Brian Kemp backs US Senate budget plan amid fears of Medicaid cuts

The Republican budget framework moving through Congress is putting the nation’s governors in a tough spot. So far, both the U.S. House and Senate have endorsed a plan for the committee that oversees Medicaid to cut $880 billion from the budget.

It’s hard to see how a cut of that size could spare Medicaid, which takes up a sizeable chunk of most state budgets. The proposal has raised fears that a program providing health coverage to 79 million Americans could be on the chopping block.

GOP leaders insist it’s not. While the directive to slash the budget is still in place, the Senate added a deficit-neutral reserve fund aimed at “protecting Medicare and Medicaid.”

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp — chair of the Republican Governors Association — was one of GOP 22 governors who signed a letter backing the Senate’s amendment to the House budget resolution. The letter doesn’t mention Medicaid, but it praises President Donald Trump for his “promises to reinstitute fiscal sanity.”

We’ll know more about the fate of the budget resolution later today. But this morning, Kemp plans to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for the first freestanding emergency room in metro Atlanta.

This facility will serve south Fulton County after Wellstar closed the area’s last hospital in 2022. But the new facility, made possible by a law Kemp signed, will depend in large part on Medicaid.

Georgia is one of 10 states that has refused to expand its Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act. Still, the program provides health coverage to about 2 million people. The program pays for half of all births in the state.

Things to know

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Good morning! Gov. Brian Kemp has 35 days to sign or veto legislation passed by state lawmakers this year. Here are three things to know for today:

Stay in school

Credit: AJC file photo

Credit: AJC file photo

The number of students chronically absent from Georgia schools fell to about 8% in 2020. You know what happened next.

Following the pandemic, chronically absent students surged to 20%, where it has stubbornly stayed since. Last year the statewide average was 21.3%.

State lawmakers have struggled to find a solution. Their latest attempt is on Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. Senate Bill 123 would require school districts where chronic absenteeism is 10% or higher to create an attendance review team.

These teams would meet twice per month to review individual cases and come up with plans for them — and their parents — to get the students back on track.

“The kids have to be in their seats if they are going to learn,” said state Sen. John F. Kennedy, a Republican from Macon and the author of the bill.

The proposal is one of hundreds on Kemp’s desk. He has until May 14 to decide whether to sign them into law or veto them.

First impressions

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

This year’s legislative session was the first for 22 newly elected lawmakers, many that we profiled in this newsletter. We checked back in with two of them — one in the House, the other in the Senate — to get their take on the politics beneath the Gold Dome.

State Rep. Robert Flournoy, D-Hampton, arrived at the Capitol expecting to see the same partisan divide that plays out every day on television from Washington. Instead, he found a chamber where most of the votes are close to unanimous.

“I realized that we are a lot closer aligned than I thought we would be,” he said. “For the most part, Democrats and Republicans, we agree on a lot of things. There are only a few issues that really separate us.”

State Sen. RaShaun Kemp had a different experience. As one of the Senate’s two LGBTQ+ members, he was often pushing back on bills that sought to restrict transgender people in sports and health care.

“Typically we say, ‘Hey, the trenched-in politics occurs in D.C., and in state politics and government, that’s where stuff gets done,” he said. “I did not see very many bills that addressed the kitchen table issues that people really voted for in the last election.”

But Kemp did enjoy getting to know all of his Senate colleagues, who playfully teased him about sharing a last name with Gov. Brian Kemp. They are not related.

Listen up

Credit: Jenni Girtman for the AJC

Credit: Jenni Girtman for the AJC

Today on “Politically Georgia,” an interview with Michael Collins, longtime chief of staff to the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, about U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking filibuster last week. The New Jersey Democrat had pointed to Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon, as his inspiration to keep going.

Have a question or comment for the show? Give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.

You can listen and subscribe to the show for free at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sell-off

Credit: Rod Lamkey Jr./AP

Credit: Rod Lamkey Jr./AP

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene took her Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee on the road to hold a hearing at the Wilbur J. Cohen Building in Washington, D.C. In some ways, the hearing’s key witness was the building itself.

The building was completed in 1940 and once housed the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which includes Voice of America and other state-run news networks considered part of U.S. diplomacy. President Donald Trump is now attempting to dismantle that agency, leaving both its new and former office locations mostly vacant.

Both Greene and New Mexico U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, referenced the Cohen building multiple times during Tuesday’s hearing, but for different reasons.

Greene said it was proof of the Biden administration’s wasteful spending by moving the agencies to what she called a lavish office building. Stansbury said the sale was evidence of the prior administration’s responsible efforts to downsize the federal government’s real estate footprint.

In addition to the properties themselves, Greene also criticized spending during the Biden administration on furniture for government offices. One example she mentioned repeatedly: solar-powered picnic tables with charging ports purchased by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021 at a cost of $237,960.

“As we continue investigating waste, fraud and abuse, we can look no further than the unconscionable amount of spending that the federal government spends on empty buildings and brand new high-end furniture and something as ridiculous as solar power picnic tables,” the Rome Republican said during her closing remarks.

Greene’s subcommittee will not be releasing a list of federal buildings it thinks should be sold. She said those decisions will be left to the White House and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative.

USAID funds

Credit: Ben Curtis/AP

Credit: Ben Curtis/AP

It has been over a month since the U.S. Agency for International Development announced it had had canceled its contract with Mana Nutrition, a Georgia-based maker of peanut butter that feeds malnourished children overseas, only to come back a week later and say the money had been restored.

But the company still waited weeks to be paid the $18.6 million in federal funds it was owed for already completed work. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s office said he personally interceded on the Fitzgerald-based company’s behalf, even speaking directly with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The dollars finally reached the South Georgia manufacturing plant last week.

“I could not sit idly by as their funding was threatened,” said Warnock, an Atlanta Democrat. “I’ll remain vigilant, there is still a lot of work to be done and federal funding to protect, but this demonstrates what is possible when we put politics aside to focus on the people.”

Today in Washington

Trump’s guy

Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

U.S. Rep. Brian Jack, the newest member of Georgia’s congressional delegation, has been working behind-the-scenes with President Donald Trump since 2016. And it’s paying off now that Jack’s career as an elected official coincides with Trump’s return to the White House.

The low-key Jack has weathered nearly every storm with Trump since he got into politics, including as White House political director during the president’s first term.

Trump recognized the Peachtree City Republican during a White House event on Monday when he celebrated the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series victory. The president and Jack, his former political director and campaign aide, have bonded over their love of sports.

Just a day later, Trump gave Jack another shout out during his remarks to a room full of Republicans at a fundraising dinner for the House GOP campaign arm. Trump talked about their longstanding friendship and noted that Jack won his central and west Georgia congressional seat in November largely because he had the president’s endorsement.

“He’s a fantastic guy and a great political leader, a great politician,” Trump told the crowd on Tuesday night. “Hi, Brian. Great job, proud of you.”

Shoutouts

Credit: Adam Beam/AJC

Credit: Adam Beam/AJC

Another gig:

Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that! Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.

Before you go

Credit: AJC file photo

Credit: AJC file photo

Check out Zachary Hansen’s story about how President Donald Trump’s tariffs could impact Georgia’s poultry industry, which beings with this great line: “The chicken can cross the road, but can it cross the border?”

That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.