The U.S. Senate’s blueprint for budget reconciliation includes harsher cuts to Medicaid than the version passed by the House, but calls for a slower phase-out of clean energy tax credits and lowers the cap on state and local tax deductions. The changes, announced Monday, sets up a clash with the lower chamber as Congress scrambles to meet a self-imposed July 4 deadline to pass the massive, deficit-busting tax and budget package. The New York Times reports:
Unlike the House version, the Senate bill would require adults with children over age 14 to work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month to qualify for the health insurance program. The work requirement in the House bill was already the strictest Republicans have ever proposed — estimated to cause around 5.2 million Americans to lose Medicaid coverage by the end of the decade. Adding parents to the program would likely mean a larger number of people would lose coverage.
The bill would extend most of the 2017 tax cuts that expire in January and which are heavily tilted to wealthy people and large corporations. Senators rolled back supplemental Medicaid payments to hospitals and so-called provider taxes, both of which Louisiana uses to finance health care services for people with low incomes. The Wall Street Journal:
The provider taxes and the state-directed payments have become an important lifeline for hospitals, who are expected to decry the Senate’s approach. But the changes will cheer fiscal conservatives.
Teacher pay on the ballot
After years of pay stagnation, public school teachers in Louisiana would get a modest, but permanent salary increase starting in July 2026 under legislation that passed last week but still needs voter approval. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Elyse Carmosino reports that it comes at a cost, as the money would come from eliminating several constitutionally protected education trust funds.
Louisiana voters will return to the polls to decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment that would permanently raise teacher salaries by $2,250 and support staff salaries by $1,125 under a pair of bills that received final passage in the Legislature on Thursday. … Lawmakers failed several times in recent years to increase their pay, opting instead for one-time stipends three years in a row. If signed into law, the bills will turn the stipend amount teachers currently receive into a slightly larger permanent pay increase.
The latest pay package is similar to salary increases that were included in a much larger proposed amendment to the constitution that voters overwhelmingly rejected on March 29.
No tax on tips vs minimum wage
The sprawling budget reconciliation bill working its way through Congress would eliminate federal taxes on tipped income – one of the few tax measures aimed at improving economic conditions for people with low incomes. As Nina Mast and David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute note, a much more effective way to help low-income workers would be for Congress to raise the minimum wage and eliminate the tipped minimum wage.
While no tax on tips would benefit only the small share of workers who receive tips as a portion of their compensation, the Raise the Wage Act would benefit all low-wage workers in the U.S., including 4.2 million people with incomes below the poverty line. Over the next 10 years, the Raise the Wage Act would have a total benefit to affected workers of $700 billion, compared with about $39 billion from “no tax on tips” in the House bill.
Schools plan attendance boost
About 1 in 4 students in Louisiana public schools are chronically absent, and absenteeism has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic. State education officials hope to reduce that by 2%, and recently released a list of strategies that local school districts can adopt. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Elyse Carmosino:
Some suggested interventions to promote student well-being and boost attendance include providing weekend food bags for students dealing with food insecurity, creating a closet with spare clothes for children whose families struggle to afford school uniforms, and encouraging students to join after-school activities. While schools aren’t required to adopt the strategies, the framework is intended to give districts evidence-based solutions to combat poor attendance, which research has linked to numerous negative outcomes, including lower test scores, poor grades and a higher likelihood of becoming involved in the criminal justice system, education leaders said.
Number of the Day
$16.4 billion – Federal funding included in the 2025-26 budget for the Louisiana Department of Health. More than 71% of the health department’s $23 billion budget comes from the federal government, with the vast majority of that money supporting Medicaid. (Source: Legislative Fiscal Office)