“House Republicans narrowly passed their version of an annual defense bill 219–210, after stacking it with controversial amendments on social issues that are dead on arrival in the Senate.
The debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, or the NDAA for short, now heads to the Democrat-controlled upper chamber, which is set to consider its own take on the bill later this month. Eventually, the two chambers will work to reconcile their differences between the two in the hope of finding a compromise.
The NDAA, one of Congress’s must-pass bills, effectively lays out what the military’s budget could look like for the next year and which programs will be funded. This year’s House bill authorizes $886 billion in funding, including a 5.2 percent pay raise for service members and the appointment of an inspector general to oversee Ukraine funding.
Much like the debt ceiling legislation and annual spending bills, the NDAA is a prime opportunity for lawmakers to add unrelated amendments making policy changes to pet issues, since it has to pass every year. This week, Republicans capitalized on this opportunity to put forth controversial amendments favored by their right flank, including restrictions on abortion and LGBTQ rights. It’s a move that’s meant to send a message about their position on social issues, and it’s also one that makes what was a bipartisan bill much more contentious.”
“Under the new rules, candidates will be required to have at least 40,000 donors to make the Aug. 23 debate stage, including at least 200 from 20 distinct states. They will also have to garner at least 1 percent in three qualifying polls, two of them national, after July 1. And they must commit to supporting the eventual Republican nominee.”
“This new wave of bills targets a long-standing and common standard of job protection for college and university professors, meant to ensure freedom of thought among academics and insulate them from political attacks. The bills that are emerging this year are part of a broader trend among conservative legislatures attacking perceived liberal teachings in high schools and public universities: Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law that would require professors at public universities in the state to undergo a tenure review process every five years, saying that tenure promotes “intellectual orthodoxy.” Other Republican state leaders like Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have since taken up the mantle, arguing that higher-level education is a place of liberal indoctrination and a source of “societal division.”
But the debate is about more than whether professors get to keep their jobs for life: It’s yet another sign that state-level Republicans are doubling down on appealing to their base. The partisan divide between those who go to college and those who do not is one of the firmest divides in American politics today, and it has reinforced diverging attitudes about the value of higher education itself and the role it plays in American life. Republican voters are increasingly suspicious of colleges and universities, and attacks on tenure are just the latest way the party is stoking those concerns.”
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“Opponents of measures like the ones proposed in Texas and Ohio — and the law passed in Florida last year — are concerned that eliminating tenure will make educators vulnerable to politically motivated firings.”
“There is a certain logic to Republicans’ commitment to pursuing Medicaid cuts: Social Security and Medicare are universal programs. Everyone pays in while they work, and then enjoys the benefits when they retire. Medicaid, on the other hand, is targeted to people who have low incomes. Republicans argue that this program, like food stamps and cash welfare, discourages people from seeking work, since they only qualify for benefits if their income is below a certain threshold.
“Assistance programs are supposed to be temporary, not permanent,” McCarthy said. “A hand up, not a handout. A bridge to independence, not a barrier.”
The problem is their diagnosis may be wrong. For starters, about two-thirds of the people covered by Medicaid — those who are children, elderly, or disabled — are usually exempted from work requirement proposals. Working-age adults who are expected to meet them can end up losing coverage even if they are attempting to satisfy it, if they have irregular work hours for example, or if they have trouble filing the necessary paperwork. One estimate of a Medicaid work requirement proposal in Michigan found that only about one-quarter of the people expected to lose their coverage were considered “out of work,” meaning they could work but weren’t. The rest were already working, retired, caring for a loved home at home, or unable to work for some other reason.
In Arkansas, where implementation of a work requirement was eventually blocked by a court order, nearly 17,000 people lost coverage after the requirement was put in place. Analyses later found that Medicaid beneficiaries had not started working more or earning more money as a result of the policy. Instead, lots of people got kicked off Medicaid, but it didn’t lead to an improvement in their economic status; they simply became uninsured.”
“State Rep. Jeff Hoverson didn’t want anyone getting in the way of using fossil fuels in North Dakota. Not the United Nations. Not international nonprofits. Certainly not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So he made a law to stop them. In March, the North Dakota legislature passed a bill that Hoverson co-authored with a state senator. It’s short, sweet and to the point: “A climate control-related regulation of an international organization, either directly through the organization or indirectly through law or regulation, is not enforceable on this state.”
Hoverson told me he isn’t sure what that will mean the next time the federal government wants to sign a climate treaty. Frankly, he’d prefer the feds not have that kind of power, anyway. But while his law stands out for the scope of its ambitions, it’s not exactly an outlier in its spirit. Across the country, bills pushing back against climate policy have been a trend this legislative session, with multiple states proposing — and passing — laws that would undermine efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Some of the laws aim to support the oil and gas industry in various ways, such as a bill in Indiana that amends clean-energy incentives for utility companies to include building natural-gas power plants as long as they can be said to displace coal, or another in Kentucky barring conservation easements in the state from infringing on the activities of oil and gas industries. Others have taken the form of preemption laws, barring cities and other regional governments from setting more stringent environmental regulations than the surrounding state. This includes laws preventing bans on gas stoves and requiring municipalities to include natural gas as a source of clean energy, as well as bills that would prevent them from banning the use of certain refrigerants before the federal government does.
None of this is exactly good Earth Day tidings. And, more importantly, this legislation highlights what a mess American climate policy is. These laws pit different branches of government against each other, roll back some environmental protections established in legislation of years’ past and, in the case of North Dakota, create laws to prevent things that are not currently happening and likely wouldn’t be enforceable if they did. Meanwhile, plenty of other states are introducing and often passing bills that do directly or indirectly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The result is that predicting the near-term future of environmental regulation in this country is really hard. And that, economists say, can end up making it more expensive — and less appealing — to reduce emissions.”
“”Wage theft” is a catch-all term for not paying workers what they are owed under the law, such as violating minimum wage or overtime regulations. It is a crime under the Fair Labor Standards Act and is enforced by the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division. It can involve business owners sneakily ripping off employees. It can also result from honest confusion or mistakes regarding what is owed.”