Republicans Lavish Alaska With Benefits in Policy Bill, Grasping for a Key Vote
When Senate Republicans released the latest version of their sprawling domestic policy package in the wee hours of Saturday morning, it contained a number of new provisions that might have seemed out of place — including a measure aimed at helping Alaskan whaling captains.
But the seemingly random items were anything but arbitrary; they appeared to be aimed at winning the support of a critical Republican holdout whose vote could make or break the measure: Senator Lisa Murkowski.
Ms. Murkowski has made no secret of her problems with her party's bill and the harm she believes it could bring to her state. Chief among her concerns were new work requirements for Medicaid recipients and a provision that would require states to pay for a share of nutrition assistance payments currently paid entirely by the federal government.
'I want to try to do what we can to address certain aspects of our entitlement spending,' Ms. Murkowski said in an interview last weekend on CBS. 'We've got to do that. But doing it with the most vulnerable bearing the brunt of that is not the answer.'
As G.O.P. leaders scrounged on Saturday for the votes to pass the legislation, they seem to have addressed many of her concerns, insulating Ms. Murkowski's state from some of its most painful cuts while including an assortment of other Alaska-friendly provisions in the bill.
The latest version, which leaders hoped to begin voting on as early as Saturday afternoon, would provide a new tax exemption to fishers from villages in western Alaska. There is now an exemption from new work requirements for food assistance. And several provisions have been added that would funnel federal dollars to Alaskan health care providers.
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