Three bills that would make it harder for students to earn and keep TOPS scholarships advanced from the House Education Committee Thursday. Supporters stressed the need to reform the program in order to reduce costs and avoid cuts in the upcoming fiscal year. Gov. John Bel Edwards’ executive budget strips all general fund support for the popular program, but the governor is asking lawmakers to raise enough revenue in a special session to restore full funding. The bills that will now move to the full House are:

House Bill 413 by Rep. Barry Ivey, which creates the TOPS Transfer Award, a TOPS scholarship that requires its recipients to attend community college before transferring to a four-year university and raises eligibility requirements for the TOPS Opportunity Award;

House Bill 414 by Ivey, which raises the minimum GPA requirements for maintaining TOPS eligibility from a 2.3 to a 2.5 after students completed 24 college credit hours, and from a 2.5 to a 2.75 after students completed 48 college credit hours; and

House Bill 161 by Rep. Ray Garofalo, which would force students to pack back TOPS award amounts to the state if they do not complete college or lose their TOPS eligibility.

Education reporter Wilborn P. Nobles III covered the hearing for Nola.com/The Times-Picayune:

[Executive director of The Patrick F. Taylor Foundation, James] Caillier said the program already has a penalty to drop students from TOPS if they cannot maintain the required standards. He suggested Garofalo’s bill would turn TOPS into a loan program because it requires students to sign a promissory note to receive their award. Given that change, Caillier said some prospective applicants will be swayed from using TOPS because some people do not take out student loans. Caillier’s last point was echoed by Davante Lewis, federal policy advocate for the Louisiana Budget Project, who said there are some students who end up losing TOPS at schools like LSU, only for them to transfer to another college where they ultimately graduate.

Politics and the fiscal cliff

The Advocate’s Stephanie Grace is not impressed with the latest gambit by House GOP leaders, who have hired a political consultant to help them make the (false) case that Louisiana can solve its fiscal crisis without deep cuts to popular programs. Although the low-budget Facebook videos are a new tactic, the message is the same as it’s been since early 2016: they have no plan. To wit:

Talk of austerity aside, polls show that most Louisianans want the state to spend on favored programs, so those in charge must either find the money or justify specific cuts. That’s something that lawmakers from this group have aggressively avoided doing, a stance that has led to a trail of failures to face up to the imminent loss of $994 million in sales taxes. The so-called fiscal cliff itself is the result of one of those failures. Lawmakers passed the temporary tax hikes as an emergency fix in 2016, during Edwards’ first months in office and as the state was reeling from the shortfall that former Gov. Bobby Jindal left behind. The idea was to give them time to find a more sustainable, sensible plan in 2017, well before election season. That didn’t happen, and nor did lawmakers come up with an agreement during the special legislative session earlier this year.

Louisiana gets $1.2 billion in recovery funding

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) put aside $1.2 billion in block grant funding for Louisiana from a $90 billion appropriation approved by Congress in February. The funding, which is twice the amount Louisiana’s public officials were expecting, can be put toward disaster recovery as well as broader flood prevention efforts. The money is likely to be combined with additional Army Corps of Engineer funding for investment in large-scale flood control projects, according to Bryn Stole, Washington correspondent for The Advocate:

“This new investment from HUD is critically important to our rebuilding efforts,” Edwards said. “It will allow us to make investments in flood risk reduction and infrastructure projects in areas of our state that were devastated by the 2016 floods, including partnering with the Army Corps of Engineers to make investments in large-scale projects such as the Comite River Diversion Canal.” (Rep. Garret) Graves, a Baton Rouge Republican, said in a phone interview Thursday evening that the block-grant funding from HUD provides Louisiana considerable flexibility to decide which projects to invest in and frees the state to move on Corps projects that have sat stalled for years.

Physicians juggle patient care with cost

The cost of prescription drugs continues to rise every year, and patients in the United States undergo more tests and more specialized surgeries than patients in 10 other wealthy nations, according to a new study by researchers Irene Papanicolas, Liana R. Woskie and Ashish K. Jha. These factors drive up costs above the other nations, even while Americans see the doctor and visit the hospital less frequently than residents of other wealthy countries. Siddhartha Mukherjee at the New York Times reports:

We spend 18 percent of our G.D.P. on health care, while Australia, Canada, Denmark and Japan seem to make do with about half that amount. Yet life expectancy in the United States is the lowest in the group, and infant mortality is the highest. Our out-of-control prices have a stifling effect on the economy. Companies that pay a portion of health insurance for their workers may find themselves burdened by cost. (“General Motors,” the quip runs, “is a health-insurance business that also happens to make cars.”)

A Kentucky tax shift

The Kentucky Legislature pushed a massive tax package to the governor’s desk this week that cuts taxes for the wealthiest 5 percent of income earners, while raising taxes for the other 95 percent. The tax plan includes a flat income tax rate of 5 percent for individuals and corporations, a near doubling of the cigarette tax and an expansion of the sales tax to 17 services not previously included. If Gov. Matt Bevin signs the tax plan, it will be a loss for small businesses and individuals earning below-average incomes. Bevin’s intentions are unknown at this time but will have to sign, veto or send the bill back for changes by the end of next week. Jeff Stein of The Washington Post explains:

Overall, the plan would give an average $7,000 tax cut to the richest 1 percent of Kentuckians, who average more than $1 million of annual income, according to a report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. But 95 percent of the state’s taxpayers would see a tax increase, and those earning between $55,000 and $92,000 a year would face the largest tax increases — about $213 a year, the analysis found.

Number of the Day

$25,000 – The annual household income cap for students applying for the original need-based TOPS scholarships, as the program was designed by Patrick Taylor. Today, fewer than 15 percent of students come from the low-income families who earn below $25,000.  (Source: The Advocate)