Ideology holding up budget agreement, not Medicaid
Published July 2, 2014
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, July 1, 2014.
t turns out that the disagreement between the House and Senate over the cost of Medicaid next year is not the only thing holding up a final state budget that provides a pay raise for teachers and state employees.
Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger told WRAL-TV that any budget deal must not only include the Senate’s estimates of Medicaid costs but must also reduce the number of people who are covered by the program.
Berger said the Senate wanted “reductions in the welfare spending that is ongoing at the present time.” Medicaid, the health care safety net for the most vulnerable people in North Carolina, is now welfare in Berger’s far-right view of the world.
The budget the Senate passed earlier this session would kick at least 5,200 aged, blind and disabled people off of Medicaid. More than 1,600 of them have Alzheimer’s or dementia and are in special care units, which to Berger must be a new fancy way of saying welfare.
And the numbers are conservative estimates. They come from a conservative Berger knows well, State Budget Director and Republican Party benefactor Art Pope, who detailed what the Medicaid cuts would mean in a recent appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The discussion then was about the differences between projected Medicaid costs in the budgets created by the House, Senate and Governor Pat McCrory. Pope was making the point that Senate projections of Medicaid costs for the fiscal year that began July 1 were far too high and forced the Senate to fire 7,000 teaching assistants in its budget and kick people off of Medicaid.
(It is important to remember that all three of the budgets ignore an obvious way to raise revenue to pay for a teacher pay hike, simply cancel the next round of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy scheduled to take effect January 1. The top one percent of North Carolina taxpayers received a $10,000 cut on average in last year’s tax package. They don’t need another one.)
Senate leaders responded testily to Pope’s presentation before the budget committee, sticking by their exaggerated Medicaid cost projections. Berger mentioned them in the WRAL interview too, repeating an earlier assertion that Pope’s Medicaid numbers are not accurate.
But now it’s clear that the budget dispute is about more than numbers. It is about Medicaid itself.
Pope’s almost emotional explanation about the vulnerable seniors who would lose coverage under the Senate cost projections was widely seen as a powerful response to the suggestion by Senate leaders that their inflated cost projections were a responsible way to put the budget together.
But it’s not so effective if one of the goals of Senate leaders is to kick 5,200 aged, blind and disabled people off Medicaid.
They are not worried that their cost projections will force them to kick people off the program because they want to kick people off the program. It’s welfare after all.
That’s what it has come to in this budget dispute between hard core conservatives and tea party conservatives. One reason there’s no budget deal is that Senate leaders don’t want to give teachers a raise unless they can cut off care for 1,600 seniors with Alzheimer’s and dementia to help pay for it.
And to think we used to be a reasonably compassionate state.
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2014/07/01/ideology-holding-up-budget-agreement-not-medicaid/
July 2, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Norm Kelly says:
NC had and has a choice. We can either follow the path of the demon-ruled states and tax 'the rich' to the point where we drive them out of the state, or we can take the example of states like Texas and appreciate 'the rich' for what they do for the economy, and the fact that 10% from 'the rich' is significantly more income to the state than would be 10% from 'the poor'. Let's say one of Mr. Barber's friends, whom he would refer to as 'poor', earns around $22,000 per year and has 2 kids. That's a family of four living on $22K, plus whatever the mom makes. But we won't consider her cuz it's a tax example not an income example. If the 'poor' guy has to pay 10% (cuz it's easy!) in state income tax, with no deductions cuz it's easy, then his state income tax would amount to $2,200. This is true even in the new math and the Communist Core math. Now, take an example of a 'rich' guy, someone Mr. Barber hates and works against because he is not only 'rich' but he is a racist who hates blacks. Naturally. Let's say that 'rich' guy has 2 kids also, but has an annual income of about $1Million. Easy street, right? Of course. But let's look at the tax bite. 10% state income tax, again cuz it's easy and the same as the 'poor' guy is paying cuz even libs believe in a level playing field. That 10% comes to 1,000,000 x .10 = 100,000. For you libs still reading, that's a 100 thousand dollar tax that the 'rich' guy is paying. No even I don't feel sorry for this guy! But didn't the 'rich' guy pay more in taxes, even though the rate is the same? The answer, even for libs, is YES. Now, let's use the example of libs who claim to like a level playing field but have no concept of what this means. To libs a level playing field means that the 'poor' guy's tax rate should be lower or non-existent, so for my example we'll set his tax rate at 4%. The level playing field 'rich' guys tax rate will be set at 15% because it's only fair that the 'rich' guy should pay more taxes. (that's a stupid statement, isn't it!) So, the 'poor' guy pays $22,000 x .04 = $880. The 'rich' guy pays 1,000,000 x .15 = 150,000. So, according to the libs definition of a level playing field, the 'poor' guy pays a much lower percentage but probably gets more benefits, while the 'rich' guy pays much more in taxes and gets fewer if any benefits. When it comes time to cut taxes, who gets the bigger bite, even if taxes are cut across the board. If the tax rate were dropped by 1% for every tax payer, aren't 'the rich' going to pay significantly less in taxes than they other wise would have? Yes. But since they pay the majority of taxes anyway, this is only logical and RIGHT!
The problem with libs is that they are socialists at heart. They TALK about a level playing field, but they don't WANT a level playing field. Libs want to pit the large group of average people against the small group of 'the rich', knowing that the majority holds more votes. Libs HOPE they can convince enough low-information people that their lame arguments actually have some merit. Except they have zero merit. For some reason, libs even believe that the state should go into debt at a rate of about 10% of the total state budget in order to pay out on a SINGLE LINE item in the budget. And then it's even acceptable to libs to have NO PLAN in place to repay that loan.
Spending cuts at the state level MUST happen. Tax fairness at the state level MUST happen. 'Incentives' programs that reward some company or group of people at the expense of some other companies or groups of people MUST stop. It's well past time for politicians to STOP picking winners & losers. Whenever politicians get involved in the picking process, it's ALWAYS the taxpayers that are the losers. Whenever lib schemes are involved, it's the MAJORITY of citizens/taxpayers that lose. When someone pays a higher percentage of tax, they are the natural 'winners' when tax rates are cut. This is just simple math. Which also seems to escape the average lib. If the state stopped the incentives scheme, how much money could be saved at the state AND local level? Would this makes a difference in the income vs. expense balance sheet of the state?
