The House of Representatives passed the $940 billion bill Sunday night in a 219 to 212 vote with no Republicans supporting the measure.

The Senate passed the in December 60 to 39, also along party lines.

Once the bill is signed into law, the Senate will begin to debate a series of compromises that has already passed in the House.

Abortion remains a controversial topic, which prevented many Democrats from voting for the legislation.

In order to sway key Democrats to support the legislation, Obama promised to limit the amount of federal funding allocated for the procedure.

Leading up to the vote Sunday night, the main focus of anti-abortion activists was the insurance “exchanges” created by the bill, the new marketplaces where businesses and individuals will be able to buy insurance.

Under the exchanges, there must be a plan that offers abortion coverage and another that doesn’t, according to the bill.

Since the legislation was passed, ten states announced that they plan to challenged the constitutionality of the bill. The states are: Florida, Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington, all of which have Republican attorneys general.

Bill McCollum, the Republican attorney general of Florida, said that the charges will be filed once the bill is signed into law.

The lawsuit is about the law and not the politics, McCollum said.

In the convention opening speech, former congressman Tom Tancredo called President Obama a socialist.

People who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.

Judson Phillips, the convention organizer, agreed with Tancredo.

Tom Tancredo gave a fantastic speech last night. I think he is an amazing politician.

However, not everyone in the Tea Party movement feels that this national convention is productive.

Rand Paul, a U.S. Senate candidate from Bowling Green, Ky., said that the Tea Party movement is not about “name-calling.”

Others criticize the convention due to it’s hefty price tags to attend the seminars and the closing banquet where former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will be giving the keynote address.

Red State blogger Erick Erickson  said the convention “smelled scammy.”

Erickson also said that he does have good things to say about many Tea Party groups.

For the full story, check it out on CNN here.

Click here to see a graph of WKU tuition rates since 1989.

The cost of tuition is rising very quickly, and given the dire current economic situation, it may continue to do so. Kentucky has a substantial budget deficit of about $161 million dollars this fiscal year. Balancing the state budget could mean higher tuition at public institutions.

Between 2004-2005 and 2009-2010, tuition at WKU has increased at an average of 9.4 percent a year. Tuition increases have been under 10 percent since 2007-2008.

Ann Mead, WKU’s vice president for finance and administration, said via e-mail she expects that tuition increases for the next school year will be “modest” at around four or five percent. Finalization of tuition rates for 2010-2011 can be expected in the spring after receiving approval from the Council on Postsecondary Education.

The constant increases in tuition at public institutions are partially caused by the availability and amount of funding from the state.

The state of Kentucky cannot legally end the year with a budget deficit, meaning the budget must be balanced every year.

Since 2006, sales tax revenue in Kentucky has fallen steadily and income taxes from corporations and individuals have also dropped off significantly. In order to compensate, legislators have nearly drained the state’s so-called “rainy day fund” leaving only $35 million for future use.

State Rep. Jim DeCesare, a Republican serving Bowling Green, feels that raising more money isn’t the solution.

“We probably need to look at how we’re spending the money a little more closely and see where we can cut it, and be more frugal with the tax dollars,” he said.

According to Western Kentucky University President Dr. Gary Ransdell in a speech given in May of 2009, state funding for colleges and universities has been cut six of the last eight years.

But DeCesare disagreed with the notion that funding has been cut.

“I think that’s a misnomer. I don’t think it’s been cut, I just don’t think they’ve gotten everything they’ve asked for,” said DeCesare.

DeCesare said that the goal of the general assembly is to maintain funding for higher education at its current level. Although technically this could be considered a cut, he said, it is the best that can be hoped for given the current economic situation.

For the 2009 fiscal year, Kentucky’s General Fund appropriation for postsecondary education was $1.3 billion, which is a 23 percent increase in funding since 2001. However, this increase fails to consider the factors of inflation and the growing number of students enrolled in public universities and colleges.

Click here to see a table showing Kentucky’s funding of postsecondary education.

In the years that Ransdell references in his speech, 2002-2009, funding decreased four years, and increased four years when adjusted for inflation.

During this same time span, Kentucky residents enrolled in higher education increased significantly. In 2002, 191,284 students were enrolled in public colleges and universities in Kentucky. In 2008, this number increased to 211,179 students. This means that in 2002, Kentucky was spending an average of $7,332.06 on each student. In 2008, that amount fell to $6,548.18 per student, which is a difference of roughly $800.

The rapid growth of enrollment in Kentucky colleges coupled with limited funding puts schools in a tight spot.

Mead said that once the General Assembly sets the budget for the next year, meetings will begin to determine how to handle the university’s growth.

“Enrollment grew by 4.8 percent this fall.  However, it takes more than tuition revenue to cover the costs associated with enrollment growth.  WKU tries to shield the impact of state funding shortfalls from the students,” Mead said.

Although WKU’s tuition is lower than institutions of comparable size, such as the University of Kentucky or the University of Louisville, many WKU students still feel that college costs too much.

Amy Sneed, 19, of Bowling Green, Ky. feels that tuition is too high. The business economics major said she thinks that WKU could be more careful with how it spends its money, suggesting that they spend less on beautifying the campus.

Nate Paden, 19, a chemistry major of Hodgenville, Ky. said that he thinks college costs too much as well. Although he earned the Ogden Scholarship, the full cost of his education still wasn’t covered.

Paden said his dad, who is a coach, took on an extra coaching job to help pay for his education.

Paden also had to get a couple of loans to help cover the costs.

The authority to determine tuition does not solely rest with the universities. The Council on Postsecondary Education has the power to recommend tuition increases and can approve each institution’s proposal.

Currently, tuition is the biggest source of revenue for WKU. It comprises 40.7 percent of WKU’s total income. A few years ago during the 2005-2006 school year, tuition comprised only 34.6 percent of WKU’s revenue. Funding from tuition has increased and now makes up a larger part of WKU’s income.

Click here for a graph of WKU’s revenue breakdown for 2009-2010.

Since 2005, state appropriations for WKU have also increased. In 2005, Kentucky gave WKU $78 million, which was 28.6 percent of WKU’s income. For 2009-2010, funding increased to $83 million, but it now comprises less of the budget at just 23.9 percent. As WKU has received less money from the state in proportion to the number of students enrolled, tuition has covered much of the shortfall.

WKU has taken extensive efforts to save money. Several different sustainability efforts have been put in place to reduce energy consumption, and the university now uses electronic billing to avoid costs from mailing paper bills.

Additionally, several faculty and staff positions have been left vacant. This means that remaining employees now carry an additional workload to compensate.

Because of limited funding, WKU cannot pay faculty and staff the competitive wages necessary to retain quality employees. Mead said this is the biggest impact thus far.

If postsecondary educations is handed more cuts from the Kentucky legislature, Mead said that WKU will try to shield students from feeling the impact of the state’s budget shortfall.

Mead also said that it takes more than increased tuition to cover the costs associated with growth at WKU.

Because of Lincoln’s support, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now has the 60 votes he needs to block a Republican filibuster.

In this CNN.com story, Lincoln said:

“Although I don’t agree with everything in this bill, I believe it is important to begin this debate,” Lincoln said. She added that she still opposes the public option.

“This issue is very complex. There is no easy fix,” she added.

Currently, all 58 democrats support having debate, as well as both independents in the Senate. Every republican is expected to oppose holding the debate.

The vote will be held at 8 p.m. tonight.

He also said that state funding of higher education has been six of those eight years.

This past Wednesday, I had the opportunity to speak with Jim DeCesare, a state representative in Kentucky.

DeCesare, who is a member of the Budget Review Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, said that education is the number one priority for the general assembly.

When told that state funding for postsecondary education has been cut six of the last eight years, DeCesare disagreed with President Ransdell’s comment in his May 2009 speech.

“I think that’s a misnomer. I don’t think it’s been cut, I just don’t think they’ve  got everything they’ve asked for,” DeCesare said.

DeCesare went on to say that the goal for higher education is maintain funding at the current level.

I am currently in the process of looking at official state budget documents, found here, and trying to check out the numbers for myself. Admittedly, I am not knowledgeable when it comes to understanding and interpreting these numbers, but I am currently trying to make arrangements to speak with someone who is. When I have done this, I will get back to you with the numbers and tell you whether state funding for higher education has actually gone up or down.

With Kentucky’s budget deficit estimated to be between $150 million to $200 million for the fiscal year 2010, it is likely that the state will not be able to continue funding Western Kentucky University and other public universities at the same level it has been.

WKU received $83.4 million from the state for the 2009-2010 school year, which was roughly 24 percent of the university’s income.

WKU has done a lot to trim costs over the past few years, but higher tuition has become inevitable. According to this article from The Herald, tuition increased by four percent at WKU this year, which was the lowest increase since 1989.

I realize that I am switching gears fairly suddenly here, and here’s why:  for my final story in my class, I have decided to cover Kentucky’s budget and the effects it will have on WKU. As a college student, this impacts me directly, and I know a lot of you are college students as well. So, please feel free to comment on here and tell me what you think. What would you like to learn? If you could ask the administrators about this, what would you ask them?

According to this CNN story, the bill, which is almost 2,000 pages long includes the highly controversial public option.

The proposals in this bill would extend coverage to nearly 36 million Americans, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Like the bill proposed by the Senate Finance Committee, insurers would not be allowed to deny people who have pre-existing conditions. Additionally, there will be caps on out-of-pocket costs for consumers and a series of provisions that intend to make purchasing insurance easier for many people.

According to Pelosi, the bill will cut the federal deficit by about $30 billions dollars in the next 10 years.

However, Republicans disagree saying that the bill will lose jobs, raise taxes and will not address the problem of ever increasing health care costs.

Be sure to watch the video of Pelosi commenting on the bill, and then let me know what you think.

Before receiving his doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1993, Yager worked for five years in city and county government as an administrator. Yager, who has been with WKU since 1992, regularly teaches classes on political theory and the American presidency. Yager also wrote a book published in 2006 called Ronald Reagan’s Journey:  Democrat to Republican about Reagan’s political transformation.

On Oct. 22, Yager took time to discuss the politics at play behind health care reform during an interview in the department conference room. Here is an edited transcript of the interview.

WNW: President Clinton tried to pass health care reform and was unsuccessful. If Obama doesn’t pass health care reform, what could be the consequences for him?

Yager: I think that it would be damaging to his presidency, at least partly because health care reform has been such a high profile, salient issue in his administration and he’s invested a considerable amount of political capital.

WNW: Do you think that Sen. Olympia Snowe’s lone Republican vote in favor could help other to persuade other Republicans to cross party lines and support the bill?

Yager: I think they’ll essentially make up their own minds. Snowe’s position will be one factor that they consider, as well as the public option, and for those who engaged constituents in town hall meetings, that too will be a factor. But this is an extremely important issue; it’s about one-sixth of the economy that is being affected by this. I suspect that most of our elected representatives are very, very conscientious individuals and that ultimately it will be their own individual judgment.

WNW: There are over 3,000 people signed up to lobby Congress and over $263 million has been spent by the health care sector in lobbying efforts. How profound do you expect the effects of these lobbying efforts to be on the final bill?

Yager: My view is that lobbying opposition efforts were more pronounced during the Clinton health care effort and as we all know, that effort failed. The context and political dynamics are different this time. First of all, there has been well over a decade where health care costs have increased. There has been a growing perception that reform is needed and also in some ways, the Obama administration has been able to solicit the support of certain special interest groups who were opposed to it the first time around. For instance, the pharmaceutical opposition has not been quite as intense. Obama has made a number of visits to the American Medical Association, which has been quite supportive of key components of the bill. On the other hand, you do have the Chamber of Commerce that has been opposed and other interest groups as well. Of course, that’s always going to happen with any sort of reform effort. In comparison to the Clinton health care initiative, I think that it’s more favorable this time, with less special interest group opposition.

In an exclusive interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC news, Snowe explained why she chose to break party lines and support the bill.

Understandably people do have honest philosophical differences, but I think there’s a lot to build on with this legislation that after all was part of the group of six, three Democrats and three Republicans, for almost four months of very intensive discussions on a daily basis and on a weekly basis.  So it clearly, I think, had built some momentum that makes it possible to construct a bipartisan package hopefully.

Snowe went on to say that in the future she would not support the bill if the issue of making health insurance affordable was not continually addressed.

Snowe also said that if a public option or costs and taxes were added to the bill, she would not continue to support it.

Because of the market reforms on the private sector included in this bill, Snowe believes this will be enough to compensate for the lack of a public option without damaging privately owned health insurance companies.

To see how other key senators voted on this issue, check out this story, also by ABC news.

For the Obamas and many other Americans, this is disappointing news.

However, for about 45 percent of Chicago’s residents as well as opposition groups No Games Chicago and Chicagoans for Rio 2016, Friday’s loss was welcome news according to this feature story on CNN.com.

The announcement that Chicago, Illinois, will not host the 2016 Olympic Games took the hopeful wind out of many in the Windy City.

But for almost half of the city’s dwellers, the International Olympic Committee’s decision was winning news.

Furthermore, the idea Olympics possibly receiving public money during an economic recession was opposed by an overwhelming majority of 84 percent of Chicagoans.

As stated on the Chicagoans for Rio 2016 Web site, “If you’re a Chicagoan, Rio’s budget deficit does not matter.”

Chicagoans for Rio 2016 Logo

Do you think it is anti-patriotic to actively oppose the Olympic Games in the United States or did the protest groups have legitimate concerns? Did you support the Olympics being held in Chicago?