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Los Angeles Times
04-08-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
August recess can't hide tensions ahead for Congress on spending and Trump nominations
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers have left Washington for the annual August recess, but a few weeks of relative quiet on the U.S. Capitol grounds can't mask the partisan tensions that are brewing on government funding and President Trump's nominees. It could make for a momentous September. Here's a look at what's ahead when lawmakers return after the Labor Day holiday. Lawmakers will use much of September to work on spending bills for the coming budget year, which begins Oct. 1. They likely will need to pass a short-term spending measure to keep the government funded for a few weeks while they work on a longer-term measure that covers the full year. It's not unusual for leaders from both parties to blame the other party for a potential shutdown, but the rhetoric began extra early this year, signaling the threat of a stoppage is more serious than usual. On Monday, Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries sent their Republican counterparts a sharply-worded letter calling for a meeting to discuss 'the government funding deadline and the health care crisis you have visited upon the American people.' They said it will take bipartisanship to avert a 'painful, unnecessary shutdown.' 'Yet it is clear that the Trump Administration and many in your party are preparing to go it alone and continue to legislate on a solely Republican basis,' said the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson. Republicans have taken note of the warnings and are portraying the Democrats as itching for a shutdown they hope to blame on the GOP. 'It was disturbing to hear the Democrat leader threaten to shut down the government in his July 8 Dear Colleague letter,' Thune said on Saturday. '... I really hope that Democrats will not embrace that position but will continue to work with Republicans to fund the government.' So far, the House has approved two of the 12 annual spending bills, mostly along party lines. The Senate has passed three on a strongly bipartisan basis. The House is pursuing steep, non-defense spending cuts. The Senate is rejecting many of those cuts. One side will have to give. And any final bill will need some Democratic support to generate the 60 votes necessary to get a spending measure to the finish line. Some Democratic senators are also wanting assurances from Republicans that there won't be more efforts in the coming weeks to claw back or cancel funding already approved by Congress. 'If Republicans want to make a deal, then let's make a deal, but only if Republicans include an agreement they won't take back that deal a few weeks later,' said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., a veteran member of the House Appropriations committee, said the Democratic minority in both chambers has suffered so many legislative losses this year, 'that they are stuck between a rock and their voting base.' Democrats may want to demonstrate more resistance to Trump, but they would rue a shutdown, he warned. 'The reality would be, if the government were shut down, the administration, Donald Trump, would have the ability to decide where to spend and not spend,' Fleischmann said. 'Schumer knows that, Jeffries knows that. We know that. I think it would be much more productive if we start talking about a short-term (continuing resolution.)' Republicans are considering changes to Senate rules to get more of Trump's nominees confirmed. Thune said last week that during the same point in Joe Biden's presidency, 49 of his 121 civilian nominees had been confirmed on an expedited basis through a voice vote or a unanimous consent request. Trump has had none of his civilian nominees confirmed on an expedited basis. Democrats have insisted on roll call votes for all of them, a lengthy process than can take days. 'I think they're desperately in need of change,' Thune said of Senate rules for considering nominees. 'I think that the last six months have demonstrated that this process, nominations, is broken. And so I expect there will be some good robust conversations about that.' Schumer said a rules change would be a 'huge mistake,' especially as Senate Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass spending bills and other legislation moving forward. The Senate held a rare weekend session as Republicans worked to get more of Trump's nominees confirmed. Negotiations focused on advancing dozens of additional Trump nominees in exchange for some concessions on releasing some already approved spending. At times, lawmakers spoke of progress on a potential deal. But it was clear that there would be no agreement when Trump attacked Schumer on social media Saturday evening and told Republicans to pack it up and go home. 'Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL!' Trump posted on Truth Social. Freking writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Report finds five north country hospitals at risk if Republican Medicaid cuts pass Congress
Jun. 26—Five hospitals in the north country could be faced with steep cuts to their operating revenues if the budget bill Republicans are pushing through Congress right now passes, according to analysis from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill's Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Analysis from the center found that rural hospitals across the country would be majorly hurt by the Medicaid cuts the Republican budget bill calls for, because rural hospitals often have a significant portion of their patient pool, sometimes a majority of it, in the Medicaid or Medicare programs that serve poor and elderly people, respectively. The Sheps Center looked for hospitals that are both in the top 10% of Medicaid payer mix, meaning they have the largest proportions of Medicaid patients to non-Medicaid patients, and that have reported three straight years of negative total operating margins, meaning they've been paying out more money than they've been taking in. In New York, 11 hospitals fit that criteria, including 5 in the north country; Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in Ogdensburg, Massena Hospital, Clifton-Fine Hospital in Star Lake, Gouverneur Hospital and Lewis County General Hospital in Lowville. Ogdensburg and Lowville are not considered top Medicaid providers, but they do each serve a significant number of Medicaid recipients each year and both demonstrate negative annual margins. The Sheps Center analysis posits that the cuts to Medicaid, which come from a combination of changes to federal support for Medicaid spending, expanded work requirements and adjustments to the fees and taxes states can charge providers, would result in significant numbers of everyday Americans being kicked off of the program. Those people would still need emergency medical care as they receive at hospitals, which have a duty to provide it, but those hospitals would no longer be paid for the care they provide at all. In a letter to President Donald J. Trump and the Republican leaders in the House and Senate, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and three other Democratic Senate leaders implored them to reverse course on the Medicaid cuts outlined in the reconciliation bill, which Trump has named the "One Big Beautiful Bill." "Many of these rural hospitals are facing financial instability today, even before any of the Republican health care cuts take effect," their letter reads. "Rural hospitals will be disproportionately impacted by health care cuts. Addressing the crisis in rural health care access is a national, bipartisan priority, and it should be bipartisan to not worsen it. However, if your party passes these health care cuts into law, Americans in rural communities across the country risk losing health care services and jobs supported by their local hospitals." State Democrats are criticizing north country Rep. Elise M. Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, for backing the bill and continuing to support it as Republicans push it to final approval. "Five hospitals in Elise Stefanik's district are on the chopping block because of her vote for the largest cut to Medicaid in history," said Addison Dick, spokesperson for the state Democratic Party. "Instead of fighting for her constituents, Stefanik is caving to Trump and supporting his budget that will rip away coverage, increase health care costs, and devastate rural health care." A spokesperson for Stefanik pushed back on the claims that the Medicaid provisions in the reconciliation package will result in loss of coverage for her constituents, which he called an "indespensible lifeline for our nation's most vulnerable." "However, far left Democrats continue to fearmonger because they know that President Trump is delivering results for the American people," the spokesperson said. "He ran on the promise that he would root out the wasteful and fraudulent government spending. In New York alone, an estimated $20 billion is spent on fraudulent Medicaid claims annually. On top of this insurmountable burden resting on the shoulders of hardworking taxpayers, illegals are also eligible for Emergency Medicaid which has ballooned more than 1,200 percent since 2014. This spending is unsustainable and in order to continue protecting and preserving benefits for America's most vulnerable, waste, fraud, and abuse must be rooted out." The Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative New York think tank, found in late 2024 that as many as 3 million New Yorkers may be fraudulently collecting Medicaid and other health insurance benefits from the state, basing their analysis off of census data and information obtained from the state Medicaid program. Overall, 44% of New Yorkers receive Medicaid or a similar program, including children on the state-level Child Health Plus program and the New York Essential Plan, provided through the American Care Act health insurance marketplace and providing Medicaid-like coverage to people making up to 250% of the federal poverty level. The Empire Center also found earlier this year that the state program to offer emergency medicaid to undocumented immigrants, which has 480,000 people enrolled as of March, represents 7% of total Medicaid enrollment in the state. If the reconciliation package passes into law with the provisions for Medicaid included in the House-passed version, the federal government could cut the money it pays to the state for its portion of Medicaid funding, which would reduce available benefits for all recipients. Stefanik, who has floated a run for governor next year and has made criticisms of state programs aiding undocumented immigrants a core part of her early, pre-campaign message, said in a visit to Albany last month that she would seek to use executive actions and push the state legislature to end the emergency Medicaid program and cut down on fraud if elected. Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul, who is running for reelection, has not expressed any interest in changing that aspect of the state's Medicaid operations. It's not clear if the final package will include the major Medicaid provisions as passed by the House. On Thursday, the U.S. Senate Parliamentarian, which is charged with ensuring all actions taken by that chamber follow the proper laws and procedures, struck many of the most impactful Medicaid provisions from the bill for procedural reasons. Whatever resulting legislation passes in the U.S. Senate will have to go back to the House for a final vote before it can go to the president for approval. The two chambers have not seen eye to eye on many aspects of the reconciliation bill. Trump has demanded that lawmakers deliver a finished bill to his desk by July 4.
Los Angeles Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Trump re-ups his threat to strip Harvard University's tax-exempt status
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday re-upped his threat to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status, escalating a showdown with the first major college that has defied the administration's efforts to crack down on campus activism. He's underscoring that pledge even as federal law prohibits senior members of the executive branch from asking the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or an investigation. The White House has said any IRS actions will be conducted independently of the president. 'We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status,' Trump wrote on his social media site Friday morning from Palm Beach, Fla., where he is spending the weekend. 'It's what they deserve!' The president has questioned the fate of Harvard's tax-exempt status — which a majority of U.S. colleges and universities have — ever since the school refused to comply with the administration's demands for broad government and leadership changes, revisions to its admissions policy, and audits of how diversity is viewed on the campus. That prompted the administration to block more than $2 billion in federal grants to the Cambridge, Mass., institution. The Treasury Department directed a senior official at the Internal Revenue Service to begin the process of revoking Harvard's tax-exempt status shortly after a social media post from Trump in mid-April questioning it, although the White House has suggested that the tax agency's scrutiny of Harvard began before Trump's public comments targeting the school. Democrats say Trump's actions against Harvard are purely political. The Senate minority leader, Charles E. Schumer, along with Massachusetts' two Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Ron Wyden of Oregon, called for an inspector general investigation into Trump's attempts to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status. Trump's move 'raises troubling constitutional questions, including whether the president is trying to squelch Harvard's free speech rights and whether the revocation of its tax-exempt status will deprive the university of its due process rights,' the senators wrote in a letter Friday to Heather Hill, the acting Treasury inspector general for tax administration. Mike Kaercher, deputy director of NYU's Tax Law Center, said: 'Overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress have enacted laws making it a crime for the President and his staff to request an audit or investigation of a particular taxpayer.' An IRS representative did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. Trump's battle against Harvard is part of a broader campaign the administration is framing as an effort to root out antisemitism on college campuses. But the White House also sees a political upside in the fight, framing it as a bigger war against elite institutions decried by Trump's loyal supporters. The 'next chapter of the American story will not be written by The Harvard Crimson,' Trump said Thursday night in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where he delivered the commencement address at the University of Alabama. 'It will be written by you, the Crimson Tide.' The Harvard Crimson is that school's student newspaper. The Crimson Tide refers to the Alabama school's athletic teams. In addition to threatening Harvard's tax-exempt status and halting federal grants, the Trump administration wants to block Harvard from being able to enroll international students. Kim writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.
Washington Post
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Chuck Schumer is listening — but he's still sure he was right
In the weeks since Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer infuriated much of his party by voting with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown, the New York Democrat has worked hard to repair the damage.
Washington Post
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Senate Democrats ask for answers from inspector general on Social Security cuts
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and four other Senate Democrats are urging the Social Security Administration's inspector general's office to investigate the impacts of the U.S. DOGE Service's dramatic restructuring and sweeping cuts to the government agency.
