AFSCME Legislative Highlights
Legislation Department
July 21, 2006
Congress — Week ending July 21
Senate unanimously approves extension of the Voting Rights Act. Senate Committee approves Labor-HHS-Education spending bill. Legislation establishing commissions that could gut domestic programs moves forward in House.
In this issue:
Senate Approves 25 Year Extension of Landmark Voting Rights Act
After months of delay, the U.S. Senate approved on July 20, the "Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Cesar Chevez Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006" (S. 2703). The bill passed by a vote of 98-0. Despite threats by several southern Republicans to offer weakening amendments, the Senate approved the legislation without any amendments being offered. Just one day earlier, after only a brief discussion, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the legislation by a vote of 18-0. The Judiciary Committee rejected by voice vote an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would have weakened the bilingual language assistance provisions. Other weakening amendments were ultimately not offered.
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House to Consider Back Door Attack on Government Services and Social Security
Next Thursday, the House will take up two bills that would establish commissions that would lay the ground work for eliminating federal programs that fund education, social services and law enforcement and would smooth the way for cutting Medicare, Medicaid and privatizing Social Security. The Government Efficiency Act (H.R. 5766) and the Federal Agency Performance Review and Sunset Act (H.R. 3282) would employ extraordinary measures that would exclude the public from the decision-making process and force Congress to act without time to hear from constituents. H.R. 3282 would even set all federal agencies and programs on a path for automatic abolishment every 12 years. Even programs that are not abolished could be changed to eliminate worker protections like civil rights and Davis-Bacon requirements. Workplace health and safety regulations could be weakened by eliminating penalties for violation. A commission could be designed to privatize federally funded jobs at the federal, state and local level.
This Wednesday, AFSCME's Director of Legislation, Chuck Loveless, testified at a hearing before the House Committee on Government Reform against the two bills.
Your help is needed to stop sunset commission legislation.
Please call your Representative at 1-888-460-0813.
Urge them to oppose the "Government Efficiency Act" (H.R. 5766) and the Federal Agency Performance Review and Sunset Act (H.R. 3282) when they are considered by the House on Thursday. An unelected commission, operating behind closed doors, should not be allowed to ram through privatization of Social Security or cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Sunset commissions must not be used as a sneaky, back door route to reducing federal funding for education, law enforcement, social services and other government services on which millions of people rely.
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Senate Panel Approves Public Health Bill
On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved the reauthorization of a public health program that provides state and local health departments and hospitals with funding to upgrade their capacity to deal with public health threats, including bioterrorism. The "Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act" (S. 3678) was first enacted following the 9/11 attacks.
AFSCME worked with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) on an unsuccessful effort to include language in the bill requiring that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issue a pandemic flu standard directing employers to take specific steps to minimize the transmission of pandemic flu to health care workers and first responders who will be treating and transporting flu victims. Republicans on the committee refused to accept any language requiring employers to implement health and safety protections.
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House Votes Soon on New Corporate Tax Loopholes — $3 billion hit on States & Localities
Early next week, the House is expected to vote on the "Business Activity Tax Simplification Act" (H.R. 1956) which would prohibit states and local governments, from taxing certain business activities and would reduce state and local tax revenues by an estimated $3 billion annually. According to the Congressional Budget Office, "while virtually all states would lose revenues, about 70 percent of the estimated losses would come from ten states: California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington." H.R. 1956 would impose a physical presence standard to determine when states could impose a business activity tax. This would legalize existing tax shelter and tax shielding practices and encourage more. The bill also would extend current prohibitions on taxing the sale of goods to also prohibit taxing the sale of services or intangibles. The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to hold a July 25 Subcommittee hearing on the Senate's companion legislation, S. 2721.
AFSCME, the National Governors Association, the National Association of Counties, and many labor unions oppose this legislation which is a key lobbying priority of multinational corporations.
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Senate Appropriations Committee Reports FY 2007 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Spending Bill
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved an FY 2007 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill this week. At $142.8 billion, it is $4.9 billion more than President Bush requested and $900 million more than the House bill.
As a result, it avoids some of the deepest cuts in the House bill including the $325 million recession of Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funds. Nonetheless, except for some health programs, such as community health centers and the maternal and the child health block grant which received modest increases, most programs either were level funded or reduced. For the second year in a row, the committee went along with Labor Department requests to cut State Employment Service grants and reduced them by $27 million, slightly less than the House bill.
The Senate bill is not expected to go to the Senate floor before the election. When it does, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)expects to offer an amendment to add $2 billion to the bill in order to bring it in line with the amount approved by the Senate during debate on the Budget Resolution earlier this year. In the meantime, AFSCME is working with other allies through the Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities (ECAP) to build pressure on the Congress to increase the overall amount of funding in the bill.
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State Legislatures Call for Additional Funding for Workforce Programs
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) expressed its strong support for FY 2007 funding for Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and related workforce development programs at FY 2005 funding levels, in a letter sent to the leadership of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. NCSL noted that the House Appropriations Subcommittee FY 2007 bill (H.R. 5647) would reduce overall support for WIA and related programs by over half a billion dollars. "If enacted these cuts would result in total reductions to workforce programs of over $850 million since 2002. These cuts are short sighted, reduce overall U.S. competitiveness and shortchange the nation's businesses and workers who utilize the workforce investment system." NCSL also opposes H.R. 5647's rescission of $325 million in "excess carryover" funds, money that states will need to respond to unpredictable events like mass layoffs and hurricanes.
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Senate Appropriations Committee Approves Funding for Public Housing
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY 2007 Transportation, Treasury, Judiciary, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spending bill delivering relatively good news to housing programs. The bill funded HUD at $36.6 billion, $2.5 billion above President Bush's proposed budget. It funds $2.5 billion for the Public Housing Capital Fund, $21 million more than last year and $282 million more than President Bush's proposal. It funds $3.66 billion for Public Housing Operating Fund, $96 million more than last year and $96 million more than President Bush's proposal. In a sharp rebuke to President Bush's proposal to eliminate HOPE VI (Revitalization of Distressed Public Housing), the bill funds HOPE VI at $100 million and extends HOPE VI's authorization through FY 2007. The Senate Committee also disagreed with President Bush concerning funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). The bill funds $4.2 billion for the Community Development Fund, $37.2 million more than last year and $1.2 billion over President Bush's proposal. The CDBG will get $4.1 billion, which is also significantly more than President Bush proposed.
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House Holds Immigration Hearings
Both the Education and the Workforce and the Judiciary Committees in the House held hearings on the Senate-passed immigration bill (S. 2611). The Education and Workforce Committee focused on the guest worker proposal in the bill. Every witness supported the use of guest worker programs, but the opinions ranged from witnesses who only supported a guest worker program to fill temporary short-term needs to representatives of business who claimed that their businesses would "collapse" without foreign workers. House GOP leaders expressed concern over the Senate bill's provision that could expand the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires federal contractors to pay prevailing wages to their workers. When Labor Secretary Elaine Chao was asked in an interview if the Administration supports the Senate's Davis-Bacon provision, she was evasive saying that "I don't think there is a consensus." But the Vice-President for Labor, Employment Benefits and Immigration of the Chamber of Commerce, Randel Johnson, stated unequivocally that the Davis-Bacon provision in the Senate bill is so bad that if it is included in the final conference report, the Chamber would likely oppose the entire bill.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Ranking Member on the Education and Workforce Committee, reminded the witnesses that the Bush Administration and the Congress scaled back worksite immigration enforcement operations against companies by 99 percent between 1999 and 2004.
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GOP Unveils School Voucher Plan
The Bush Administration and Republican legislators yesterday proposed a $100 million national plan to offer low-income students private-school vouchers. The plan was immediately assailed by Democrats, unions and liberal advocacy groups.
The irony of this announcement is that the proposal comes just days after the independent research arm of the Department of Education issued a report showing that public schools are performing as well as or better than private schools, with the exception of eighth-grade reading, in which private schools excelled. The results prompted questions from foes of vouchers about why taxpayer money should go toward private schools instead of toward improving public schools. However, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told reporters that she hadn't yet read the report. The GOP plan, which they call the "opportunity scholarship" plan despite the fact that it is actually a voucher plan, would offer low-income students transfers to other public schools, tutoring, and scholarships to private schools, up to $4,000 per student. The secretary said the plan would cover 28,000 students.
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House Approves Another So-Called Free Trade Agreement That Hurts Workers
Following on the Senate's approval last week, the House voted to approve the Oman Free Trade Agreement (OFTA) (H.R. 5684), by a vote of 221-205 with 199 Republicans and 22 Democrats voting for the agreement. The OFTA agreement is the latest in a long line of deeply flawed trade agreements that have failed to deliver on their proponent's promises of economic benefits to workers both here and abroad while protecting investors and corporations. In every significant aspect, the labor provisions in the OFTA, which require only that nations enforce their own labor laws, are the same as those contained in the failed NAFTA model and most recently contained in the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Additionally, Oman's labor laws fall far short of meeting the International Labor Organization's (ILO) core labor standards.
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Declining Federal Support for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Documented
Significantly fewer foster children and adopted children with special needs are eligible for federal financial support since Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was replaced by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) ten years ago, according to a report released this week by the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). In the TANF law, Congress tied eligibility for federal foster care and adoption assistance funds to the now non-existent AFDC program. Over time as inflation has increased, eligibility continues to erode and fewer and fewer children who are placed in foster care receive federal support. In 1998, 55 percent of the children entering foster care qualified for federal assistance. By 2004, only 45 percent qualified - a decline of approximately 50,000 fewer children. The report notes that while state and local agencies are struggling to make up the shortfall, the failure to fix the "look back" to 1996 reflects "a stunning decline of federal support and growing abandonment by our government for vulnerable children." The CWLA calls on Congress to modernize and update eligibility criteria while retaining children's entitlement to this assistance.
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Senate Provides Raises for Corporation for National Service
The Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations subcommittee approved legislation recommending $876.5 million for the Corporation for National and Community Service and its programs for FY 2007. The House version of the spending bill failed to provide funds for mandatory raises and other pay adjustments. The Senate legislation number was $53.6 million more than the House passed and $25 million above the President's request and would provide for employee pay raises.
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