Chalk up another congressional fight this year
in which Sen. Olympia Snowe altered the
political landscape from her seat on the Finance
Committee.
The Maine Republican's reluctance to vote for a
nearly $70 billion tax-cutting package prompted
the committee to abandon a scheduled vote
Thursday.
In order to win her vote last month on spending
cuts, the committee agreed to protect Medicaid
health-care beneficiaries. The committee instead
siphoned funding from Medicare providers in the
prescription-drug benefit - a move that provoked
a White House veto threat.
Throughout the year, Snowe's concerns about
Social Security reform blocked any action at all
in the committee on President Bush's top
domestic priority. Bush proposed to allow
workers to invest part of their retirement
accounts, a move that Snowe opposed as a threat
to benefits that retirees depend on.
Snowe proved pivotal in each debate, because -
with 11 Republicans and nine Democrats on the
committee - her opposition dooms a partisan
bill.
She is up for re-election next year, prompting
questions in the Capitol about how disputes with
Bush or Republican congressional leadership
might hurt her prospects at home.
Don't count on it.
A Critical Insights poll in late October found
Bush's approval rating at 25 percent in Maine,
with 60 percent disapproving. The poll of 601
adults had a margin of error of 4 percent.
Meanwhile, Snowe won her last race with 69
percent of the vote.
Party affiliation, with voters split fairly
evenly among independents, Republicans and
Democrats, doesn't explain those results. Even
though Maine has two Republican senators, Bush
lost the state in each of his presidential
campaigns by about 5 percent.
The crux of cutting government spending is to
curb the entitlements of Medicaid, Medicare and
Social Security. Contentious debates focused on
all three this year.
But Maine's population illustrates why residents
are skeptical about taking away benefits that
have been promised for decades.
HOW MAINE DIFFERS
The state has the oldest median age in the
country, the Maine Heritage Policy Center
reported, based on census figures. In a
population of 1.3 million, about 266,000 receive
Social Security benefits averaging $807 per
month, according to the National Committee to
Protect Social Security and Medicare.
In addition, about 227,000 receive Medicare
benefits for the elderly and disabled, according
to the advocacy group Kaiser Family Foundation.
Against this backdrop, Bush argued that Social
Security had to change before it became
insolvent by perhaps 2042. He proposed allowing
workers to invest about one-third of the 12.4
percent of their paychecks going toward Social
Security. He also promised not to change
benefits for anyone at least 55 years old.
But concerns that younger workers might lose
benefits prevented any action this year. Snowe
voiced "serious concerns" about undermining
benefits by diverting contributions from
workers.
Committee chairmen recently declared the subject
dead for the year, meaning Congress might not
revisit it until 2009 - after the next
presidential campaign.
Maine is also poor. Enrollment in Medicaid for
low-income families is about 240,000, according
to the Kaiser Family Foundation. About one-third
of all children statewide and one in six adults
get Medicaid benefits, according to the Maine
Heritage Policy Center.
House leaders assembled a package of spending
cuts that would have increased copayments for
Medicaid prescriptions and reduced payments to
providers, which could discourage doctors from
treating those patients.
To avoid hurting beneficiaries, Snowe negotiated
in the Finance Committee to achieve savings in
Medicaid basically from bigger rebates from drug
manufacturers. The bill to which she gave the
winning margin in a party-line vote would also
divert money from an account to entice insurers
to participate in Medicare's prescription-drug
benefit that begins Jan. 1.
Snowe argued that because insurers are already
participating, financial incentives are no
longer necessary. But the Medicare angle
provoked a veto threat from Bush.
"If a final bill is presented to the president
that limits the choices of seniors, takes away
their prescription drug coverage or cuts the
stabilization fund to increase Medicare
spending, the president's senior advisers will
recommend he veto the bill," a White House
statement said.
DELEGATION UNITED
Even after her victories in the Finance
Committee, Maine's entire delegation - Snowe and
Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic
Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud - opposed the
package of spending cuts.
"Ultimately I felt compelled to vote against a
bill that regrettably does not serve the
interests of Maine or America," Snowe said.
Senators return Monday for another go at the
tax-cutting package.
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