Action Alerts

Ongoing: None.

Major Events Last Week

Economic Recovery

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (P.L. 111-5) into law on February 17. This constitutes the second economic stimulus package enacted in the past few months. About one third of the $787 billion package will be dedicated to tax policy. The other two thirds will be spent primarily on domestic initiatives to protect and develop jobs. Billions of dollars are dedicated to disability programs in the ARRA.

National Governor's Association

On Saturday, the National Governor's Association (NGA) convened its three day winter meeting in Washington, D.C. Much of the agenda is focused on the economic crisis. The Governors will meet with President Obama and his Cabinet. Some Republican governors have announced their reluctance to receive some of the ARRA funding.

Major Events Ahead

U.S. Congress

The Congress returns to work today after a week long recess. It is scheduled to remain in session for the next six weeks.

Obama Administration

Today, the President hosts a "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" in the East Room of the White House. Approximately 130 national leaders, including Cabinet officials, leaders in the Congress, and nonprofit groups, will begin to address long term approaches to address the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending, tax reform and other federal budget challenges. Expected topics include health care costs, Social Security, tax policy, procurement/contracting, and the federal budget process. Marty Ford of the DPC staff and Chairperson of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, is an invitee to this event. During this event, President Obama announced that the first installment ($15 billion) of the Medicaid ARRA payment to states will be released on Wednesday.

Tomorrow, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress where he is expected to lay out more of his Administration's priorities that the federal government needs to address in the coming months.

On Thursday, the Obama Administration will release its preliminary Fiscal Year 2010 budget. Since the President has been in office just over a month, this budget proposal will likely contain high priority spending plans, with more details being released later.

The Senate is expected to confirm the nomination of Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA) as Secretary of Labor.

FY 2009 Appropriations

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this week on the FY 2009 omnibus appropriations for the many departments and agencies that have been funded for five months under a Continuing Resolution (CR). The CR was necessary due to the impasse between the last Congress and former President Bush on spending priorities. Both Houses are expected to finalize action on the bill by the March 6^th expiration of the CR. Although conferees have completed action in resolving the spending differences between the House and Senate appropriations bills, final figures have not yet been made public. The omnibus appropriations bill is expected to increase domestic spending by about 8 percent.

Health Care

Today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), will hold a hearing on "Principles of Integrative Health: A Path to Health Care Reform".

On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), will hold a hearing on "Scoring Health Care Reform: the Congressional Budget Office's Budget Options".

Civil Rights

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) responded to a growing scandal involving a poultry processing plant in Iowa which, for the last 34 years, has kept dozens of men with intellectual disability on the property in deplorable conditions and paid them roughly $0.44 an hour. The plant served as employer, landlord, caregiver and representative payee. The men originally came from Texas."This is pretty close to slavery," Harkin said. "It should shock all our consciences that something like this would go on in this day and age." A hearing in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee sponsored by the Senator has yet to be finalized or scheduled, but the proposed hearing would likely address the questions of why existing laws appeared to go unenforced and whether any legislative changes are needed to prevent similar problems in the future. The Government Oversight Committee of the Iowa Legislature is expected to hold hearings on the matter this week. The Arcs of Iowa and Texas are involved.

Victimization

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Action (LLEHCPA) has been identified by the Obama Administration as one of its priorities for the first 100 days. In preparation for the bill to be introduced, The Arc and UCP are collecting stories of hate crimes committed against an individual with disability in the last six months. A hate crime is defined by the underlying motivation of the perpetrator against his or her target of aggression. If the victim is intentionally targeted because of a specific characteristic, i.e. race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability, then a hate crime has been committed. Please forward any stories of hate crimes against a person with a disability to acosta@thedpc.org.

Announcements

2009 Disability Policy Seminar

As of today, 61% of the hotel rooms at the Hyatt Regency have been booked. Persons interested in attending this year's Seminar to be held on April 27-29 are strongly encouraged to make their hotel reservations and register for the Seminar as soon as possible at:
http://www.ucp.org/ucp_generalsub.cfm/1/8/12477

Please note that you can view previous issues of the Capitol Insider, at UCP.org anytime by choosing "Capitol Insider" under "Public Policy."

Read previous Capitol Insider issues now.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at acosta@thedpc.org.

Sincerely,

Annie Acosta
Director of Communications and Grassroots
Disability Policy Collaboration