exist.
Its findings and recommendations support five key objectives:
#1: Preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism:
For the first time, the NPR places preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism atop the U.S. nuclear agenda.
* It defines specific steps to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime, and accelerate the securing of nuclear materials worldwide.
* It renews the U.S. commitment to hold fully accountable any state, terrorist group, or other nonstate actor that supports or enables terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts.
#2: Reducing the role of nuclear weapons:
Declaratory policy has been updated to bring it into alignment with 21st century needs.
* The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.
* The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.
* The United States will continue to strengthen conventional capabilities and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks, with the objective of making deterrence of nuclear attack on the United States or our allies and partners the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons.
#3: Maintaining strategic deterrence and stability at reduced nuclear force levels:
The NPR Report reflects the Administration's commitment to renew arms control and work with Russia to reduce our nuclear forces while maintaining strategic stability. The NPR provided inputs to the instructions to U.S. negotiators and the resulting New START agreement helps to significantly advance this third objective:
* The United States and Russia agreed to limits of 1,550 accountable strategic warheads, 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles, and 800 deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers. The Treaty does not constrain U.S. missile defenses, and allows the United States to pursue conventional global strike systems.
* The U.S. nuclear Triad of ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-capable heavy bombers will be maintained under New START.
* All U.S. ICBMs will be "de-MIRVed" to a single warhead each to increase stability.
* The United States will pursue post-New START arms control with Russia that addresses not only strategic weapons, but also non-strategic and non-deployed nuclear weapons.
* The United States will pursue high-level bilateral dialogues with Russia and China aimed at promoting more stable and transparent strategic relationships.
#4: Strengthening regional deterrence and reassurance of U.S. allies and partners:
The NPR reflects the Administration's commitment to strengthening deterrence against 21st century threats to the United States, our allies, and partners.
* The Administration is pursuing a comprehensive approach to broaden regional security
architectures, including through missile defenses and improved conventional forces.
* As long as regional nuclear threats to our forces, allies, and partners remain, deterrence will require a nuclear component.
* The United States will retain the capability to forward-deploy U.S. nuclear weapons on tactical fighter-bombers and heavy bombers.
* The nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile (TLAM-N) will be retired as redundant in the overall mix of capabilities.
#5: Sustaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal:
The United States will sustain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal as long as nuclear weapons exist. The United States will modernize the nuclear weapons infrastructure, sustain the science, technology, and engineering base, invest in human capital, and ensure senior leadership focus. The significantly increased investments called for in the NPR will not only guarantee our stockpile, but facilitate further nuclear reductions, and help enhance our ability to stem nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
It will also extend the life of warheads currently in the nuclear arsenal. This is an alternative to developing new nuclear weapons, which we reject. Several principles will guide this effort:
* The United States will not conduct nuclear testing, and will seek ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
* The United States will not develop new nuclear warheads. Life Extension Programs (LEPs) will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs, and will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.
* The Administration will study options for ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of nuclear warheads on a case-by-case basis, consistent with the congressionally mandated Stockpile Management Plan. The full range of LEP approaches will be considered: refurbishment of existing warheads, reuse of nuclear components from different warheads, and replacement of nuclear components.
* In any decision to proceed to engineering development for warhead LEPs, the Administration will give strong preference to options for refurbishment or reuse. Replacement of nuclear components would be undertaken only if critical Stockpile Management Program goals could not otherwise be met, and if specifically authorized by the President and approved by Congress.
HIRING INCENTIVES TO RESTORE EMPLOYMENT (HIRE) ACT, a bipartisan bill to create 300,000 jobs with tax incentives for businesses that hire unemployed Americans, unleash tens of billions of dollars to rebuild our infrastructure, and strengthen small businesses with tax credits and accelerated write-offs so they can expand and hire. Cost: $17.5 billion, fully paid for (Signed into Law March 18, 2010)
CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT, extending for two months emergency unemployment benefits and help with health insurance for people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, as well as Medicare payments to physicians, satellite TV reception to customers without other TV options, flood insurance, and small business loans. Unemployment benefits are extended through June 2 with the rest through May 31. Cost: $18 billion in emergency spending (Signed into law April 15, 2010, after Senate Republicans blocked for three weeks)
PASSED BY HOUSE AND SENATE
AMERICAN WORKERS, STATE, AND BUSINESS RELIEF ACT, a package of tax incentives to spur business innovation and tax cuts for families with kids headed to college and disaster relief for states, combined with economy-boosting unemployment benefits and health care for Americans hit by the recession. Cost: $128 billion with the $30 billion in tax extenders paid for and $98 billion in emergency aid (H.R. 4213 passed House 12/9/2009 by a vote of 241-181 and Senate amended 3/10 by a vote of 62-36; House and Senate are working on an agreement focusing on replacing the current pay fors that were used in health insurance bill)
IN THE SENATE – PASSED BY HOUSE
SMALL BUSINESS AND INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS TAX ACT, extends the successful Build America Bonds to help finance the rebuilding of schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and rail lines; targets tax incentives to spur investment in small businesses and for entrepreneurs looking to start a new business; and extends aid to States to provide subsidies to employers, including small businesses, who hire unemployed workers that is on-track to put over 160,000 Americans back to work. Cost: $20 billion, fully paid for (H.R.4849 passed House 3/24 by a vote of 246-178)
DISASTER RELIEF AND SUMMER JOBS ACT, provides disaster-stricken communities with aid to rebuild their homes, infrastructure and local economies, adds approximately 300,000 summer jobs opportunities for young people, and extends Recovery Act provisions to make small business loans more available. Cost: $660 million for summer jobs & small businesses, paid for/$5.1 billion in emergency disaster aid (H.R. 4899 passed House 3/24 by a vote of 239-175, 1 Present)
JOBS FOR MAIN STREET ACT, to create and save jobs with targeted investments to boost small business, to rebuild highways and transit, and to hire and retain teachers, police, and firefighters; paid for by redirecting TARP funds from Wall Street to Main Street; with emergency aid for the unemployed. Cost: $154 billion -- $75 billion for small business, highways, and public service jobs paid for with TARP/$79 billion in emergency aid (H.R. 2847 passed House 12/16/09 by a vote of 217-212)
HIRING INCENTIVES TO RESTORE EMPLOYMENT (HIRE) ACT, a bipartisan bill to create 300,000 jobs with tax incentives for businesses that hire unemployed Americans, unleash tens of billions of dollars to rebuild our infrastructure, and strengthen small businesses with tax credits and accelerated write-offs so they can expand and hire. Cost: $17.5 billion, fully paid for (Signed into Law March 18, 2010)
CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT, extending for two months emergency unemployment benefits and help with health insurance for people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, as well as Medicare payments to physicians, satellite TV reception to customers without other TV options, flood insurance, and small business loans. Unemployment benefits are extended through June 2 with the rest through May 31. Cost: $18 billion in emergency spending (Signed into law April 15, 2010, after Senate Republicans blocked for three weeks)
PASSED BY HOUSE AND SENATE
AMERICAN WORKERS, STATE, AND BUSINESS RELIEF ACT, a package of tax incentives to spur business innovation and tax cuts for families with kids headed to college and disaster relief for states, combined with economy-boosting unemployment benefits and health care for Americans hit by the recession. Cost: $128 billion with the $30 billion in tax extenders paid for and $98 billion in emergency aid (H.R. 4213 passed House 12/9/2009 by a vote of 241-181 and Senate amended 3/10 by a vote of 62-36; House and Senate are working on an agreement focusing on replacing the current pay fors that were used in health insurance bill)
IN THE SENATE – PASSED BY HOUSE
SMALL BUSINESS AND INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS TAX ACT, extends the successful Build America Bonds to help finance the rebuilding of schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and rail lines; targets tax incentives to spur investment in small businesses and for entrepreneurs looking to start a new business; and extends aid to States to provide subsidies to employers, including small businesses, who hire unemployed workers that is on-track to put over 160,000 Americans back to work. Cost: $20 billion, fully paid for (H.R.4849 passed House 3/24 by a vote of 246-178)
DISASTER RELIEF AND SUMMER JOBS ACT, provides disaster-stricken communities with aid to rebuild their homes, infrastructure and local economies, adds approximately 300,000 summer jobs opportunities for young people, and extends Recovery Act provisions to make small business loans more available. Cost: $660 million for summer jobs & small businesses, paid for/$5.1 billion in emergency disaster aid (H.R. 4899 passed House 3/24 by a vote of 239-175, 1 Present)
JOBS FOR MAIN STREET ACT, to create and save jobs with targeted investments to boost small business, to rebuild highways and transit, and to hire and retain teachers, police, and firefighters; paid for by redirecting TARP funds from Wall Street to Main Street; with emergency aid for the unemployed. Cost: $154 billion -- $75 billion for small business, highways, and public service jobs paid for with TARP/$79 billion in emergency aid (H.R. 2847 passed House 12/16/09 by a vote of 217-212)
Social Security
Social Security is probably the most successful public program in our nation’s history. It is the main life line for seniors, widows and disabled American’s and has served all Americans well. Social Security is our nation’s promise to our seniors. Benefits have been paid on time and in full every single month for more than 70 years.
In the 7th Congressional District 12% of the population are recipients of Social Security. About three fourths of African American seniors rely on Social Security for at least half their income. Social Security provides 90% or more of total income for 44% of all non-married women 65 and older. 48% of seniors would live in poverty without Social Security benefits.
Social Security is highly efficient. On average, less than 0.6 cents of every dollar paid out in Social Security benefits goes to pay administrative costs. By comparison, systems with individual accounts, like England and Chile cost 15 cents of every dollar paid out in benefits on administrative fees.
Because of the 1983 fix to Social Security funding we now have more than $2.5 trillion in a trust fund for payment of benefits. These funds are in the form of bonds which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States just as other bonds issued by the federal government. There is no crisis in making these payments or any other bond which is being redeemed. Social Security has funding for more than 35 years with no reduction in benefits. Even if we do nothing, it has funds to pay almost 75% of all benefits after that (that would still be a higher benefit than current retirees receive). Social Security is more sound today than it has been in much of its almost 70 year history.
Over the next 75 years, the cost of the Bush Administration tax cuts for just the top 1% of the population would cover almost 90% of the shortfall in projected revenues in the Social Security Trust Fund. If the ceiling on Social Security taxes were raised to $110,000 to cover 90% of wages (the level set by the Greenspan Commission in 1983) it would eliminate approximately 40% of the projected shortfall. Because the share of the national income received by workers is now at its lowest level since 1947, the share of the national income subject to the wage tax has also declined arguing for some additional funding to come from non-wage sources.
The Trustees are projecting that economic growth over the next 75 years will be only half as fast as over the last 75 years. According to the Trustees, if economic growth remains at the same rate as the past 75 years, Social Security will never become insolvent. Clearly we have viable options to ensure that Social Security can continue to meet the needs of seniors as far into the future as we can see.
I strongly oppose any attempts to cut benefits for our seniors or to raise the retirement age. Privatization will undermine funding for Social Security and place beneficiaries at risk. I strongly oppose all attempts to privatize Social Security. I remain confident that with a little good will and honesty this Congress can ensure that Social Security will be solid for generations to come.
It is also important to recognize that the real crisis is in the private sector where companies are abandoning their promises and contractual obligations to employees pension funds leaving millions of workers without anticipated retirement income while executive compensation has risen to record levels.
Social Security and Budget Deficits
As a general approach, I favor a balanced budget approach. However, I believe that Congress must have the flexibility to meet special needs such as war, economic crisis or national disaster. The problem is further complicated by the fact that we have no national capital budget and no method of accounting for the value of our national public infrastructure. Even further complicating our spending proposals are major gaps in our accounting system, especially in the largest sector of spending: the military budget. Finally, we have seen spending and taxing accounting rules altered in highly partisan ways and, in the end, such rules are often “made to be broken” as we have seen over the past decade or so with the farce being made of the de-linking of our authorization and appropriation processes.
As a practical manner, under existing conditions, I believe it is important to use common sense. You cannot give the wealthiest Americans vast tax cuts, while cutting the social safety net and waging war on two fronts. Cutting government as an end in and of itself is not an acceptable or rational program. The current (and projected) budget shortfalls are largely due to two causes: the need for emergency action to counteract the economic crisis and the continuing threat of increases in the cost of health care. Spending money on counteracting the economic crisis through unemployment insurance, investment in education, infrastructure and converting to an energy economy based on efficiency and sustainable energy production poses no long term threat to the economy and will be paid back many times as we get the economy growing again.
Our for-profit based system of health care is placing health care beyond the reach of an ever growing portion of our people and an ever growing share of the costs of the system, the highest in the world, are going to large corporate hospitals and drug companies or toward bureaucratic waste.
I continue to advocate for a National Health Insurance Plan ( I am a co-sponsor of legislation to enable a U.S. National Health Insurance Act.) Already some 64% of our health care system is financed by public money: federal and state taxes, property taxes, tax subsidies which pay for Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Care, care for public employees and military personnel. It is estimated (see 1991 GAO report and 1993 CBO report) that this plan would enable us to cover every American with all medical, hospital, dental, mental health, eye care and long term care all within the current national health care budget. Much of the savings would come from the elimination of wasteful overhead and marketing (Medicare, Medicaid and VA run a fraction of the overhead of private health care – 3% as compared to 15% - 25% for the typical HMO) and from the elimination of excessively high profits. Physician incomes would be relatively unchanged. The program shares the risk evenly and fairly over the entire population, is predictable and stable. Quality of care can be monitored statistically and preventive care is incentivised. Short of such legislation I have supported the next best legislation: the Heath Care Reform Act. This legislation will help control costs and will provide coverage for some thirty million Americans who now have no insurance. It will have a positive impact on the deficit.
Regardless of other causes of our budget shortfalls Social Security is not at fault for the deficit. Social Security has ample funding for decades to come and relatively small changes in funding the Social Security Trust Fund will ensure its solvency indefinitely. There is no reason to reduce benefits and raise the retirement age for our seniors. Those who claim that Social Security is the cause of budget deficits or that Social Security is in crisis are either mistaken or are pursuing other agendas.
Paying for Medicare
Much of the funding for the Health Care Reform Act comes from cutting waste, fraud, and abuse within existing government health programs; ending big subsidies to insurance companies; and increasing efficiency with such steps as coordinating care and streamlining paperwork. These proposals would take money that is already being spent on health care and re-allocate it toward reforms that lower costs and assure quality affordable health care for all Americans.
Health care reform would also encourage the kinds of reforms we know will save money in the long run: preventive care; computerized record-keeping; and comparative effectiveness studies to expose wasteful procedures and hospitalizations and give doctors the tools to make the right treatments for their patients.
We can't afford not to reform health care. The cost of inaction is too high. Health care spending has grown in recent years three times faster than average wages. Health care costs are currently eating into family budgets, forcing families into bankruptcy, making it hard for businesses to expand and grow, and preventing the government from using your tax dollars to create jobs, improve education, rebuild our infrastructure. Premiums have doubled in this decade. Out of pocket costs for people with insurance have gone up by 32 percent. Businesses are buckling under health care costs. One out of every six dollars in this country is spent on health care. Soon it will be one in five. If we do nothing, in 30 years, one third of this country's economic output will be tied up in the health care system. Health care is the fastest-growing item in the federal budget. It is absolutely unsustainable. These costs are crushing families and businesses, keeping wages flat, stunting our economic growth, strangling our government.
Congressman Davis feels strongly that education is key to a responsible, healthy, and vibrant citizenry. As captured by the Scottish politician Henry Peter Brougham, Congressman Davis agrees that, "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." Given this perspective, he works to advance education for all students from birth through higher education.
Early Childhood Education
Congressman Davis feels strongly that we must support children early in life to give them the foundation they need to grow into productive, healthy, and responsible citizens. To this end, he actively advocates for legislation to strengthen parent-child relationships and early childhood education for children from low-income families.
O Home Visitation Programs. The new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act law included $1.5 billion for voluntary, evidenced-based, early childhood home visitation programs. For five years, Congressman Davis worked bipartisanly and bicamerally to establish these evidenced-based prevention grants to prepare our youngest citizens for success in school and life. The funding provides a critical opportunity for federal, state, and local communities to improve the health and well-being of children and families. Quality, early childhood home visitation is a proven and cost-efficient method to improve school readiness, well-being, and health for children and families. To be eligible for funding, States must take multiple steps to demonstrate that they have a quality plan in place that will be closely evaluated to ensure success, including: develop a coordinated system of home visiting and early childhood services; use quality, evidenced-based programs; and measure improvements in child and family well-being (e.g., reductions in injuries, neglect, family economic self sufficiency). Indeed, the new home visitation program is unique among federal programs in its emphasis on research to guide and evaluate its effectiveness. Given that Illinois is a national leader in providing and evaluating effective home visiting, these funds should help hundreds of children and families in Chicago and Illinois.
O Head Start. Congressman Davis successfully advocated for many improvements to Head Start during the recent reauthorization of this pivotal program that prepares low-income children for school, including: maintaining the role of equal responsibility for parents in governing Head Start; ensuring that low-income families in high-cost-of-living areas such as Chicago do not lose access to this critical child development program; creating a program to recruit minority male teachers; increasing the emphasis on children's social-emotional well-being and mental health; incorporating the best practices from the field of home visitation into the Early Head Start program; and recognizing the expanding role of kinship caregivers in children's lives. In Committee, the Congressman also secured language opening professional development funds for online masters program, such as offered by the Erikson Institute in Chicago. However, this provision was not retained in conference.
O Preschool Expulsion. Congressman Davis has a long-standing commitment to ensuring that students receive fair, appropriate discipline in school settings. Research shows that disparities exist in elementary and secondary education with regard to discipline of students by race/ethnicity. Research further indicates that this pattern of differential discipline treatment by race and ethnicity extends to prekindergarten. The Yale University Child Study Center conducted a study of almost 4,000 prekindergarten classrooms representing all 52 of the national state-funded prekindergarten systems. The research found that African-American students attending state prekindergarten programs were approximately twice as likely to be expelled as preschoolers of European descent. Further, boys were over 4½ times more likely to be expelled than girls. Boys from racial or ethnic minority groups were even greater compared to girls, indicating that being a minority boy is associated with tremendously higher likelihood of expulsion. Given that high-quality preschool programs improve school readiness and reduce racial/ethnic disparities in school readiness, preschool serves as a critical tool in reducing the racial/ethnic disparities in achievement in K-12 education. In his role as co-chair of the CBC Community Reinvestment Task Force, Congressman Davis has worked with CBC Education Leaders to lead efforts to address this disparity. An early step was to recommend that the Department of Education include variables to monitor the number of preschool children subjected to discipline methods within the Civil Rights Data Collection. Understanding whether and where excessive expulsion occurs is a critical first step to intervening quickly to reduce disparate discipline treatment. Congressman Davis will actively work in the next year to improve federal and state monitoring of disparities in discipline of preschoolers to encourage local education agencies to address this problem sooner rather than later. Delaying examination of disparities in this area could contribute to and potentially worsen unequal educational opportunities.
Elementary and Secondary Education
Congressman Davis believes that K-12 education needs strengthening in order for our citizens to enjoy economic well-being and for our nation to compete in the global marketplace. He is adamant that our education system should provide quality programming for all students regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, age, disability, or income. In addition to improving all levels of education, he feels strongly that we must target special attention to helping students whom the systems have not educated well. Further, he works hard to reduce the disparities that exist in education based on race, income, and ability.
O Elementary and Secondary Education Act: As Congress has worked to improve the central legislation governing K-12 education, Congressman Davis has advanced multiple priorities, including: reporting of student data by gender and race/ethnicity; providing educational protections to foster children; maintaining the ban on segregation of students under McKinney-Vento; promoting the equitable distribution of qualified teachers; creating innovative programs designed to improve education - such as site-based management and teacher residency programs that are successful in Chicago; promoting professional development in classroom management to address the over-referral of minority boys for discipline; developing an appropriate measure of the achievement gap; promoting textbook equity by having local districts report how current their instructional materials are; including the HOUSSE program that provides special education teachers an alternative way of gaining certification other than having a degree in each subject taught; and advocating for various provisions related to mental health. In his role as co-chair of the CBC Community Reinvestment Task Force, Congressman Davis has worked with CBC Education Leaders and education stakeholders to discuss ways to improve federal funding for high schools and to improve graduation rates, especially via the School Improvement Grants, as well as how to strengthen Title I funding. He consistently advocates that teacher evaluation efforts must engage teachers as a fundamental partner in setting up effective professional development and evaluation programs.
O Disaggregation of Data by Race and Gender. Congressman Davis believes that policymakers cannot adequately craft appropriate interventions to ensure success for all without understanding the success of various groups of students. One area in which he has led reform is in ensuring that educational data examines the intersection of gender with race/ethnicity, which current data systems often ignore. Attention to student progress by both race and gender is critical to understanding the success of students. For example, in 2006, an examination of public graduation rates in Illinois by race/ethnicity showed a rate of 49% for African American students. Breaking out the data by gender revealed a sizeable discrepancy between men and women - African-American men graduated at a rate of 42% compared to African-American women with a rate of 55%. The data in Chicago were more stark. African-American and Latino men had graduation rates of 30.8% and 39.6%, respectively, whereas their female counterparts enjoyed rates of 49% and 53.7%, respectively. Examining student progress by both race and gender together will provide a more detailed understanding of the key elements of student success (e.g., achievement, drop out, graduation rates, and other indices required by states and districts) so that educators and lawmakers can develop interventions tailored to the students most in need.
O Educational Equity. In his role as co-chair of the CBC Community Reinvestment Task Force, Congressman Davis has worked with CBC Education Leaders to ensure that education legislation passed by Congress includes critical adequacy and equity provisions related to protecting low income and minority students. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act made clear that States should address inequities in the distribution of highly qualified teachers between high- and low-poverty schools and as well as ensure that low-income and minority children are not taught by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers at higher rates than other children. Unfortunately, a decade after this requirement became law, students in high-poverty schools are still disproportionately taught by out-of-field and rookie teachers. For example, a recent report found that out-of-field teachers are almost twice as likely to teach core academic classes in high-poverty high schools than in low-poverty schools. Similarly, educators with neither a math major nor certification in the subject teach about one out of every four middle and high school mathematics courses in high-poverty schools. Given that these disparities put low-income students at a tremendous disadvantage, the Congressman has worked actively to require states to address existing inequities in the distribution of inexperience, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers consistent with existing law - whether through use of emergency education dollars or through regulatory changes or data collections by the Department of Education. Further, given that the economic recession has caused public education systems to dramatically reduce funding, Congressman Davis and his CBC colleagues have led efforts to ensuring that federal emergency education dollars are not supplanted for non-education purposes and that low-income and high-minority schools do not bear the brunt of any teacher layoffs.
O Graduation Rates. Congressman Davis believes that the dropout rate has reached epic proportions in our nation and especially in minority communities. Nearly one-third of all high school students do not to graduate every year, costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars in lost revenue. Approximately 2,000 "dropout factories" across the country produce more than 50 percent of the nation's dropouts, with poor and minority children disproportionately attending these institutions. Graduation rates for African American, Hispanic, and Native American students are significantly lower than those of their white peers. For example, only 48% of African American males and 58% of Latino males graduate from high school. The social, economic and human costs of high drop out rates pose a growing threat to the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. For these reasons, Congressman Davis works to advance improvements in high school graduation. In collaboration with multiple Congressional leaders, Congressman Davis developed legislation to address the high school dropout crisis. The Graduation for All Act would help end this crisis by providing eligible school districts with competitive grants to help turn around their lowest-performing high schools, often deemed "dropout factories," as well as struggling, feeder middle schools. Districts receiving grants would be required to implement data systems to help better detect early warning signs of dropout behavior, (such as frequent absences or failing a course), use appropriate interventions targeted to student needs and monitor the impact of interventions so that they can be refined as necessary. Research shows identifying and addressing these patterns early on can help keep at-risk students in school.
O Accelerated Programs for Struggling Students. In addition to improving every school, Congressman Davis believes that we must intensively target middle and high school students who are struggling. Chicago and our nation cannot afford to let these students drop out. Rather than holding back our struggling students, we should re-double our efforts to help these students excel. Advancing the students without doing anything is not an option; we must recognize they are struggling and intervene effectively so that these students can succeed. The educational experts at Johns Hopkins have shown how critical Early Warning Data Systems are for identifying and intervening quickly when students first start to struggle with attendance, behavior or curriculum. CPS has developed strong data systems for improving the school safety. This base combined with the federal dollars to improve individual, longitudinal data systems to measure student growth are key to helping students early, not late. Further, Congressman Davis believes that CPS needs to strengthen and expand the programs that accelerate learning, such as acceleration academies, dual-enrollment, and work programs.
O School Safety. Congressman Davis recognizes the need for increased federal, state, and local efforts to improve the safety of our schools. The discussion of safety is intricately linked to school success, school climate, and drop out prevention. His legislation to improve graduation rates would provide a critical funding opportunity for Chicago's safety programs, given that the Chicago program uses individual data to identify and intervene quickly to help students at risk for dropping out and violence. In addition, Congressman Davis introduced legislation to amend the Safe and Drug-free Schools and Communities Act to include bullying and harassment prevention programs. Curbing bullying and harassment an integral part of the mission of the Safe and Drug Free Schools program. To reflect the evolving nature of threats to school safety, this bill would provide explicit definitions of prohibited bullying and harassment activities. It would also clearly outline a set of characteristics of a relatively new form of bullying that has been garnering considerable attention lately-cyberbullying and sexting. Under this legislation states would be required to submit data on the incidence and prevalence of reported incidents of bullying and harassment and on the perception of students regarding their school environment and school responsiveness to incidents of bullying and harassment. States would also need to provide an assurance that they would provide assistance to districts and schools in their efforts to prevent and respond to incidents of bullying and harassment. School districts would be required to indicate the performance indicators that they would use for bullying and harassment prevention programs and activities; they also would need to agree to provide annual notice to parents and students regarding the full range of bullying and harassment activities that would be prohibited. This legislation would promote teaching students about the consequences of bullying and harassment as well as training for teachers, administrators, and counselors on strategies to prevent bullying and harassment and to intervene effectively when such activities occur. Congressman Davis also strongly supports more comprehensive efforts to improve school climate and behavior, such as through the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and the Social and Emotional Learning Program.
O Teacher Development. Consistent with the resolution approved by the American Federation of Teachers during 2010, the Congressman strongly supports developing the profession of teaching so that teachers receive the supports and career ladder opportunities that they have repeatedly requested. Installing critical support systems and opportunities for professional learning are very much needed - such as job-embedded professional development, mentoring, and induction programs. Congressman Davis agrees with the part of the resolution that indicated, "You can neither fire nor hire your way to better schools." Teachers are a fundamental partner in education reform, but educational reform must involve more comprehensive ideas than firing teachers.
O Civil Rights Data Collection. In his role as co-chair of the CBC Community Reinvestment Task Force, Congressman Davis worked with CBC Education Leaders to send a letter to the Secretary of Education supporting expansion of the Civil Rights Data Collection, which was established to promote equal educational opportunities for all students. The letter indicated strong support the data enhancements related to discipline, including the addition of new variables, the refinement of existing variables to better capture students' experiences of a range of discipline tactics, and consideration of discipline experiences among all students and students with disabilities. Given that minority students, and minority boys especially, are disproportionately referred to special education and subjected to discipline procedures, the Congressman felt strongly that expanding the data collection to better understand the nature of the discipline used and for which students is a critical piece of the Civil Rights Data Collection. Further, the Congressman and his CBC colleagues note the need that the data collection allow researchers to examine the variables of interest based on the interaction of race/ethnicity with gender as well as out-of-field teaching.
Budgets are more than collections of numbers; they are a statement of our values. The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget is a reflection of the values and priorities of working families in this country. The "People's Budget" charts a path that keeps America exceptional in the 21st century, while addressing the most pressing problems facing the nation today. Our Budget eliminates the deficit and stabilizes the debt, puts Americans back to work, and restores our economic competiveness.
The CPC Budget addresses these problems by listening to the American people. In poll after poll, they are telling us, their representatives in the American government, that they want to preserve Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, to make higher education more affordable, to expand job training programs, to cut taxes burdening the middle class, to subsidize affordable housing, and to provide financial assistance for those struggling to prevent foreclosures.
The majority of America thinks cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, K-12 education, heating assistance to low-income families, student loans, unemployment insurance, and scientific and medical research are completely unacceptable. In contrast, Americans find a progressive tax policy very acceptable. The overwhelming majority of America supports additional taxes on millionaires and billionaires, eliminating unnecessary weapons systems, eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries, phasing out Bush tax cuts, and eliminating subsidies for new nuclear power plants. Poll after poll give voice to what Americans are asking of us.
Our Budget, in response, listens to what the American people are telling us. It does all of the above in a fiscally responsible way that dramatically reduces our borrowing from banks and foreign governments and ensures our long-term economic competitiveness. It does all of the above recognizing that in order to compete, we need every American to be productive, and in order to be productive, we need to raise the skill level of every American and meet the basic needs of every working family. It does all of the above while remaining rooted in fairness, recognizing that America works only when everyone has an opportunity to make it in America.
Our Budget Eliminates the Deficit by 2021
The CPC budget eliminates the deficit in a way that does not devastate what Americans want preserved, specifically, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Instead of eroding America's hard earned retirement plan social safety net, our budget targets the true drivers of deficits in the next decade: the Bush Tax Cuts, the wars overseas, and the causes and effects of the recent recession. By implementing a fair tax code, by building a resilient American economy, and by bringing our troops home, we achieve a budget surplus of over $30 billion by 2021 and we end up with a debt that is less than 65% of our GDP. This is what sustainability looks like.
Our Budget Puts America Back to Work & Restores America's Competitiveness
The CPC budget rebuilds America and makes it competitive again. We put America back to work. We rebuild our roads and bridges, ensuring that those who use it help pay for it. We rebuild our dams and waterways with seed money for shipping systems that can compete with the rest of the world. We rebuild our education system by training more and better teachers, restoring schools, helping each student graduate, and supporting community colleges. This is what competitiveness looks like.
Our Budget Creates a Fair Tax System
The CPC budget implements a fair tax system based on the American notion that fairness and equality are integral to our society. Our budget restores fairness to a system that unfairly benefitted he richest few while hurting the majority of America. Our budget heeds America's call to end the Bush Tax Cuts and the estate tax and create fair tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires while maintaining credits for the middle class and students. It ensures that the banks that wrecked our economy pay a modest financial responsibility fee and that exotic trading by Wall Street traders who ambled away America's savings is levied a tax. It guarantees that hedge fund managers (and those who use them) do not get special treatment by taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income.
It eliminates charity to oil companies making record profits from prices paid at the pump by the American people, given that it is unfair that the American people must also give these oil companies millions of dollars in handouts. Finally, our budget taxes US corporate income as it is earned, in much the same way Americans are taxed. This is what fairness looks like.
Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home
The CPC budget responsibly ends our wars that are currently paid for by American taxpayer dollars we do not have. We end these wars not simply to save massive amounts of money or because the majority of America is polling in favor to do so, but because these wars are making America less safe, are reducing America's standing in the world, and are doing nothing to reduce America's burgeoning energy security crisis. The CPC budget offers a real solution to these fiscal, diplomatic and energy crises, leaving America more secure, both here and abroad. The CPC budget also ensures that our country's defense spending does not continue to contribute significantly to our current fiscal burden - a trend we reverse by ending the wars and realigning conventional and strategic forces, resulting in $2.3 trillion worth of savings. This is what security looks like.
Our Budget's Bottom Line
* Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion
* Primary spending cuts of $869 billion
* Net interest savings of $856 billion
* Total spending cuts of $1.7 trillion
* Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion
* Public investment of $1.7 trillion
* Budget surplus of $30.7 billion in 2021, debt at 64.1% of GDP.
Read the entire Progressive Caucus budget proposal here:
Remarks of President Barack Obama - As Prepared for Delivery
The Country We Believe In
The George Washington University
Washington, DC
April 13, 2011
As Prepared for Delivery-
Good afternoon. It's great to be back at GW. I want you to know that one of the reasons I kept the government open was so I could be here today with all of you. I wanted to make sure you had one more excuse to skip class. You're welcome.
Of course, what we've been debating here in Washington for the last few weeks will affect your lives in ways that are potentially profound. This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. It's about the kind of future we want. It's about the kind of country we believe in. And that's what I want to talk about today.
From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America's wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.
But there has always been another thread running throughout our history - a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. We believe, in the words of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. And so we've built a strong military to keep us secure, and public schools and universities to educate our citizens. We've laid down railroads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce. We've supported the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives, unleashed repeated technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs and entire industries. Each of us has benefitted from these investments, and we are a more prosperous country as a result.
Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. "There but for the grace of God go I," we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities. We are a better country because of these commitments. I'll go further - we would not be a great country without those commitments.
For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who've done well - we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. Moreover, this belief has not hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale, who continue to do better and better with each passing year.
Now, at certain times - particularly during periods of war or recession - our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities. And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn't going to hurt if it's temporary.
But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon. They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid. Like parents with young children who know they have to start saving for the college years, America had to start borrowing less and saving more to prepare for the retirement of an entire generation.
To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation's deficit. They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress. All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future.
As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America's finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.
But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program - but we didn't pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts - tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.
To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our national checkbook, consider this: in the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.
Of course, that's not what happened. And so, by the time I took office, we once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a Baby Boom retirement that is now starting to take place. When I took office, our projected deficit was more than $1 trillion. On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more. In this case, we took a series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pockets. It was the right thing to do, but these steps were expensive, and added to our deficits in the short term.
So that's how our fiscal challenge was created. This is how we got here. And now that our economic recovery is gaining strength, Democrats and Republicans must come together and restore the fiscal responsibility that served us so well in the 1990s. We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt. And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future.
Now, before I get into how we can achieve this goal, some of you might be wondering, "Why is this so important? Why does this matter to me?"
Here's why. Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond. That means we'll have to keep borrowing more from countries like China. And that means more of your tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on all the loans we keep taking out. By the end of this decade, the interest we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion. Just the interest payments.
Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That's it. Every other national priority - education, transportation, even national security - will have to be paid for with borrowed money.
Ultimately, all this rising debt will cost us jobs and damage our economy. It will prevent us from making the investments we need to win the future. We won't be able to afford good schools, new research, or the repair of roads and bridges - all the things that will create new jobs and businesses here in America. Businesses will be less likely to invest and open up shop in a country that seems unwilling or unable to balance its books. And if our creditors start worrying that we may be unable to pay back our debts, it could drive up interest rates for everyone who borrows money - making it harder for businesses to expand and hire, or families to take out a mortgage.
The good news is, this doesn't have to be our future. This doesn't have to be the country we leave to our children. We can solve this problem. We came together as Democrats and Republicans to meet this challenge before, and we can do it again.
But that starts by being honest about what's causing our deficit. You see, most Americans tend to dislike government spending in the abstract, but they like the stuff it buys. Most of us, regardless of party affiliation, believe that we should have a strong military and a strong defense. Most Americans believe we should invest in education and medical research. Most Americans think we should protect commitments like Social Security and Medicare. And without even looking at a poll, my finely honed political skills tell me that almost no one believes they should be paying higher taxes.
Because all this spending is popular with both Republicans and Democrats alike, and because nobody wants to pay higher taxes, politicians are often eager to feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse -that tackling the deficit issue won't require tough choices. Or they suggest that we can somehow close our entire deficit by eliminating things like foreign aid, even though foreign aid makes up about 1% of our entire budget.
So here's the truth. Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans' benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What's left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That's 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.
Up until now, the cuts proposed by a lot of folks in Washington have focused almost exclusively on that 12%. But cuts to that 12% alone won't solve the problem. So any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget. A serious plan doesn't require us to balance our budget overnight - in fact, economists think that with the economy just starting to grow again, we will need a phased-in approach - but it does require tough decisions and support from leaders in both parties. And above all, it will require us to choose a vision of the America we want to see five and ten and twenty years down the road.
One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party's presidential candidates. It's a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.
Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history.
A 70% cut to clean energy. A 25% cut in education. A 30% cut in transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That's what they're proposing. These aren't the kind of cuts you make when you're trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren't the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed. These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can't afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that's deeply pessimistic.
It's a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can't afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can't afford to send them. Go to China and you'll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities. South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science. Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America - the greatest nation on Earth - can't afford any of this.
It's a vision that says America can't afford to keep the promise we've made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you're a 65 year old who's eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck - you're on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.
This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone's grandparents who wouldn't be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down's syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we'd be telling to fend for themselves.
Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can't afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can't afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that's who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that's paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm President.
The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. As Ronald Reagan's own budget director said, there's nothing "serious" or "courageous" about this plan. There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There's nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don't have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.
The America I know is generous and compassionate; a land of opportunity and optimism. We take responsibility for ourselves and each other; for the country we want and the future we share. We are the nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness. We sent a generation to college on the GI bill and saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare. We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.
This is who we are. This is the America I know. We don't have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit investments in our people and our country. To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I'm President, we won't.
Today, I'm proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It's an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It's an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.
The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week - a step that will save us about $750 billion over twelve years. We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs. We'll invest in medical research and clean energy technology. We'll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.
The second step in our approach is to find additional savings in our defense budget. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America's interests around the world. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America's national security is America's debt.
Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again. We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world. I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it's complete.
The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government's health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government's health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.
Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare's purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care - not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.
Now, we believe the reforms we've proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional one trillion dollars in the decade after that. And if we're wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.
But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.
That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security. While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older. As I said in the State of the Union, both parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans' guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.
The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.
Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions. And while I agree with the goals of many of these deductions, like homeownership or charitable giving, we cannot ignore the fact that they provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn't itemize.
My budget calls for limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2% of Americans - a reform that would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over ten years. But to reduce the deficit, I believe we should go further. That's why I'm calling on Congress to reform our individual tax code so that it is fair and simple - so that the amount of taxes you pay isn't determined by what kind of accountant you can afford. I believe reform should protect the middle class, promote economic growth, and build on the Fiscal Commission's model of reducing tax expenditures so that there is enough savings to both lower rates and lower the deficit. And as I called for in the State of the Union, we should reform our corporate tax code as well, to make our businesses and our economy more competitive.
This is my approach to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next twelve years. It's an approach that achieves about $2 trillion in spending cuts across the budget. It will lower our interest payments on the debt by $1 trillion. It calls for tax reform to cut about $1 trillion in spending from the tax code. And it achieves these goals while protecting the middle class, our commitment to seniors, and our investments in the future.
In the coming years, if the recovery speeds up and our economy grows faster than our current projections, we can make even greater progress than I have pledged here. But just to hold Washington - and me - accountable and make sure that the debt burden continues to decline, my plan includes a debt failsafe. If, by 2014, our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy - or if Congress has failed to act - my plan will require us to come together and make up the additional savings with more spending cuts and more spending reductions in the tax code. That should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road.
So this is our vision for America - a vision where we live within our means while still investing in our future; where everyone makes sacrifices but no one bears all the burden; where we provide a basic measure of security for our citizens and rising opportunity for our children.
Of course, there will be those who disagree with my approach. Some will argue we shouldn't even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It's just an article of faith for them. I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don't need another tax cut. Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut. Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare. Or by cutting kids from Head Start. Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn't be here without. That some of you wouldn't be here without. And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that's done so much for them. Washington just hasn't asked them to.
Others will say that we shouldn't even talk about cutting spending until the economy is fully recovered. I'm sympathetic to this view, which is one of the reasons I supported the payroll tax cuts we passed in December. It's also why we have to use a scalpel and not a machete to reduce the deficit - so that we can keep making the investments that create jobs. But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don't begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.
Finally, there are those who believe we shouldn't make any reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security out of a fear that any talk of change to these programs will usher in the sort of radical steps that House Republicans have proposed. I understand these fears. But I guarantee that if we don't make any changes at all, we won't be able to keep our commitments to a retiring generation that will live longer and face higher health care costs than those who came before.
Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have the obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments. If we believe that government can make a difference in people's lives, we have the obligation to prove that it works - by making government smarter, leaner and more effective.
Of course, there are those who will simply say that there's no way we can come together and agree on a solution to this challenge. They'll say the politics of this city are just too broken; that the choices are just too hard; that the parties are just too far apart. And after a few years in this job, I certainly have some sympathy for this view.
But I also know that we've come together and met big challenges before. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill came together to save Social Security for future generations. The first President Bush and a Democratic Congress came together to reduce the deficit. President Clinton and a Republican Congress battled each other ferociously and still found a way to balance the budget. In the last few months, both parties have come together to pass historic tax relief and spending cuts. And I know there are Republicans and Democrats in Congress who want to see a balanced approach to deficit reduction.
I believe we can and must come together again. This morning, I met with Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress to discuss the approach I laid out today. And in early May, the Vice President will begin regular meetings with leaders in both parties with the aim of reaching a final agreement on a plan to reduce the deficit by the end of June.
I don't expect the details in any final agreement to look exactly like the approach I laid out today. I'm eager to hear other ideas from all ends of the political spectrum. And though I'm sure the criticism of what I've said here today will be fierce in some quarters, and my critique of the House Republican approach has been strong, Americans deserve and will demand that we all bridge our differences, and find common ground.
This larger debate we're having, about the size and role of government, has been with us since our founding days. And during moments of great challenge and change, like the one we're living through now, the debate gets sharper and more vigorous. That's a good thing. As a country that prizes both our individual freedom and our obligations to one another, this is one of the most important debates we can have.
But no matter what we argue or where we stand, we've always held certain beliefs as Americans. We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can't just think about ourselves. We have to think about the country that made those liberties possible. We have to think about our fellow citizens with whom we share a community. And we have to think about what's required to preserve the American Dream for future generations.
This sense of responsibility - to each other and to our country - this isn't a partisan feeling. It isn't a Democratic or Republican idea. It's patriotism.
The other day I received a letter from a man in Florida. He started off by telling me he didn't vote for me and he hasn't always agreed with me. But even though he's worried about our economy and the state of our politics, he said,
"I still believe. I believe in that great country that my grandfather told me about. I believe that somewhere lost in this quagmire of petty bickering on every news station, the `American Dream' is still alive.
We need to use our dollars here rebuilding, refurbishing and restoring all that our ancestors struggled to create and maintain.We as a people must do this together, no matter the color of the state one comes from or the side of the aisle one might sit on."
I still believe as well. And I know that if we can come together, and uphold our responsibilities to one another and to this larger enterprise that is America, we will keep the dream of our founding alive in our time, and pass on to our children the country we believe in. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
###
CBO Confirms: GOP Budget Dismantles Medicare, Dramatically Increases Costs for Seniors
(by House Ways and Means Democrats)
WASHINGTON, DC - Results from a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released yesterday confirm that the House Republican budget would dismantle the Medicare program and wreak havoc on the health and retirement security of America's seniors and future retirees. The Republican budget destroys Medicare for everyone under age 55, ending Medicare's historic entitlement to benefits and converting the program into a defined contribution that would offer individuals an under-funded voucher to purchase coverage in a new undefined marketplace where there is no guarantee that insurance companies will even participate.
The end result is a dramatic increase in the financial burden of health costs, with future retirees paying up to nearly three times as much for their health care than they would if current law continued.
According to the non-partisan CBO: "A typical beneficiary would spend more for health care under the proposal than under CBO's long-term scenarios for several reasons. First, private plans would cost more than traditional Medicare because of the net effect of differences in payment rates for providers, administrative costs, and utilization of health care services...Second, the government's contribution would grow more slowly than health care costs, leaving more for beneficiaries to pay." (p.23)
The Republican budget would.
Destroy Medicare for Future Retirees and Replace it with an Under-Funded Voucher:
"People who become eligible for Medicare in 2022 and subsequent years would receive a payment that was larger than $8,000 by an amount that reflected the increase in the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) and the age of the enrollee." (p. 8)
CPI-U fails to take into account full inflation for medical costs and is well below average per capita growth in Medicare spending. It is unrealistic to expect the growth in health costs to slow that dramatically or for the need for medical care to change that much, which can only mean major cost shifts to beneficiaries. After all, this is a deficit-driven exercise, not an effort to reform the program or protect beneficiaries. The whole point of converting the program to a defined contribution and setting an arbitrarily low growth rate is to save money. It has to be deliberately under-funded or it won't generate savings.
Increase Medicare Beneficiary Costs By Nearly Three-Fold:
"Under the proposal, most beneficiaries who receive premium support payments would pay more for their health care than if they participated in traditional Medicare under either of CBO's long-term scenarios. CBO estimated that, in 2030, a typical 65-year-old would pay 68 percent of the benchmark under the proposal, compared with 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario." (p. 21)
This is not "reform," but simply a massive middle-class cost-shift to individuals and their families. Thus, under the Republican budget proposal, beneficiaries would be forced to pay more than twice and up to nearly three times the amount than they would pay if current law were extended under two different scenarios (e.g., main difference in health world between "extended baseline" and "alternative fiscal scenario" is whether a Medicare Physician Payment Fix (doc fix) is assumed or not and what the doc fix is).
Move Medicare Beneficiaries Into Private Plans that Are Less Efficient and More Costly than Medicare:
"A private health insurance plan covering the standardized benefit would, CBO estimates, be more expensive currently than traditional Medicare. Both administrative costs (including profits) and payment rates to providers are higher for private plans than for Medicare...for a typical 65 year old in 2011, CBO estimate that average spending in traditional Medicare would be [11 percent lower] than the spending that would occur if the same package was purchased from a private insurer" (p. 21)
Historically, private plans have increased, not decreased, Medicare spending.
Drive Medicare Beneficiaries Out of Medicare by Increasing Beneficiary Costs and Discouraging Participation:
"Costs to individuals (beyond those covered by the premium support payment) would be higher under the proposal than under traditional Medicare, and some individuals would therefore choose not to purchase insurance." (p. 12)
While CBO has not quantified how many people will opt out, CBO clearly states that the total effect of the Republican budget will be to force some people out of the program. Depending on who leaves, this could raise the number of uninsured, raise costs for those who remain behind (e.g., if a disproportionate share are healthy and wealthy), etc.
Shift Costs to Medicare Beneficiaries and Lead to Rationing of Care By Making it Unaffordable:
"Under the proposal, the gradually increasing number of Medicare beneficiaries participating in the new premium support program would bear a much larger share of their health care costs than they would under the traditional program.That greater burden would require them to reduce their use of health care services, spend less on other goods and services, or save more in advance of retirement than they would under current law. At the same time, the proposal analyzed by CBO would leave in place provisions restraining payments to many providers under the traditional Medicare program." (p. 19)
While the Affordable Care Act included aggressive payment reforms that increased efficiency and quality while protecting and even improving Medicare benefits, many Republicans campaigned aggressively against these policies during the 2010 election. Ironically, the Republican budget now leaves in place all of the Medicare savings from the Affordable Care Act, eliminates a key improvement (filling the donut hole, which is addressed in another quote below), and goes much, much further by ending Medicare's entitlement and turning it into a defined contribution plan. With the voucher, CBO says people will need to seek less care, spend less on food/shelter/heating and other services, or save more to pay for the new extra costs.
Increase the Rate of Growth in Medicare Beneficiary Costs:
"Moreover, CBO projects that total health care spending for a typical beneficiary covered by the standardized benefit under the proposal would grow faster than such spending for the same beneficiary in traditional Medicare under either of CBO's long-term scenarios." (p. 21)
Again, relying on private plans to deliver benefits increases the cost of care. So under-funding the voucher and forcing people to more purchase more expensive coverage in the private market results in a double-whammy for an older, sicker population.
Remove Medicaid Protections for Vulnerable Seniors Who are Dually Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid:
"Beginning in 2022, the federal government would establish a medical savings account (MSA) for certain beneficiaries with low income. (An MSA is an account that holds deposits that can be used for medical expenses.) Eligibility for MSA payments would be determined annually by the federal government on the basis of income relative to the federal poverty thresholds. The amount of the contribution in 2022 would be $7,800, and the annual amounts in subsequent years would grow with the CPI-U." (p. 9)
A low-income senior can completely exhaust these funds with one episode of illness. For instance, a senior suffering a stroke who enters the hospital in January and then requires a skilled nursing stay of less than two months would face cost-sharing exceeding this amount. Under this scenario, their assistance would run out before the end of February. They would be on their own to cover any additional health costs incurred for the rest of the year.
Provide No Funding for a Medicare Physician Payment Fix:
"On the basis of the specifications provided by Chairman Ryan's staff, CBO's analysis included no change in the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism for payments to physicians under Medicare." (p. 7)
Republicans assert they want to fix the physician payment formula, but have never offered a solution and repeatedly voted against Democratic reform proposals in the last Congress. Once again, they have ignored the problem. Doing so not only raises questions about access in the future, but it jury-rigs the overall deficit and budget numbers by leaving hundreds of billions of dollars out of the equation.
Increase the Medicare Eligibility Age:
"Starting in 2022, the age of eligibility for Medicare would increase by two months per year until it reached 67 in 2033." (p. 7)
While CBO states they have not estimated these effects yet, this policy will lead to an increase in the uninsured for people caught in the gap and/or an increase in employer costs as older people need to stay on employer coverage for additional years, as well as other potential adverse financial and health effects.
Eliminate Health Reform's New Medicare Drug Coverage while Embracing Health Reform's Medicare Savings:
"The proposal would repeal the provisions.that expanded subsidies for the "coverage gap" in Part D..Most of the other changes that PPACA and the Reconciliation Act made to the Medicare program would be retained." (p. 10)
Republicans, including Chairman Ryan, created the Part D prescription drug program in 2003. This program, which was estimated to cost more than $400 billion at the time and is responsible for approximately $7 trillion of the so-called "unfunded mandate" talked about by Republicans, was not paid for. One gimmick employed at that time was to eliminate coverage as needs rose, creating the so-called "donut hole." The Affordable Care Act filled this hole to guarantee senior citizens comprehensive drug coverage. The Republican budget repeals this critical benefit.
A copy of the CBO analysis can be found here.
Analysis by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Democrats on the Impact of Slashing Key Investments In the Areas of Education and Workforce Development
House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) today released the House Republican budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. While we must address our nation's long-term deficits, the Republican budget priorities will harm our nation's future and our fragile economic recovery.
Below is an analysis by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Democrats on the impact of slashing key investments in the areas of education and workforce development contained in the Republican budget proposal. These assaults on worker and student programs are in addition to the budget proposal's dramatic assault on seniors and health care.
While protecting tax cuts for the wealthy and subsidies for oil companies, the proposal would return non-defense discretionary spending to 2008 funding levels and thereby have the following impacts in FY 2012. With funding frozen under the proposal, even as demand and needs rise, the impacts will only worsen over time.
Higher Education
* Pell Grants would be cut for all 9.4 million students eligible next year.
* For the neediest students, Pell Grants would be cut by at least $819 and as much as $3,960.
* At least 180,000 and as many as 1 million students would be kicked out of the Pell Grant program altogether.
Head Start
* 218,000 low-income children and families would be removed from Head Start.
* 16,000 Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms would close.
* 55,000 teachers and related staff would lose their jobs.
* 170,000 families trying to find jobs or stay employed would lose childcare.
Education (K-12)
* 2,400 schools serving nearly a million low-income students would lose funding.
* Nearly 10,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs.
Job Training
* Job-training programs for those out of work or attaining new skills would be dramatically cut.
* "Career scholarships" would be created, which is similar to a past Republican proposal that would have gutted training programs in favor of a $2000-$3000 training account. The actual average cost of these training programs is approximately $12,000, with approximately $7,500 covered by the Workforce Investment Act today.
Impact of Republican Plan on Medicaid
(Democratic Analysis)
* Republicans Plan to Gut Medicaid in the guise of a block-grant system.
-- Starting in 2013, the federal share of all Medicaid payments would be converted into block grants to be allocated to the states. The total dollar amount of the block grants would increase annually with population growth and with growth in the CPI-U.
-- Starting in 2022, Medicaid block grant payments would be reduced to exclude projected spending for acute care services or Medicare premiums and cost sharing paid by Medicaid.
* The Republican plan would lead to cuts in health care and long-term care services to seniors.
-- CBO finds that federal funding for Medicaid would fall 35 percent by 2022 - and 49 percent by 2030 - below the levels the federal government now is projected to provide for the program.
-- The CBO report makes clear that unless states made up the difference, states may have to cut already-low payment rates to health care providers, causing doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes to withdraw from Medicaid and thereby reduce beneficiaries' access to care.
* Cuts to Medicaid would hit seniors the hardest.
-- Seniors and people with disabilities now on Medicaid would likely be at the greatest risk from these cuts. Seniors constitute just under one-quarter of Medicaid beneficiaries but account for two-thirds of all Medicaid spending because of their greater health care needs and because Medicaid is the primary funder of long-term care services and supports, including nursing home care.
-- Any cuts in long-term care services would cause increasing harm over time as the nation ages and the need for these services continues to grow.
-- States would also have to institute substantial cuts in reimbursement rates for hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, pharmacies, managed care plans, and other providers that furnish care to Medicaid beneficiaries. Many of these providers would likely respond by withdrawing from the program, leaving nowhere to go for care for beneficiaries who remain on the program.
* Medicaid costs - per capita and administrative costs - are already lower than private coverage. The problem is not with Medicaid but with overall health care costs.
General Facts On Medicaid
Biggest source of long-term care financing
* Medicaid is the primary payer for long-term care covering a range of services, including those needed by people to live independently in the community, as well as services provided in institutional settings.
* Medicaid accounts for 43 percent of total long-term care spending in the U.S.
* Aside from Medicaid beneficiaries, few people have long-term care insurance, as only 15 percent of adults have private insurance that covers this care. Yet, a majority of individuals will have at least $25,000 in costs during their lifetime for these services.
Benefits
* Medicaid coverage of long-term care includes a range of services and supports that assist individuals with performing activities of daily living, from assistance with eating, dressing, and toileting, to assistance with managing a home and medication management.
* Spending on Medicaid home and community based services (HCBS) has been growing.
* In 2009, spending on HCBS accounted for 43 percent ($52.8 billion) of total Medicaid long-term care services spending, up from 13 percent in 1990.
Background on beneficiaries
* Nearly 6 million seniors receive Medicaid long-term services, including 1.5 million nursing home residents.
* Nine million seniors qualify for Medicare and Medicaid because of their low incomes. Depending on their income level, low-income seniors get help from Medicaid to pay for Medicare's premium and cost-sharing requirements as well as for services not covered by Medicare.
* Over 3 million individuals, or 7 percent of the Medicaid population, rely on Medicaid long-term care services for a range of physical and mental health care needs.
Eligibility
* Medicaid is intended to assist low-income individuals and is not available to everyone who needs long-term services. Individuals must first meet financial qualifications for Medicaid coverage of long-term services and supports, in addition to meeting need criteria.
* Elderly and disabled individuals who qualify for Medicaid must have very few assets ($2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple, in 30 states).
* Medicaid is also the safety net for long-term care services for those who become impoverished as a result of disabling illness or injury.
-- Because few people can afford the high cost of nursing home care, 38 states allow people needing nursing home care to qualify with income up to 300 percent of SSI ($2,022 per month in 2010).
Impact of Republican Plan on Social Security
(Democratic analysis)
* Sets Forth an Unprecedented New Fast-Track Procedure to Ram through Social Security Benefit Cuts. The budget resolution lays out a fast-track process that Budget Chairman Paul Ryan describes as "forcing" action on Social Security legislation in the House and the Senate. (Section 502(b) of the Chairman's Mark)
-- Specifies that any time the Social Security Trustees Report shows a shortfall within 75 years, the committee of jurisdiction must report Social Security legislation which will fully close the shortfall by January 30th, and the House and Senate must take up the legislation under "expedited procedures." (Section 502(b)(3) of the Chairman's Mark)
-- The fast-track for Social Security changes is unprecedented in the history of budget resolutions - the only Social Security procedural provisions in past budget resolutions were to protect the trust fund, the exact opposite of what this fast-track is intended to do.
-- The Budget Act does not allow regular fast-tracking (called budget reconciliation) for Social Security, which is why Chairman Ryan needed the special new process to trigger benefit cuts instead of just requiring the cuts directly. (Section 310(g) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974)
* Praises Specific Benefit Cuts for Middle-Income Americans While Appearing to Rule Out Other Options.
-- The summary specifically praises two benefit cuts recommended by the co-chairs of the President's Fiscal Commission:
* Raising the retirement age, which affects all beneficiaries, and
* Cutting future Social Security benefits for everyone who currently earns more than $27,000 a year (similar to the benefit cut proposed by President Bush in 2005 as part of his privatization plan).
-- In contrast, the summary describes raising the cap on taxable earnings to require wealthy Americans to pay their fair share of payroll taxes, generally the most popular Social Security reform in public opinion research, as a change that would cause "profound economic damage."
* Suggests that Congress Will Not Honor the Treasury Bonds in the Social Security Trust Fund. The summary says that the $2.6 trillion in reserves generated by worker contributions to the Social Security Trust Fund "are derived from dubious government accounting," implying that the Republican Congress might not redeem the Treasury bonds in the Trust Fund when they are needed to pay benefits that are owed. (Budget Committee Summary, p. 48)
General Facts On Social Security
Demographics of Social Security beneficiaries
* 54 million people depend on Social Security:
-- 35 million retirees,
-- 8 million disabled beneficiaries,
-- 11 million children, widows, and others.
Essential Source of Retirement Income
* For more than half (55%) of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security provides the majority of their cash income. For one-quarter (26%), it provides nearly all (more than 90%) of their income.
* For 15% of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security is the sole source of retirement income.
* Without Social Security, nearly one out of every two seniors would be living in poverty.
Amount of Benefits
* Social Security benefits are not very generous. In 2010, the average benefit was $14,000 a year.
Full Solvency until 2037
* Social Security is fully solvent until 2037 and even after 2037, could pay 75% of scheduled benefits out of its trust fund.
No effect on the deficit
* Social Security does not contribute to the deficit.
-- Social Security is a self-financed program. It is funded directly by payroll contributions that are used to purchase interest-earning government bonds.
-- Any income that is not needed immediately to pay benefits is held in a trust fund that can only be used to pay for Social Security benefits. Social Security cannot borrow funds from any other source.