Texas no longer has to fund baby killing factory, yet preserves poor women's care

$27 billion dollars in debt.
I've seen enough.

 

Did you expect anything else this is so BT and Gov good hair .

 

No, the federal government decided to withhold millions of dollars. I hope Texas makes up the funding shortfall.

 

Thank god.

When the zombie apocolypse comes, throwing babies as decoys was going to be my primary form of defense. Now I'll have more ammunition.

 

Considering Texas runs chronic deficits, I highly doubt they'll be able to makeup any shortfall.

They're already projected for an even larger deficit than last time for 2013. We'll be seeing more education and health care cuts next year for sure.

God Texas's government makes me sad.

 

It's why I left in all honesty.

 

Texas has not run chronic deficits, yet. Texas was filling up the Rainy Day Fund easily until recently. Texas does have a problem that revenues are not increasing at a rate to match Medicaid.

Health care costs are increasing at a faster rate than incomes. It is impossible to balance a state or federal government indefinitely and keep services the same under this condition. Getting a tax increase in Texas is near impossible. Getting a tax increase that won't fix the problem because as long as this condition exists...it won't take long for the budget to get unbalanced.

I am not a fan of matching funds. If the federal government wants something, it should fund it by tying the spending to its revenue sources. States can't go into debt and spending has to be tied to revenue for them. Right now, education and medicaid are at odds in Texas as Education is the only expenditure big enough to help cover Medicaid's increasing costs.

Luckily, Texas has breathing room to increase some taxes to buy time. Yeah, I know that is laughable. At some point, the federal government will be forced to stop having deficits. Programs like Medicaid will have to be tied to revenues will have to be tied to revenue as well as defense cuts. I just don't think Medicaid survives in Texas until then, unfortunately.

Not tying spending to revenue is a problem created by the federal government and is fiscally irresponsible. Coercing states into matching funds, especially on fiscally irresponsible programs, defeats the principles of a federal system.

My "solution" to this problem would be a limited time tax to cover Medicaid for 4 years hoping that medicaid's rising costs causes the federal government to fix underlying problem.

 

Kind of how we saw the law against jury awards was going to lower health care costs.

 

That's not how the rainy day fund is funded. It comes from a legally mandated share of oil/natural gas tax revenues. Even if Texas was running massive deficits, the rainy day fund would still grow since by law a portion of the oil and gas taxes have to go into the fund.

Texas has technically not had budget deficits because by law we have to have a balanced budget. But come on. You know as well as I do, we had a massive projected deficit in 2010 that prompted huge cuts in funding to education.

And when we had a budget deficit before (I believe 2006), we cut CHIP and medicaid funding and forced people on CHIP to continually re-enroll every 6 months or lose out. (which was a ridiculous burden for some people)

And in 2004, we deregulated state tuition to pay for our budget deficits and punished college students with higher tuition to cover our government's failures.

The Texas government has been a massive failure when it comes to managing its budget and they've balanced it everytime on the backs of the middle class and poor.

 

On Rainy Day Fund, I should mention that Texas has not raided it, too much. I believe the legislature can use funds in budget with enough votes.

Spending has to be tied to revenue to be fiscally responsible. Each cut is on the backs of all Texans...not just poor. Increasing taxes will also be on all Texans backs as well.

Texas can't force people to spend more money. People were complaining about the state taxing Amazon on this very board. All online purchases need to be taxed.

Medicaid is federal program that is only partially funded by the federal government. It is a funding failure. As it will soon eclipse a third of Texas budget, I feel confident in saying that it is a huge cause for funding of other programs being hurt. Blame falls squarely on feds for having a program that expands a rate much greater than the GNP expands.

Texas could rework a business tax to help ease the pain, but as long as health care costs increase at a rate much higher than the GNP...any tax increase will only have limited time effect.

Medicaid isn't a Texas only problem. A lot of States are having it become a large portion of budget. In Texas, it is costing jobs among a lot of state workers and teachers. These layoffs hurt the economy, but it has been only way to balance budget without raising taxes every two years.

I am not even sure if the US provided a single payer system, the underlying problem goes away..only shifted more onto feds. Texas would be much better off with Feds taking ownership of the huge problem, though. Even Canada's system increases faster than their GNP, but at a slower rate than the United States.

Obama mentioned that the private sector is on its way back. He's right. Number of federal jobs, besides post office, is increasing. It is state jobs that are slowing recovery. If Texas is any indication on why other States are shedding jobs, Medicaid costs not being tied to GNP could be one of the greatest hurdles for economic recovery. Repealing Bush tax cuts and getting out of Iraq doesn't help States pay for Medicaid.

I don't have a permanent solution. I like the idea of Medicaid. It is killing a lot of other great programs. Education to me is very important and should not be sacrificed. Until someone comes up with a solution to bring health care cost increases to the same rate as GNP increases, Medicaid will need to be nerfed.