Biden-Harris Administration Accomplishments II

 A month ago the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. The final rule requires nursing homes to provide a minimum of 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident day, including 0.55 hours of care from a registered nurse per resident day and at least 2.45 hours of care from a nurse aide per resident day, as well as 24/7 onsite RN services. 

To make sure the federal money is being spent appropriately, CMS will require states to collect and report on the percent of Medicaid payments that are spent on compensation for direct care workers, and support staff, delivering care in nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities, for individuals with intellectual disabilities. 

Big business is already pushing back claiming that nursing homes will close. It's a scare tactic and that's one of the areas where the new regulation requiring that the amount spent on nursing staff salaries be published on public facing websites will help as we'll all be able to see which nursing homes are sucking up profits at the expense of providing sufficient staffing.

There's also big news on about your internet connection and the access to all the services and websites you're interested in. Last month the Federal Communications Commission voted to "restore a national standard to ensure the internet is fast, open, and fair. The decision to reclassify broadband service as a Title II telecommunications service allows the FCC to protect consumers, defend national security, and advance public safety," according to a release from the FCC. This is known as Net Neutrality.

The change in rules enables the Commission to revoke the authorizations of foreign-owned entities who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the U.S. Any provider, such as four Chinese state owned providers, without section 214 authorization for voice services must now also cease any fixed or mobile broadband service operations in the United States.

This is the part of the new Net Neutrality rules that immediately is important to me as I am and have been a tele-worker for 20 years. The FCC will now monitor internet outages because when workers cannot tele-commute, students cannot study, or businesses cannot market their products because their internet service is out, our economy loses. The new rules mean that the FCC can now play an active role.

Of course, the big internet providers are fighting back with a range of spurious claims which are just fig leaves covering their desire to throttle speed for sites not part of their stable or willing to pay premium prices to get faster connections to their customers. The big providers want to either profit from their own services to the detriment of your ability to access other sites and/or charge you higher fees.

The Biden-Harris administration is working for all Americans, to ensure that the services we need are available and compensated fairly. Trump has made it very clear that fairness takes a back seat to profits especially for those who pay his legal fees. In November the choice is clear we can have safe, adequate care for our aging loved ones and wide access to the resources on the internet or we can let the wealthy vultures profit off our carcasses.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 22, 2024

Biden-Harris Improving Life for All Americans

 April was a big month for making life better for Americans. The Biden-Harris administration announced new rules on over-time pay, non-compete clauses, nursing home staffing, and Net Neutrality.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) updated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)'s overtime pay requirements. The rule increases the minimum salary threshold for businesses to avoid paying over-time to salaried workers to $43,888 on July 1, 2024, and then to $58,656 on January 1, 2025. Then starting in 2027, the threshold will automatically increase every three years to reflect changes in average earnings. Salaried workers who earn above the salary threshold may still be eligible for overtime pay if they do not primarily perform management-related duties as long as they earn less than about $151,000. As you might expect from a Republican in the pocket of big business Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina claimed; "If the administration's goal with this rule is to improve the standard of living for workers, then it's failing miserably." Unions and worker advocacy groups praised the Biden administration for restoring overtime protections that it said had been "gutted" by the Trump administration.

The Labor Department estimates that 4 million lower-paid salary workers who are exempt under current regulations will become eligible for overtime protections in the first year under the new rule. An additional 292,900 higher-compensated workers are also expected to get overtime entitlements. That’s a lot of Americans who will either be paid more or will have more time to spend with their families.

On April 23 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a final rule banning non-compete clauses nationwide. Non-compete agreements restrict employees who leave a job from working in that field for a specific time period in a certain geographic area. The commission voted to approve the final rule 3-2. If you guessed that the 3 Democratic appointees were the ones who voted yes while the 2 Republican appointees voted no give yourself a cigar. The FTC determined that non-compete clauses violate Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” The final rule is set to become effective in late August. The only exceptions are for senior executives defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually and who are in policy-making positions. Senior executives comprise less than 0.75% of all workers.

The FTC estimated 30 million Americans, roughly 20% of workers, are bound by non-compete agreements. This is an important ruling as “Non-compete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once non-competes are banned,” according to FTC Chair Lina M. Khan in a press release. “The FTC’s final rule to ban non-competes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”

Of course the day after the announcement, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several other business groups sued the FTC in Texas federal court in an attempt to block the rule. This is typical judge shopping where the lawyers suing look for a judge likely to take their side.

As you might expect if it is good for workers big business will push back and their Republican lap dogs will bark up a storm. Just don’t let anyone tell you that the Biden-Harris administration isn’t making things better for the average American. It’s the Trump cult Republicans who aren’t interested in making life better.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 8, 2024

Justice Alito Would Make Trump King

I have come to expect some outlandish ideas to come out of the mouths of Donald Trump, his lackeys/supporters like Rudy Giuliani, and appointees like former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. I’m no longer surprised when conservatives who opposed Trump like Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Nevertheless last week I was stunned to learn the Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito thought it might be a good idea for presidents to have total immunity for any action taken while in office including private actions.

The Supreme Court held oral arguments for 2 and half hours last week regarding whether or not the case for attempting to overturn election results through fraud could go to trial.  Speaking to Michael Dreeben, an attorney representing special counsel Jack Smith, Alito began by stating: “I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully, if that candidate is the incumbent?” I think any reasonable person would agree so to that point but then Alito follow up with: “Now if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”

The Supreme Court is known for looking deeply at the issues before it in regard to the meaning of the law, the applicability of various aspects of the constitution, and the potential future consequences of the decision they render, as well as precedent and history. If Justice Alito's concern about consequences were valid then shouldn't there be historical evidence to support it? In the nearly 250 years of our democracy, power has been transferred from a president to his successor post-election 40 times. On 11 of those occasions the challenger defeated an incumbent, a situation that is fraught with bitterness and the potential for messy post-election actions. Yet, there has been only one losing incumbent to have been further troubled by attempts to prosecute them and that ex-president is Donald J. Trump.

There's a reason Trump is being prosecuted in four separate courts, he's the only ex-president who tried to foment a coup against the United States of America and denying the rights of millions of voters by overturning a free and fair election. He's also the only ex-president to have claimed to have declassified sensitive national security documents in his head then kept them as souvenirs even after being asked to return them, denying that he had them, and then went out of his way to try to hide them.

Alito is often considered an originalist in that his interpretations of law are based on the original meaning of the words and phrases in the constitution as well as the perceived intent of the founding fathers. In this instance it’s pretty clear that’s all a crock because the nation’s founders were revolutionaries who made it quite clear that unlike a king no one in this land is above the law, not even ex-presidents.

Trump must be tried in order to insure that he remains the anomaly that he is today and future presidents think twice before attempting to remain in office after losing.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 1, 2024