Category: Kase Wickman
Michaud’s Campaign Spending is a Little Fishy
FISH MONEY
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 28, 2009
WASHINGTON—There’s something a little fishy about U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission. The campaign spending disclosure forms of the Maine Democrat are all in order and were submitted on time, but the intriguing fact has less to do with forms than with fins: almost a tenth of Michaud’s campaign outlays have been spent at seafood restaurants.
Of the $182,248 Michaud has spent campaigning for the 2010 election, $13,072, or 7.2 percent, has been spent at seafood restaurants.
Michaud’s campaign manager, Greg Olson, said that the congressman tilts toward local caterers and food for fundraisers.
“When we do events up here in Maine, we like to showcase some of the finer foods we have up here, like lobster and other seafoods,” Olson said. “Also, when we do events down in Washington we try and do Maine-themed events.”
One such Maine-themed event was a $10,854 clambake and lobster dinner, catered by Foster’s Downeast Clambake of York Harbor. Olson said the dinner was “very popular” with the Washington donors who attended. The same company has also catered two events on the White House lawn and fed partygoers at President George H.W. Bush’s Kennebunkport home.
Casting a net for donors with such high-profile events comes with a largish price tag. In fact, the only two listed Michaud expenditures costlier than the clambake were Olson’s $33,751 salary and $49,331 to Sutter’s Mill, a Washington fundraising group.
Receipts also show two visits totaling $895 to Saltwater Grille on the waterfront in South Portland, where entrees average about $22 and political events are not uncommon, according to restaurant manager Megan Brady. Brady said that she recalls only Democratic members of Maine’s delegation dining there, though “maybe one of the Republicans came last summer.”
Washington-based Pour House, which hosts two or three political fundraisers every week, received $820 in Michaud campaign money. The tavern has recently featured a Northeast-themed menu, including a $13 “lobstah roll” and a $12.50 baked macaroni and cheese with Maine lobster stirred in.
Another Washington eatery, Johnny’s Half Shell, tallied $505 of campaign money on five occasions. According to its Web site, “Johnny’s continues to delight Washington diners with its seafood specialties and strong drinks.”
Michaud’s patronage of local fish-centric eateries has not, from a financial viewpoint, hooked much support from fishermen. The congressman has gotten $1,000 from a political action committee representing the fisheries industry, far below the $10,000 he has raked in from PACs representing machinists and aeronautical workers. Olson, however, said that the fishermen’s support could not be measured financially because they tend to give as individuals, not as an industry.
“When you look at things in PAC sense, I don’t think there’s that much organized fishery money like there would be for any other industry,” Olson said. “The fishermen are a non-ideological type; they’re very focused on their own industry.”
Olson said that while Michaud does not invest a lot of time in choosing menus for events, he has made his preferences known.
“At the risk of sounding too corny, he loves lobsters, potatoes and blueberries, as all Mainers do,” Olson said.
###
Maine Ranked in Top 10 States for Energey Efficiency
MAINE ENERGY
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 21, 2009
WASHINGTON—Maine was hailed as the tenth-most energy-efficient state in the country, as well as the state that most improved its ranking from the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
The council, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to advancing energy efficiency, publishes an annual scorecard that ranks states based on a combination of transportation, legislation and energy-use standards, energy codes for building, appliance efficiency standards and heat and power use.
Last year, Maine was ranked 19th in the nation, and made a nine-slot leap to its current position after a year of intense statewide energy-use reform, from encouraging alternative forms of transportation to weatherizing federal buildings. Maine also became the first state to buy 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-neutral or renewable resources.
Gov. John Baldacci, at the press conference Wednesday at the National Press Club that announced the rankings, said: “In Maine, we recognize that we must make efficiency a priority while also aggressively pursuing the development of alternative energy resources. We began this commitment in 2003, when the price of oil was $20 a barrel,” a fourth of its current price.
California tops this year’s list and last year’s, and Wyoming was identified as the least energy-efficient state, totaling only one point of the possible 50 in the ranking system the council uses.
Maine’s improvement was helped along by the $69.2 million in federal stimulus funds the state received to get a green makeover. Of that total, $27.3 million was designated for the state’s innovative green energy program and $41.9 million for weatherization.
Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both Republicans of Maine, were two of very few Senate Republicans who supported the stimulus package in February.
Snowe, in a statement, said she was pleased about Maine’s improvements in energy efficiency.
“As the sponsor of the legislation that created the landmark energy efficiency tax policies in the 2005 Energy Policy Act and a strong supporter of the weatherization assistance program, I could not be more pleased that Maine is building on these federal initiatives to promote energy efficiency,” she said.
The appetite for energy innovation in Maine shows no sign of slowing down, and last week the state was selected for an $8 million federal grant to develop an offshore deepwater wind turbine research center at the University of Maine.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said in a statement that “Maine is rapidly becoming a national leader in energy policy” and that the state could continue to improve by developing “new sources of clean energy at home and, at the same time, finding ways to save money through energy efficiency.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, also applauded his state’s achievements in moving toward energy independence.
“There is more work to be done,” he said in a statement. “A strong focus on efficiency technologies and clean energy production will help us get out of this economic downturn.”
####
Czars Still in the Spotlight as Collins Pushes for Congressional Oversight
CZARS
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 21, 2009
WASHINGTON—Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Thursday questioned the constitutionality of the so-called czars—senior policy advisers overseeing high-priority fields such as health care and the environment—in President Barack Obama’s administration.
Collins is the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which held the second recent hearing about the special positions.
Collins and the five other Republicans on the committee sent Obama a letter in mid-September, complaining that the 18 West Wingers they had identified as czars held their posts unconstitutionally and violated Congress’ responsibility to oversee the executive branch because Congress could not call them to testify.
Earlier this month, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., held a hearing on the subject before the Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee, which he chairs. The academics on the panel agreed that though there was a gray area around the czars, Obama was not overstepping any constitutional boundaries.
At Thursday’s hearing, however, a different panel reached a different conclusion, and Collins said she would continue to push back on the issue. The panel included Tom Ridge, who said the position lacked definition. Ridge was President George W. Bush’s homeland security czar before he became secretary of Homeland Security.
While the Judiciary subcommittee’s hearing focused on the academic debate, the witnesses at the Thursday hearing looked at the more practical aspects of the issue.
The main point Thursday was whether the czars were duplicating or sidestepping as the responsibilities of Cabinet-rank officials, who must be confirmed by the Senate and be accountable to Congress.
“I think the question is whether by creating these offices [such as Cabinet members or agency directors], you can then effectively prevent the president from looking to someone else to be his adviser on an issue, or letting someone else speak for him,” said Lee Casey, a former adviser in the Department of Justice and a witness at the hearing. “Can you stop the president from looking to someone else? I don’t think you can.”
Collins, however, said that the testimony she heard will not sway her from her mission for a more transparent and legislatively defined role for these top advisers.
“We do have to take great care in drafting the legislation,” she said after the hearing. “I’m convinced that the proliferation of czars is a major problem in terms of accountability and congressional oversight and transparency.”
Collins attempted in late September to attach an amendment eliminating money for the czars unless they agreed to appear before Congress, but it was defeated because policy-related amendments cannot be attached to appropriations bills, as hers was. She would not say whether the legislation she hopes to introduce will have the same provisions as the amendment. She said she has been working with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to draft language.
“I remain convinced that we do need to have an answer to this,” she said.
###
Rock Salt Blizzard Hits Snowe’s Maine Office, But Will the Senator Melt?
ROCK SALT
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 20, 2009
WASHINGTON—One week after lending her vote of support to the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform bill, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, has gained countless column inches of newspaper exposure and at least 115 pounds of rock salt.
Though the analysis and recaps were inevitable, the influx of rock salt came as a surprise to the senator’s staff, who said they received a bundled UPS shipment of 23 fivepound bags of salt to Snowe’s Portland office.
Popular conservative blog RedState sparked the makeshift protest with a post a week ago. In a play on Snowe’s name, Erick Erickson, managing editor of the site and author of the post, wrote, “What melts snow? Rock salt,” and urged readers to send just that as a sign of disapproval.
Erickson did not respond to a request for comment, though he did post a RedState entry entitled “RedState Readers Stimulate the Economy” Monday night, citing a Wall Street Journal blog post saying that 240 bags of rock salt had been shipped to Snowe’s Maine office by a company called Ron’s Home and Hardware.
Snowe’s press representative, however, said Tuesday only 23 bags had arrived, and that they had been shipped by AG Lock and Hardware, an ACE Hardware outlet in Brooklyn, N.Y. All rock salt that the office receives will be donated to Preble Street Resource Center, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in Portland, the spokeswoman said.
Chris Martin, the manager of the Brooklyn store, said that he had not heard about the protest and could not comment on shipments the store had made.
Denny and Kathy’s Superstore, the vendor listed on the Amazon.com page Erickson linked to, did not respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Snowe, for her part, was unfazed by the white crystalline substance that found its way to her Maine office.
“Everyone has their own prerogative,” she said. “I have a job to do, and I choose to focus on doing that job.”
Snowe said that she had not seen any rock salt in any of her offices.
Though the shipments have failed to make any impact on the senator, ripples are being felt in the liberal blogosphere, where authors say that the makeshift protest is absurd.
James Dustin Baker, in his blog, Georgia Liberal, called the mailings “what has to be the dumbest protest against a member of their own party.”
“Republicans, especially moderate Republicans, should be happy that a senator on their side . . . is willing to reach across the aisle,” Baker wrote in an e-mail message. “If the Republican Party does not open up to diverse ideas, they may see more senators, such as Sen. Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania, leaving the party.”
Jim Newell, an editor at Wonkette, a snarky political blog, said that the shipments could actually have a positive impact on Snowe.
“Sending bags of rock salt to Maine before the terrible winter—or has it already started?—is about as nice a gesture RedState could have offered to Olympia Snowe,” Newell said. “So, no, it is not an effective form of protest, just more harmless Internet comedy awkwardly manifesting itself in the real world.”
A review on the product page for Rebel Rock Salt, which Erickson linked to in his original RedState post as an easy way to ship the salt, well summarizes the liberal response to the protest.
The anonymous reviewer rated the salt three stars out of five, and wrote: “This product is very effective for melting ice (though potassium chloride is more effective still) on driveways and sidewalks. It is, however, singularly ineffective as a vehicle for expressing political disapproval.”
####
Senate Subcommittee Asks Whether Obama’s Czars are Constitutional
CZARS
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 6, 2009
WASHINGTON—Lawmakers Tuesday heard from a panel of legal experts on whether President Barack Obama’s appointment of so-called czars in the executive branch sidesteps the Constitution.
The hearing followed a letter Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, sent to Obama last month raising questions about the positions.
The letter, co-signed by five other Senate Republicans, said 18 “czar” positions, which have not been confirmed by the Senate or established by law, fall into a gray area that “raise serious issues of accountability, transparency and oversight” and circumvent Congress’s “constitutionally established process of ‘advice and consent.’”
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution gathered five constitutional law experts to examine the positions’ constitutionality, titling the hearing “Examining the History and Legality of Executive Branch ‘Czars.’”
“I want to be clear that I have no objections either to the people serving as advisers to the president, or to the policy issues they are addressing,” Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., chairman of the subcommittee, said in his opening statement. “I hope that this hearing will enable us to get beyond some of the rhetoric out there and have an informed, reasoned, thoughtful discussion about the constitutional issues surrounding the president’s appointment of certain executive officials.”
“While there is a long history of the use of White House advisers and czars, that does not mean we can assume they are constitutionally appropriate,” he said. “It is important to understand the history for context, but often constitutional problems creep up slowly. It’s not good enough to simply say, ‘Well, George Bush did it too.’ ”
None of the academics said they had a problem with Obama’s appointment of policy czars when Feingold asked them.
John Harrison, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said czars have no legal power and therefore do not violate the Constitution and would not need to be confirmed by Congress.
“A member of the White House staff who is referred to for descriptive purposes as a ‘czar’ but who has no statutory authority cannot take actions with any legal effect,” Harrison said. “As long as such officers exercise only their statutory powers, and exercise them in a lawful manner, it is a matter of indifference from a legal standpoint what terminology, official or unofficial, is used to describe the people who exercise these powers.”
White House Counsel Gregory Craig also responded to Feingold’s concerns in a letter that was passed out at the hearing, calling the positions constitutional.
“Neither the purpose nor the effect of these new positions is to supplant or replace existing federal agencies or departments,” Craig wrote, “but rather to help coordinate their efforts and help devise comprehensive solutions to complex problems. Every president has structured his staff in this manner . . . to help him address the most pressing challenges facing his administration.”
Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has scheduled her own hearing, called “Presidential Advice and Senate Consent: The Past, Present and Future of Policy Czars,” for next Wednesday.
“Czar positions within the Executive Office of the President are largely insulated from effective congressional oversight,” Collins said in a statement Tuesday. “And many ‘czars’ appointed by this administration seem either to duplicate or dilute the statutory responsibilities that Congress already has conferred upon Cabinet-level officers and other senior executive branch officials.”
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the top Republican on the Judiciary subcommittee, said at the hearing: “None of us want to handicap our president in terms of the advisors he can have. We want him to have the best and the brightest.”
###
As Thousands are Running Out of Time on Unemployment, House Approves Extension
DOCUMENTARY
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 1, 2009
WASHINGTON—Maine’s unemployed would receive extended jobless benefits under a House-passed bill to extend federal unemployment benefits 13 weeks beyond the usual 79-week maximum for states whose unemployment rates currently stand at 8.5 percent or higher. Maine’s average unemployment rate is currently 8.6 percent.
Without this legislation, about 4,800 Mainers would exhaust their unemployment packages by the end of December. Since the beginning of August, more than 1,200 Mainers’ benefits have hit their term limit and ended.
The legislation, which passed Tuesday, 331-38, would affect unemployment packages in 27 states. Similar legislation is now pending in the Senate.
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) supported the bid to extend benefits but said extension was a patch, not a permanent solution.
“The bottom line is, we have got to get the economy going,” he said. “We can’t just keep relying on unemployment [benefits]. No one really wants to be on unemployment. They have to until we can get the jobs going in Maine as well as nationwide.”
“We can’t continue to rely on government bailouts or stimulus programs or keep extending unemployment. We need a strong manufacturing sector here in this country, and I’m going to continue to push for that in the long term,” he said. “But in the short term, we have no option but to extend the unemployment benefits.”
Michaud said that even more than the recession, job losses were quickened by old policy failures, especially lack of enforcement of trade policies, leading to many jobs lost to cheaper foreign markets.
“Part of it is because of the failed federal policy over the years, whether it’s the unfair trade deals, the value-added tax, lack of enforcement of trade deals, you know, like China manipulating their currency,” Michaud said. “There’s a lot of areas that we have to move forward in and focus on, as well as creating new jobs and new technology.”
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) also voted to extend unemployment benefits, though she said that “we’re still sort of stuck in the trough. This is only a patch.”
Pingree said that the benefits, which in Maine takes the form of a weekly check of up to $356, are especially important coming into a winter with no sign of major recession relief.
Unemployment checks are, she said, “money that gets spent right away in local communities for heating oil, food, the kinds of things that people spend on in their daily lives. “
Knowing that the economy will not recover overnight, Pingree said she foresees another Congress-approved extension of benefits.
“I do think Congress will continue to be responsive to those states that are struggling, at the same time as we continue to try and boost the economy and help it improve,” she said. “I don’t know when the appetite for extending unemployment will end, but I don’t think that Congress will ever turn its back on high unemployment rates like this.”
###
Maine Troops Greeters Find Themselves in Washington Spotlight
DOCUMENTARY
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 1, 2009
WASHINGTON—After thousands of hours of waiting in drafty airport halls, more than a million handshakes and four years of filming, three Bangor natives are in the spotlight in the nation’s capital. “The Way We Get By,” a feature-length documentary about the troop greeters at Bangor International Airport, was screened at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center Thursday.
Joan Gaudet, Bill Knight and Jerry Mundy are three of the 35 or so core group of people, most of whom are retired, who greet and see off every flight carrying troops overseas and every flight bringing them back home. About 200 people, by Mundy’s estimate, have signed up to greet troops.
The three arrived in Washington Monday and have been carried away on a whirlwind of publicity events ever since.
Gaudet, whose son Aron Gaudet directed the film, said that she and her fellow unexpected film stars had been very busy, with not much time for tourism.
“We get up in the morning, and he [Aron] says you’re going to do this, this and this today!” she said.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, took time out of her day Wednesday to visit with Mundy. She said she was surprised at one of his apparent interests.
“We had Jerry visit with us today, and took him on a tour of the Capitol and took him up to the gallery . . . . I got the feeling he was a C-SPAN watcher, because he recognized a few of the members,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, was also at the Wednesday screening, pushing Mundy in a wheelchair during a private reception before the screening. Michaud, who has greeted troops at the Bangor airport several times before and said he spotted himself in the background of some of the film’s scenes, said that the troops greeting effort is special to him both personally and legislatively. He is chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee.
“Every time I’ve been over to Iraq and Afghanistan and the soldiers find out I’m from Maine, they always mention the troop greeters and how very pleased they were to see them there,” he said. “It’s such a huge crowd, no matter what time, no matter whether night or day. I don’t think [the troop greeters] can imagine how much it really affects the soldiers.”
“Volunteerism is alive and well with the troop greeters,” he said. “You can see it.”
Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both Maine Republicans, came to the reception before the Capitol screening and posed for pictures with Gaudet, Knight, Mundy, the film’s producer and director and the rest of Maine’s congressional delegation. Snowe left before the screening began, while Collins delivered introductory remarks and stayed to watch the film.
“The first question many of you have is, why Bangor, Maine,” Collins said, introducing Jill Biden, the vice president’s wife, who also spoke before the film. “The simple answer is that the city that I’m proud to call home is the location of the easternmost airport in the United States, a former Air Force base that can accommodate transatlantic flights. For our troops, Bangor is either the last American soil they touch upon deployment, or the first they touch upon their return.”
Biden, a Blue Star mother, said that her son Beau had just returned to Delaware that afternoon after a year in Iraq. She said that he told her one of the most emotional experiences of his life was landing in New Hampshire to find 150 people lined up to greet him and his fellow service members. “I will never forget how much that meant to us,” Biden said her son told her.
“And that is what these greeters from Maine mean to our troops as they land on American soil. Joan and Bill and Jerry, you know firsthand what my son Beau was talking about,” Biden said.
Some troops, like Beau Biden, come through Portsmouth International Airport at Pease in New Hampshire, where troop greeters are also active.
For director Aron Gaudet and producer Gita Pullapilly, the film is more than a chronicle of Aron’s mother and the others’ post-retirement lives as troop greeters. It is also a behind-the-scenes romance. Gaudet and Pullapilly were both working as broadcasters at rival stations and they started dating. Gaudet took Pullapilly home to meet his mother, and Pullapilly’s fascination with Joan and the troop greeters planted the seed for what would eventually become their 84-minute labor of love: “The Way We Get By.”
And just as the film’s journey has ended happily—a world premiere and Special Jury Award at the South by Southwest film festival, a shelf full of other awards and honors and now a screening at the U.S. Capitol and limited runs in theaters around the country—Gaudet and Pullapilly’s story will have a happy ending as well: The two will get married in Stockton Springs October 16.
Joan Gaudet, who was born in Bangor and said in the film that she was “addicted to” greeting the troops, was overwhelmed by the response the film had garnered.
“I cry a lot,” she said of how she feels when she sees the film. “I never expected all this.”
Though about half of the small crowd at the invitation-only screening at the Capitol stood when asked who was an active service member or veteran, Gaudet said the screening she was looking forward to most was not the one filled with the black and gray suits of Capitol Hill but Thursday’s at Walter Reed, populated by the wearers of medals and uniforms who were wounded in combat.
“I’m excited about this one, but Walter Reed has a warm place in my heart,” Gaudet said. “We see so many of the guys come back. We went there for a really short time a while ago, and they were having a barbecue, and the first table we went to talk to there were two people there that had been through Maine. They came through in 2004, and one of them now has both of his legs gone. And it really brings it home to you then, when you think what they’ve gone through and what they’re going through and what their family’s going through. It makes it mean a lot more when you go to greet the troops. It’s really special.”
Now, on top of being recognized for their tireless volunteerism and empathy, Gaudet, Knight and Mundy are accidental documentary film stars.
“Congratulations, you’re famous now,” Collins said to Mundy before the film.
“I’m not famous,” Mundy replied. “I’m just lucky.”
###
Ten Snowe Amendments Added to Health Care Bill
AMENDMENTS
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 22, 2009
WASHINGTON—Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) Tuesday called the current markup of the health care reform bill before the Senate Finance Committee “a solid starting point.”
To help the measure reach the finish line, Snowe offered 24 amendments before the deadline last Friday. They were but a small part of the 564 amendments committee members submitted.
The bill, authored by committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), is in the markup stage, when committee members can debate and rewrite it before voting on whether to send it to the Senate floor for a full vote. Baucus made public his modified version of the bill Tuesday, incorporating many of the suggested amendments, including 10 of Snowe’s 24.
All 23 of the committee’s members offered opening statements at Tuesday morning’s markup session. Snowe’s statement lasted about five minutes and took issue with complaints that health care legislation was taking too long to come to a vote, calling the committee’s work so far “an extensive, meticulous process that places thoughtful deliberation ahead of arbitrary deadlines.”
“Let us recall, it took a year and a half to pass Medicare to cover 20 million seniors, so we simply cannot address one-sixth of our economy, and a matter of such personal and financial significance to every American, on a legislative fast track,” Snowe said.
“Virtually every person I’ve encountered, throughout Maine and America, understands unequivocally, even if they have health insurance, that the current system is broken, and that this is not a solution in search of a problem,” she said.
Several of Snowe’s 10 accepted amendments would increase small-business eligibility for proposed government-sponsored health insurance exchanges. Her amendments would broaden the standards for inclusion in the exchanges. Snowe is the senior Republican on the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
Another Snowe amendment would establish a three-year, $75 million Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Care Demonstration Project. It would allow nongovernment psychiatric hospitals to be eligible for Medicaid funds thus providing timelier care and broader available treatment for psychiatric conditions.
One of Snowe’s other accepted amendments would be aimed at low-income people who are willing to take on the risk of minimal coverage while still obeying the proposed requirement that all Americans have health insurance; they could sidestep the penalty imposed on the uninsured and pay only a minimal premium. The insurance they could buy, which is essentially catastrophic coverage, is referred to in the bill as the “young invincible” plan.
The fines for uninsured families whose income is more than 300 percent of the poverty level—a family of four that makes $66,150 annually—would be lowered to $1,900 from $3,800 in Baucus’ modified markup, as a result of amendments Snowe and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) submitted.
One highly publicized pet amendment of Snowe’s that Baucus did not accept: the quasi-public option “trigger” safety net plan. Snowe’s amendment specified that if affordable coverage was not available to 95 percent or more of a state’s residents, a public option would go into effect in that state only. It would work this way:
If a plan’s cost is not more than 3 percent of a lower-income person’s adjusted gross income (defining lower-income as 133 percent of the federal poverty level) or 13 percent of a higher-income person’s income (earning at least 300 percent of the poverty level), it would be deemed affordable.
The committee’s markup will continue at least through Friday. Snowe is widely considered to be the sole Republican who may be swayed to vote in favor of Baucus’ plan.
In his opening statement, Baucus said that a study conducted by Harvard recently found that 45,000 people die every year because they are uninsured, and that uninsured people have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those covered by private insurance.
“Last week, I put out my proposal, but I don’t pretend that it’s the last word,” Baucus said. “I’m eager to work with the other senators to make this an even better bill.”
He called his revised bill “a balanced, commonsense plan that takes the best ideas from both sides” and “a uniquely American solution.”
“Americans have a tradition of balance. We don’t buy into government-only solutions. But we do believe in rules of the road. We have a tradition of mixed solutions. We have a tradition of compromise. We have a tradition of balance. This is a balanced package,” Baucus said.
###
Amendments Could Lead to More Funds for Community Colleges, Brunswick Schools
FINANCIAL AID
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 17, 2009
WASHINGTON—A House-passed student aid bill would provide money that Brunswick hopes to tap to ease the losses that closing the Brunswick Naval Air Station would mean for public schools in the area.
An amendment that Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) successfully offered to the bill on the House floor would make the Brunswick-area schools and other school districts affected by base closures eligible to compete for $200 million set aside for schools in areas affected by severe economic recession or natural disasters.
“We look for every way to find assistance for Brunswick and the surrounding community,” Pingree said.
A second Pingree amendment would make Maine’s community colleges eligible for about $5.9 million for repairs and new facilities.
The legislation, which the House approved, 253-171, on Thursday, would increase federal aid to college students and make all federal student loans directly instead of through private lenders as well as increase federal aid to public elementary and secondary schools nationwide.
The bill, which would provide $4 billion in grants for K-12 schools, sets aside 5 percent, or $200 million, of that money specifically for schools in areas hit hard by the recession or natural disasters. Pingree’s amendment would let school districts affected by base closure apply for a share of the money. The base in Brunswick is set to close completely by 2011, as mandated by the Defense Department’s 2005 Base Realignment and Closure initiative.
According to a statement by Pingree’s office, the base’s closing will reduce the Brunswick public school population by 10 percent, leading to a $1 million reduction in the schools’ government financial aid.
“The need for emergency educational funding in areas affected by the base closures is clear,” Pingree said when she introduced the amendment on the House floor Wednesday. “My amendment helps public schools in BRAC communities recover from the devastating impact of losing hundreds of students and millions of dollars in taxpayer support.”
Maine state Rep. Alexander Cornell du Houx (D-Brunswick) said that the amendment was “very important for the future of Brunswick and the school system, especially considering the closure of the school system.”
Du Houx said that the base’s eventual closing will lead to the loss of 5,000 jobs, but he added that he hoped it would have a positive net impact on the area’s economy, saying that after coming up with new uses for the base, as many as 10,000 jobs could be created in the area.
“We’re working hard to turn it into an opportunity to invest in renewable energy jobs,” du Houx said. “I believe . . . we will be able to turn the closure into an opportunity for high-paying quality jobs.”
Pingree’s other amendment would let Maine’s community colleges, which have received about $7.7 million in federal stimulus money, apply for about $5.9 million in additional aid for repairs and new facilities.
Pingree called the ineligibility of those community colleges in the bill’s original language an “oversight.”
“Obviously [the community colleges] had no idea [when they applied for recovery funds] that there was a future bill they couldn’t participate in,” Pingree said. “I didn’t want to see them cut out from funding possibility in the bill.”
About 15,000 students attend Maine’s seven community colleges, said Helen Pelletier, director of public affairs for the Maine Community College System.
“We are seeing unprecedented demand for our programs and enormous pressure on our colleges and their facilities,” Pelletier said. “This additional funding couldn’t come at a better time.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) also voted for the bill.
“The changes will help Maine students get the training and education they need in order to make a good living and contribute to our economic recovery,” Michaud said in a statement.
###
As ACORN is Defunded, Sen. Collins Leading Charge for Inspection
COLLINS ACORN
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 17, 2009
WASHINGTON—The House stripped ACORN of its eligibility for federal funds Thursday, following the Senate’s example. The vote was 345-75.
The Senate voted, 83-7, Monday to block ACORN from receiving grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
ACORN, an acronym for Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, has taken considerable heat and negative media exposure for the past year, starting with allegations of voter registration fraud during the 2008 presidential elections and most recently with a sting undertaken by Fox News that led to video of ACORN workers in Florida apparently seeking to help sex workers evade taxes to obtain a home loan to start a brothel.
ACORN has received more than $53 million in federal grants since 1994.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joined forces Wednesday with U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to press federal agencies to examine the community organizing group’s use of federal funds for the past decade and a half.
Collins and Issa sent letters to the inspectors general of HUD, the Corporation for National and Community Service and the U.S. Small Business Administration, all of which have given funds to ACORN. In the letter to the corporation, they write that “allegations that ACORN has been inappropriately involved in partisan politics have dogged the nonprofit for years.”
Collins, in a statement, said: “At a time when hard-working American families [are] making tough financial sacrifices, I am appalled by recent reports involving the rampant misuse of taxpayer dollars by ACORN. During the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, congressional oversight into how the public’s money is spent has never been more important.”
Should the groups decide that ACORN misused the federal funds, Collins and Issa urged that they recommend that it be placed on the federal government’s Excluded Parties List System, an official category for “parties that are excluded from receiving federal contracts, certain subcontracts and certain federal financial and nonfinancial assistance and benefits,” according to the system’s Web site.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) cast her vote Monday in favor of stripping ACORN’s federal financing.
John Gentzel, Snowe’s communications director, said, “Given the recent troubling revelations regarding ACORN’s practices and activities, Sen.Snowe felt it was prudent to take a hard look at providing federal funding for this organization.”
The Senate voted by way of an amendment to the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill; the House attached a rider to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act which would increase funds for student loans and school repairs and which passed easily Thursday.
The Census Bureau dropped ACORN as a community partner Friday, seeking to distance itself from the negative publicity the group has recently accumulated.
###
