Joe Biden 37 , CD3 DFL

HHS data highlights negative effects of work requirements

Twenty-three states asked for approval for work requirements, and 13 were approved under the Trump administration

New Department of Health and Human Services data shared exclusively first with CQ Roll Call shows that efforts by states to seek work requirements or capped funding result in reduced enrollment and access to care.

The report looks specifically at Section 1115 waivers, which are used to test new types of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program demonstration projects at the state level. Traditionally, these waivers had been used before the Trump administration to expand access to care for subsets of the population.

The Trump administration pushed policy changes to allow states to apply to implement work requirements or seek capped funding in exchange for added program flexibility. Continue reading.

Fox News buried in mockery for griping about Biden’s lack of press conferences: ‘Call me when he golfs every weekend’

Fox News was hit with a round of mockery for making a big deal out of President Joe Biden going 50 days into his administration without a press conference.

The president conducted a town hall in mid-February to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and vaccination efforts, but he hasn’t conducted a solo news conference with reporters.

Social media users, however, quickly reminded Fox News of former president Donald Trump and his administration’s failures. Continue reading.

New Stimulus Package Brings Big Benefits to the Middle Class

Be it child care or health care, an array of tax changes and subsidies makes the $1.9 trillion relief legislation more than a lifeline for the poor.

WASHINGTON — The economic relief plan that is headed to President Biden’s desk has been billed as the United States’ most ambitious antipoverty initiative in a generation. But inside the $1.9 trillion package, there are plenty of perks for the middle class, too.

Whether they are direct stimulus payments, an array of tax benefits or an expansion of the Affordable Care Act, the bill will bring a big economic lift to middle-income families. In some cases, those households will have weathered the pandemic relatively unscathed, and those who are concerned about the cost of the legislation have suggested that the definition of middle class has expanded to include families who are actually well-off.

An analysis by the Tax Policy Center published this week estimated that middle-income families, those making $51,000 to $91,000 per year, will see their after-tax income rise by 5.5 percent as a result of the tax changes and stimulus payments in the legislation. The increase for that income group is about twice as generous as what it received after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Continue reading.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity claims Biden only developed a stutter recently — videos show him talking about it years ago

Fox News host Sean Hannity has doubled down on the conspiracy theories about President Joe Biden’s health. It’s a similar conspiracy that Fox hosts pushed in 2016 that Hillary Clinton was going to die any day, and desperately ill. She wasn’t and she’s still alive, obviously.

The new conspiracy is that Biden’s well-known and well-documented stutter only appeared recently. That too, is false, as Biden even addressed it accepting the vice-presidential nomination in 2008 on live television. Fox News was there. Biden also talked to the ladies of “The View” about it in 2010.

Biden then spoke about it in a video to the American Institute for Stuttering in 2014. Continue reading.

CNN’s Blitzer mocks Donald Trump for claim Biden would kill stock market — as Dow hits record high

CNN host Wolf Blitzer noted that when President Donald Trump was running for president in 2020, he over and over would claim that if Democrats get control the stock market will crash.

Thus far, President Joe Biden has hit two record days at the Dow Jones. It was something that Blitzer couldn’t help but bring up during a panel discussion Wednesday.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly explained that unlike other stimulus packages, this one was built from the bottom up. Democrats didn’t start with the total amount of money they wanted, they started with the things they wanted in the bill and added them up. Continue reading.

Billions in aid from COVID-19 relief bill headed to Minnesota

The COVID relief bill includes state and local aid, help for the hospitality and agriculture sectors.

WASHINGTON – Minnesota’s state and local governments, its ailing hospitality industry, struggling small businesses and the agricultural sector will get a financial boost from the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package.

An estimated nearly $4.9 billion will flow to Minnesota governments, including almost $2.6 billion to the state and another $2.1 billion for cities, counties and other local governments.

“The impact of this bill is going to be seen and felt by people in Minnesota right away, and it’s going to make a big difference as they’re digging themselves out of what’s been a really terrible public health and economic crisis,” said Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith in an interview. Continue reading.

Republicans are lying about Biden’s immigration policy — here’s what’s really going on at the border

In right-wing media, one often hears the bogus claim that President Joe Biden, like former President Barack Obama before him, favors an open-borders policy to immigration. But proponents of comprehensive immigration reform are quick to respond that Biden doesn’t favor opens borders any more than Obama did when he was president. And MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff, speaking to activists on the Mexican side of the U.S./Mexico border, found that none of the people he interviewed believed that Biden had adopted an ultra-liberal immigration policy.

Soboroff, reporting for MSNBC, entered Tijuana, Mexico from California and found an abundance of “refugees from all over the world” who were hoping to enter the U.S. and finding it to be a major uphill climb. The reporter explained that that they were “trying to find out how, if at all, the policies under the Biden administration are different than under the Trump administration.”

Some of the refugees Soboroff encountered were Haitians who were still in dire straights because of a massive earthquake that hit the country in 2010. Others were refugees from countries in Central America who have been facing harsh economic circumstances because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading.

Federal officials relax guidance on nursing home visits, citing vaccines and slowing infections

Federal health officials on Wednesday substantially relaxed the government’s guidelines for family and friends to see nursing home residents in person, saying that vaccinations and a slowing of coronavirus infections in the facilities warrant restoring indoor visits in most situations.

The nursing home guidance, the first federal advice on the subject since September, says “outdoor visitation is preferred,” even when a nursing home resident and family or friends are fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.

But acknowledging that weather or a resident’s poor health might make an outdoor visit impractical, the recommendations encourage nursing homes to permit indoor visits “at all times and for all residents,” regardless of whether people have been vaccinated, except in a few circumstances. Continue reading.

Senate confirms Fudge as Housing secretary

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by a solid bipartisan margin.

Senators approved Fudge’s nomination to be HUD secretary on a 66-34 vote. She will be the first woman to hold the position since 1979 and the second Black woman and the third woman ever to lead the department.

“I can think of no one better to lead us out of this pandemic and create strong communities for the future than Marcia Fudge,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which advanced Fudge’s nomination by a 17-7 vote last month. Continue reading.

Here’s what’s in the $1.9T COVID-19 relief package

President Biden is on the precipice of the biggest legislative win so far in his time in office: the signing of a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package the House is expected to approve Wednesday.

The package is highlighted by the $1,400 direct payments to be sent to millions of households, an extension of unemployment benefits and funding for vaccine distribution.

But it includes much more than those provisions. Here’s a look at what else is in the bill. Continue reading.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: