President Joe Biden’s revised – but still massive – infrastructure spending bill includes several major wins for Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators.
The $1.75 trillion reconciliation bill was announced late Thursday morning after days of feverish negotiations among Congressional Democrats.
Notably, according to the White House, tax credits under the ACA will be extended through 2025. The White House said experts predict more than 3 million people who would otherwise be uninsured will gain health insurance. The bill also makes those tax credits available through 2025 to 4 million uninsured people in uncovered states.
Both U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have been vocal proponents of Medicaid expansion in Georgia. Biden’s Build Back Better proposal includes a provision to close the Medicaid coverage gap in Georgia and the 11 other states where states have refused to expand Medicaid.
Warnock’s office said the expansion will provide health insurance to about 646,000 Georgians who make too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid coverage but make too little money to afford coverage on the marketplace.
According to the White House, here are some of the items included in the reconciliation bill now being debated in Congress:
Universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds. This expands access to free high-quality preschool for more than 6 million children. This is a long-term program, with funding for six years.
Limiting of child care costs for families to no more than 7% of income, for families earning up to 250% of state median income. It enables states to expand access to about 20 million children. Parents must be working, seeking work, in training or taking care of a serious health issue. This is a long-term program, with funding for six years.
Extend for one year the current expanded child tax credit for more than 35 million American households, with monthly payments for households earning up to $150,000 per year. Make refundability of the Child Tax Credit permanent.
Clean energy tax credits ($320 billion): Ten-year expanded tax credits for utility-scale and residential clean energy, transmission and storage, clean passenger and commercial vehicles, and clean energy manufacturing.
Resilience investments ($105 billion): Investments and incentives to address extreme weather (wildfires, droughts, and hurricanes, including in forestry, wetlands, and agriculture), legacy pollution in communities, and a Civilian Climate Corps.
Investments and incentives for clean energy technology, manufacturing, and supply chains ($110 billion): Targeted incentives to spur new domestic supply chains and technologies, like solar, batteries, and advanced materials, while boosting the competitiveness of existing industries, like steel, cement, and aluminum.
Clean energy procurement ($20 billion): Provide incentives for government to be purchaser of next-gen technologies, including long-duration storage, small modular reactors, and clean construction materials.
Allow Medicare to cover the cost of hearing.
Housing: $150 billion investment in housing affordability and reducing price pressures, including in rural areas. Funds go toward building more than 1 million new affordable rental and single-family homes, rental and down payment assistance, and public housing.
Reduce costs and expand access to education beyond high school by raising the maximum Pell grant, providing support to Historically Black Colleges & Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Minority Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities, and investing in workforce development, including community college workforce programs, sector-based training, and apprenticeships.
An earned income tax credit for 17 million low-wage workers.
The White House continues stressing the plan is more than fully paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations to pay their fair share. It does not raise taxes on small business and anyone making less than $400,000 per year.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA — A $473 million first-of-its-kind semiconductor plant will be opening in Newton County, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office announced Thursday morning.
SKC, a subsidiary of SK Group, and several business partners will manufacture glass-based substrates for semiconductor chips in Covington. The venture will create more than 400 new jobs.
The plant will be developed on the SKC property, located at 3000 SKC Drive in Covington. The company will primarily be hiring high-tech engineers, skilled technicians, and other semiconductor field-experienced talent. The company expects to ramp up production by late summer 2023.
A ceremonial memorandum of understanding was signed between the state and SKC solidifying the project and location. After various related work in multiple countries, Dr. Sung Jin Kim, SKC’s director of new business development, served as a research professor at Georgia Tech from 2012-2015. Kim helped develop this glass substrate technology.
SK Group is one of the largest conglomerates in South Korea, and the Covington facility will be its third major investment in Georgia. In addition to the new SKC location, SK Innovation is investing nearly $2.6 billion in developing two battery manufacturing facilities in Jackson County to supply electric vehicles.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – One week from a special legislative session called to redraw Georgia’s legislative and congressional maps, the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus released its proposed legislative district map.
The proposal contains 22 districts in which minorities are a majority of residents and a majority of the voting age population, an increase from the 20 such districts that currently exist.
In a statement, Democrats said the new map more fairly represents the partisan makeup of Georgia’s electorate by establishing 25 districts that will likely elect Democrats, 27 that will likely elect Republicans, and four competitive districts.
Submitted by Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, the proposed map redraws the state’s 56 Senate districts in a way that allows for increased participation by racial minorities, the party said.
“Our map reflects Georgia’s growing diversity, and it is responsive to the will of the people,” Butler said. “We cannot create maps that allow any party to be immune to accountability. We have a sacred responsibility to get this right – to ensure that the only power we are preserving is the power of the people’s vote.”
Last week, the Georgia House and Senate Democratic caucuses Thursday released their own proposed congressional map. That map, which proposes more of a 50-50 split between GOP- and Democratic-leaning districts, follows a GOP-proposed map released in late September.
With the GOP holding majorities in both the state House and Senate, none of the proposed Democratic maps are likely to get serious consideration.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators said Tuesday they are still working to include a massive Medicaid expansion provision in the Senate’s final spending bill.
“We are united in this push and to doing everything we can to ensure that our constituents who lack health insurance, have access to health care and to close the circle on the Affordable Care Act by ensuring that folks are not suffering or dying, simply because the state government has decided not to expand Medicaid,” said U.S. Jon Ossoff.
Georgia remains among 12 Republican-run states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid, with former Gov. Nathan Deal and current Gov. Brian Kemp citing the program’s costs.
Kemp prefers a more limited expansion, which the Trump administration approved last year. But the Biden administration has put that plan on hold because of concerns it includes a work requirement for Medicaid recipients.
Ossoff said both he and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock have spoken to U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, several times to secure his support. Manchin and U.S. Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Arizona, have expressed serious reservations about the size and cost of President Joe Biden’s $3.7 trillion spending and infrastructure plan.
“Health care is a human right in every state,” Warnock said. “Your ability to access health care ought not to be based on personnel. The Affordable Care Act is the law, and Medicaid saves lives.”
Georgia Democrats have pushed for Medicaid expansion since then-President Barack Obama steered the Affordable Care Act through a Democratic Congress in 2010 with no Republican votes.
Ossoff and Warnock declined to comment on whether they would support Biden’s massive infrastructure spending bill if Medicaid expansion was not included in the final version.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Herschel Walker, the UGA football legend who is running for the Georgia GOP Senate nomination, got two big endorsements from Capitol Hill this week.
On Monday, Walker was endorsed by U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. Thune, as Senate Whip, is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.
Thank you @SenJohnThune for your support! The road to taking back the Senate runs through GEORGIA and I look forward to working with you in Washington! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/fd3GHy4uAu
Then on Wednesday, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Walker’s first-ever political campaign.
“I am happy to endorse Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate in Georgia,” McConnell said. “Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate. I look forward to working with Herschel in Washington to get the job done.”
Thank you Leader McConnell for your endorsement. As I have said from the beginning, I am laser focused on bringing people together to win this seat back for GEORGIA and for America. #UnitedWeStand#DividedWeFallpic.twitter.com/0wJiuxss3W
McConnell is the sixth U.S. senator to endorse Walker, who has also been endorsed U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri); Steve Daines (R-Montana); Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina).
Walker is seeking the chance to face Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in November 2022. Georgia is widely seen as a battleground state that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, which is currently deadlocked between Republicans and Democrats in a 50-50 split.
Walker has already been endorsed by former president Donald Trump, and debuted his campaign at a Trump rally in Perry earlier this year. Walker once played for Trump’s New Jersey Generals in the now-defunct USFL.
Back in September, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, who is also running for the GOP Senate bid, announced the endorsements of 55 state Republican lawmakers.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
