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U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy took to the Senate floor Tuesday to call for keeping the National Flood Insurance Program as affordable as possible, following flooding across Louisiana last week. “Now, families in Louisiana are turning to FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program to help lift them out of the hole that last week’s storms have left them in,” said Cassidy, adding that NFIP premiums in Louisiana are expected to go up by 234%. “Moments like this are why families have flood insurance.”
Last year, Cassidy reintroduced his National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization Act to reauthorize the program for five years and implement changes meant to reduce costs, make investments to reduce flood risk and improve the claims process.
—SOCIAL SECURITY HEARING: The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony Tuesday on the Windfall Elimination Penalty and Government Pension Offset, which together reduce Social Security benefits for almost 3 million beneficiaries, according to U.S. Rep. Garret Graves’ office. Last year, Graves introduced legislation to address the issue that now has more than 300 co-sponsors. “Since Social Security is a self-financed system, every dollar spent on an unintentionally generous benefit is one less dollar that can be used to keep the trust funds afloat,” Social Security Subcommittee Chair Drew Ferguson said. “That’s why we are here today—to discuss why these policies were put in place, how they miss the mark, and how they can be improved.”
—TREASURER OPPOSES DIRECT FILE: Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming opposes the free Direct File pilot program for taxpayers in 12 states, although Louisiana is not among them. “The Direct File program will allow the IRS to become entirely too powerful as tax preparer, collector and enforcer,” Fleming says, adding that the program has an estimated cost of $250 million. “So, the same organization that files your return can possibly fine or prosecute you, although you may be completely innocent.”
—AI PRESENTATION: The 2024 John Breaux Symposium, “A.I. in Mass Communication,” was hosted this week by the LSU Manship School’s Reilly Center. Among the featured speakers, Top Drawer Strategies’ Mary-Patricia Wray delivered a presentation on how predictive and generative AI is enhancing services to campaigns and lobbying clients. “The future has been here for a while, and the impact on electioneering and policymaking is becoming more real, and less artificial, every day,” Wray said. Her panel, “Real World Innovators: A Crash Course in A.I. Communications Practice,” included a look at how predictive A.I. can be integrated into voter and legislator behavior, as well as how language learning A.I. can change the legislative drafting process and enhance issue and candidate campaigns. Wray told attendees that AI must be embraced, not feared, in political communications work. She also addressed the future of AI regulation on political speech and lobbying. “Disclosure is the best medicine for all that ails us. That will eventually be the rule, not the exception, with AI,” she said. “And I welcome it. It will make very clear who is actually adopting new tools to win faster and win more, and who is relying on old-school methods, merely hoping for new-age results.”
—THEY SAID IT: “Congress has gotten to a situation where there’s almost never a season for governing anymore. It almost seems like the main mission is depriving the other side of something that can be construed as a win for them.” – Former Gov. John Bel Edwards, at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics forum on Tuesday, in the Harvard Crimson
