SEATTLE - Members of Washington's congressional delegation are getting an earful during this recess about proposed changes to Medicare and Social Security. In the debate about the futures of these programs, some want Congress to look back at what the country was like without them.

Mark Schmitt, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, is a former editor of The American Prospect magazine and also a staff member of former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ). Schmitt estimates that Social Security lifts half of all seniors out of poverty, where most of them were before it started. He says both programs have worked to transform and stabilize the lives of the elderly.

"Medicare provides that guarantee that we're going to have some kind of health care in old age, which people didn't have at all before 1965. And Social Security does a lot of things for all of our families."

Republicans have suggested cutting Social Security benefits or raising the retirement age and, in the U.S. House, have proposed turning Medicare into a private voucher program. But the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities predicts that under a voucher system, seniors could end up paying twice as much for half the coverage.

For older Americans, says Schmitt, private health insurance has never really worked.

"What was there before there was Medicare? Well, basically there was nothing. It was a very, very expensive proposition to buy any kind of health insurance for people who were over 65, and you were probably better off just bearing whatever costs you were going to bear on your own."

Schmitt calls the programs "social insurance." Since so many people collect benefits, he says, private insurance companies can't afford to cover them. In his view, the programs have to be administered by the government.

"We are all going to retire, we are all going to have greater costs in our old age. Only by sharing those across all of society, sharing that risk across all of us, is it possible to create an insurance system against that."

More than one million people in Washington state receive Social Security, and about 954,000 use Medicare benefits.

The Alliance for Retired Americans (www.retiredamericans.org) has declared this (Apr. 25-30) a national week of action, protesting the proposed changes with a theme of "Don't Make Us Work 'Til We Die."

Social Security and Medicare will be major parts of the budget debate when Congress returns from its break on May 2.




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Rural Nebraska could lose on two fronts if two of Gov. Jim Pillen's budget vetoes are allowed to stand.

Pillen struck down a second year of increases in Medicaid reimbursement rates and millions of dollars for Rural Workforce Housing.

Dr. Jed Hansen, executive director of the Nebraska Rural Health Association, called the veto a "gut punch." He said all of Nebraska's hospitals and nursing homes will feel the effects, but especially those in rural communities, where more than 60% of hospitals operated at a deficit last year.

"So, the narrative the governor had used -- that hospitals were 'better off financially coming out of the pandemic' -- just wasn't true," Hansen asserted. "And especially wasn't true for our rural hospitals."

The Legislature had approved $20 million for rural housing development over the next two years, which the governor also nixed.

Johnathan Hladik, policy director for the Center for Rural Affairs, said a lack of housing is the "number one workforce issue" in the state, noting it is a major reason jobs remain unfilled in Nebraska's smaller towns. He pointed out the higher cost of building in rural areas makes it unlikely developers would start such projects on their own.

"We're talking about standard houses for the workforce to relocate to a community," Hladik explained. "To become employed, contributing members of that community."

With his veto, the governor cited the investments the state has made in affordable housing over the last few years, but Hladik countered it came after years of no support for housing. He maintained the state is still "playing catch-up," with the housing problem far from solved.

Hladik added the program would fund grants to nonprofit development corporations to partially cover the costs of building moderately-priced, owner-occupied houses and rental housing units.

"When you talk about how we populate our rural areas, how we attract people to rural areas, how we fill the open jobs that are in rural areas, this is a narrowly targeted program that has the ability to do that," Hladik contended. "I think it's important that it has our support."

Hansen stressed it is also important to raise the Medicaid reimbursement rate, noting maternal care and behavioral health tend to be heavily Medicaid-dependent, so the services are at particular risk in Nebraska's rural hospitals.

"We feel that those have been areas -- mental health, maternal care, family care -- that have been important to him," Hladik acknowledged. "He's expressed that those are values that are important to him. And this veto, we just feel, doesn't line up with that."

A decision about overriding both vetoes is expected on Wednesday.

Over the weekend, lawmakers announced they have reached an agreement to reduce spending and address the debt limit. The deal needs a full signoff from Congress before it becomes law.

West Virginia could lose billions of dollars for programs like Medicaid and Head Start under the historic spending cuts House Republicans are proposing. An analysis by the group Americans for Tax Fairness found the GOP debt ceiling budget would reduce federal aid to the Mountain State by $518 million in 2024, and by more than $8 billion over the next decade.

David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, said Republican lawmakers are pushing for massive cuts in federal programs that help working families.

"Seven hundred teachers would be removed from West Virginia classrooms, 5,500 West Virginians would lose access to job-training programs, 220,000 West Virginians would lose health care coverage from Medicaid," Kass outlined. "Those are the cuts, and they'd have a really significant impact on West Virginia."

Republicans argued limiting federal spending through measures like blocking student loan relief and tightening work requirements for programs like SNAP and Medicaid -- along with temporarily increasing the debt limit -- will help the nation pay its bills.

Kass pointed out GOP lawmakers continue to support tax breaks for upper-income households who do need social services to stay afloat.

"They're proposing these cuts in really essential services for people in West Virginia, 'Because we need to cut the deficit,' they say," Kass asserted. "At the same time, they're proposing these tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy."

The Biden administration has proposed restoring the top 39.6% tax rate for households with taxable annual income of more than $450,000 a year, and single earners with taxable income above $400,000, along with closing some of the tax loopholes used by the wealthy.


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The looming U.S. debt default could affect a host of programs across the country - and in New York, the list includes clean-energy investments.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. has until June 5 before a default would occur. In the meantime, states like New York have been ramping up their clean-energy infrastructure with federal Inflation Reduction Act funds.

A Climate Power report finds the IRA created 950 clean-energy jobs in New York from more than $560 million in funding.

Zander Bischof, head of Regulatory & Government Affairs at MN8 Energy, described how a default could jeopardize the future of these investments.

"It would put pressure on clean energy investment through a few mechanisms," said Bischof. "I think, firstly, it would drive up interest rates, and therefore the financing costs of clean energy assets - which are generally pretty capital intensive. We're talking about most of the costs being to get the steel in the ground, and then very low ongoing operating - and then from there, fuel costs."

He added that a default also could devalue the U.S. dollar, leading to higher costs for these projects.

This isn't the first time the IRA has been threatened. A bill to repeal it appears to be stuck in the U.S. House.

The Joint Economic Committee estimates that repealing the IRA would lead to energy costs of up to $300 a year higher per household.

Some experts feel the alternative isn't much better. House Republicans' "Limit, Save, and Grow Act" would raise the debt ceiling, but slash clean-energy funding.

Sandra Purohit - director of Federal Advocacy at the advocacy group E2 - said she feels after so much progress, it would be a step in the wrong direction.

"If you avoid default under this plan," said Purohit, "you would do so by revoking incentives that are making a huge and positive impact on our economy."

Both President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have said they're confident a deal will be reached as negotiations continued over the weekend - although others see it as an impasse that's unlikely to be settled by the deadline.




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