Two incidents yesterday out of Washington could give both Alex Sink and David Jolly campaign ammunition.
First, for Sink, there's the issue of flood insurance.
Although Congress has voted to delay some rate hikes that affect homeowners in older houses until next fall, an attempt to delay for four years the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance legislation went down to defeat in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives yesterday. Democrats wanted the House to support the Senate bill that would delay increases on flood insurance premiums until FEMA can complete an affordability study and draw updated maps for flood hazard areas. In fact every Democrat in the House voted for the bill, but only one Republican (Walter Jones-NC) did. If David Jolly were in Congress, would he have crossed party lines to join Jones?
And now the ammo for Jolly:
[jump]The Congressional Budget Office released a report yesterday that had Republicans jumping up and down, and could give more ballast to David Jolly's attacks on Alex Sink for supporting Obamacare.
The CBO predicts the law would have a “substantially larger” impact on the labor market — up to 2.3 million full-time workers could leave the workforce in 2021. The ACA, said CBO's Doug Elmendorf, could reduce incentives for people to go to work because they would lose subsidies that will pay for their healthcare. The White House tried to spin the report yesterday, but it's sort of hard to, without disparaging the CBO. Which is fine, but would be inconsistent from the reaction to previous CBO reports that Democrats have embraced.
If you're familiar with the laws regarding hit-and-run drivers in Florida, you know they're pretty damned lax. But new legislation introduced yesterday in Tallahassee could change all of that. And get this: according to the FHP, three people were killed in Florida every week by a hit-and-run driver in 2012.
And CL's Ellen Kirkland has a report on what several different committees are doing to advance progress in St. Petersburg.