The Soothsayer?
Apr 23rd, 2008 by Dave
As another $60 million gets peeled from the DEFAC report, bringing the 26-month total to over $600,000,000, I want to take a little trip down memory lane to show you where this could have been avoided.
1.) May 9, 2007: Charlie Copeland and the Senate Republicans call on the Governor to formulate a plan to achieve 5% ($150 million) to 10% ($300 million) savings from then-current spending levels.
2.) June 13, 2007: Administration blows it off, tells Senate Republicans to come up with savings of their own. Copeland introduces Medicaid Modernization Task Force Resolution, a measure that has led to tens of millions of dollars in savings in other states. Resolution dies in desk drawer.
So, it’s quite simple. Minner failed, and even when prodded to action by the leadership of Charlie Copeland and the Senate GOP, she continued to fail to act to avoid what everyone knew was coming. Not only that, but the one good idea that came from the exchange was murdered by the Senate Democrats.
So, if you’re one of the 500 or so teachers who finds yourself out of work in the coming weeks, simply know who was looking out for you and who was not before you blindly hand the keys to the state to the Dover Democrats.
Hint: Before you are to be believed on this, you need to first explain the connection between Minner and “Desk Drawer” Adams, and subsequently if you so desire, just how that relationship will affect John Carney.
You guys have been demanding spending cuts for ages. What will be your spin when Minner finally does cut spending?
And you have got to be kidding about Copeland’s resolution:
desenategop.com/sen_copeland/public_info/press_releases/2007/sjr4_medicaid_modernization.pdf
BE IT RESOLVED …that the Medicaid Modernization Task Force (Task Force) is hereby created to study and make findings and recommendations regarding the use of Disproportionate Share Hospital Funds
Okay, Copeland has a point here - and it is a tiny one - calling Minner to task for leaving $1.6 million in Federal matching funds on the table …. in 2003.
the efficacy of providing managed care services to the long term care segment of the Medicaid population,
What’s this - moving Medicaid patients to private HMOs? Is that the supposed “savings?” Nice try guys.
and possible methods of encouraging individuals to take advantage of employer-offered health insurance.
HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
You can not possibly be serious. Arguments like that are how we got Ruth Ann Minner in the first place.
Not to mention, the only actual fiscal proposal I found in Copeland’s resolution was an expenditure:
WHEREAS, a significant number of Medicaid enrollees are currently employed, and it may be feasible for many of them to take advantage of health insurance offered by employers if the State of Delaware were to subsidize the employees’ co-pays;
I have no doubt that an actual bill to implement this would end up subsidizing employers with tax money.
You know, noman, you’re right. We just ought to stop trying. There’s no point, right? WRONG.
Do I need to list all the states who have conducted Medicaid reform and the savings they received for it?
Should I start the countdown now for the phony “oh, but the poor people and the children will suffer” argument?
It’s a study group, for crying out loud. We shouldn’t study the second biggest line-item in the budget? Not to mention Copeland was the only one actually trying to right the ship while there was still time.
Noman, people like you are how we got the condition of our state government.
Dave, I’m with you buddy, that crap about worrying about the less fortunate is baloney. Real men don’t worry about the poor and the children.
Copeland’s resolution suggests funnelling Delaware’s Medicaid money to private HMOs, and sending tax dollars to corporations to subsidize their employees compensation package, and you tout this as fiscal responsibility?
Let me guess: Next Copeland wants to create a board to decide where all this money goes.
What will we do once spending is cut?
First of all, cutting spending once a $600 million shortfall is announced isn’t leadership - it’s CYA mentality. Leadership is making cuts in anticipation of a shortfall. Secondly, firing teachers isn’t “making the hard choices,” it’s making the shortsighted ones.
As for the link between Minner and Adams, the first one I would mention is John ‘I can get things done in the Senate’ Carney. I’d also mention that Minner just gave Adams the highest honor Delaware can bestow upon a citizen at his ‘Thurman A., he’s OK’ banquet, so she seems to have a high opinion of his work.
And by the way, spending cuts are being worked on right now, and you know it.
You do get lots of credit for pushing the transparency items though. When Minner’s spending cuts do go down, it will be in the middle of the night in June and we will read about it the next day after it is done. That sucks.
As I have pointed out before though, this may be the House Republicans’ last chance to demand transparency and open government reform in exchange for their support on the budget. But if they were really going to go to war over transparency and open government, they would have said so by now.
At some point, we are going to have to realize there is an imbalance between revenue and required spending. The idea of cutting teachers or pinching health care for the low income family comes nowhere near addressing the shortfall in our State budget. McCain has the same problem with the Federal Budget. We’re almost $4 trillion short on revenue in the last six years, $600 billion short for this year, and McCain is talking about pork barrel spending as the problem. Earth to JetJockey- that makes no sense. The answer my friends, to both the state and federal deficit, after carefully considering what we can cut, is to raise new revenues. The anti-government philosophy we have embraced in recent years, as espoused by Rush Limbaugh and intellectual leaders, has left us in a deep dark somewhat frightening hole where the economic world is slowing turning upside down spilling the American dream along with it. Now is the time for all good citizens to cut the shit and do what has to be done.
The answer my friends, to both the state and federal deficit, after carefully considering what we can cut, is to raise new revenues.
In Delaware we are still struggling to get to the “carefully considering what we can cut” phase. That is why budget transparency is so important. We are going to get cuts, but probably not so carefully considered.
Privatization/enrichment schemes passed off as cost savings don’t help, from either party.
“At some point, we are going to have to realize there is an imbalance between revenue and required spending.”
Yeah, there is. But not in the way you assume or hope.
“Real men don’t worry about the poor and the children.”
That didn’t take long. The result of this study would be MORE children on SCHIP and would not result in any cuts in necessary benefits.
THAT’s why the argument is phony.
And let’s not forget that the first step in this post was Copeland asking the Governor to identify the savings. Had she heeded that call, we could have had the answers to this problem a year ago, and those affected would have had time to adjust.
Copeland asking the Governor to identify the savings
No. Copeland’s Medicaid resolution charters a study group to investigate privatization schemes using cost savings as cover.
Copeland’s resolution in no way is linked to the Minner spending cuts under way now.
Hey Dave: How much did the state spend on Vision 2015? What a friggin’ laugh that turned out to be, especially now that the state will have 500 less teachers and myriad services will be axed, eh?
Maybe because her Cabinet member has pledged not to cut teachers?
But to be fair, I don’t think Protack or Foraker would cut teachers either.
That’s funny, I responded to Rick J. 9:55 and I got timestamped 9:45. Go figure.
Rick is a visitor from the future. But our timeframe will soon catch up with his.
“The idea of cutting teachers or pinching health care for the low income family comes nowhere near addressing the shortfall in our State budget.” - Don
You’re absolutely right - so why is it being proffered by this administration? Could it be because our Governor has absolutely no respect for formal education? The only conceivable pro-education mandates she’s offered in eight years were full-day Kindergarten (which amounts to free day care to many parents) and taxes to expand Del Tech (which actually took most of DTCC’s operating expenses out of their normal place in the budget, freeing up their monies to go elsewhere).
RAM has been calling for school district givebacks since her first budget crisis in her first term. She actually didn’t take them off the table once the state’s budget had righted itself in 2004 ( http://billleeforgovernor.blogspot.com/2004/08/give-back-woodburn.html ).
All of which leads me to question why Delaware seems hell-bent on electing either her Lieutenant or one of her Cabinet members to replace her.
“one of her cabinet members…”
I realize this is now the preferred way among Delaware Republicans of trying to tie Markell to Minner, but he’s a “cabinet” member who was independently elected on his own, whether the governor wanted him as Treasurer or not. Most people, in referring to an executive’s cabinet, mean it as the administration’s appointees. If a Republican was holding the office, would that Republican automatically be considered part of Minner’s “cabinet”? I rather doubt it.
Here is a remedial civics lesson for those who need it:
governor.delaware.gov/cabinet.shtml
Noman - Copeland’s first action was to ask the Governor to identify 5-10% cost savings in the overall budget, long before Medicaid was even mentioned. She refused to do so. And here we are.
Well, that is the point… Minner came back at Copeland with “Put up or shut up” about spending cuts, and Copeland responded with employer subsidies and Medicaid privatization.
I’m not a Minner fan but by June we will see who has the courage to stand behind specific cuts to specific constituencies. My bet is on Minner not Copeland.
… and I’ll happily concede that if we could review spending online, we would right now be arguing about what to cut, instead of debating Copeland vs. Minner. That would be much better.
So let’s see Copeland use some muscle to move the transparency and open government bills.
Transparency is great. Pinching pennies is great. Trouble is the problem will look just as big in the daylight, and penny pinching won’t help. We are still going to come up 100s of Millions of dollars short in Delaware. On the Federal side we are $600 Billion short but there, there’s room for massive cuts. Does anybody ever think maybe we can’t afford to go to Mars? Or maybe we can’t afford 300 new superduper fighter planes, and we just have to live with the regular super fighter planes? It would be nice to have an Osprey vertical horizontal wonder plane, but can we afford it. Damn right we can! Washington could make huge cuts if we wanted to be less of a superpower and more of a regular country. We want to be superduper power on a low octane revenue stream. Hey, who doesn’t? Delaware does not have as many choices. Eventually, those who can afford it most are going to have to start kicking in more, or sit back spend the dough on stuff, and watch Delaware and The United States slowly drift into disrepair. Someday, we will get the okay from Rush Limbaugh to raise taxes and we will find fiscal harmony.
Until then, keep coming up with those ideas to study, expose, recommend. Save a million here, a million there, next thing you know we’ll only be $200 million short of what we need to run the State.
And, as I recall we lowered taxes in Delaware and Washington during the flush times, the idea being we could always go back to the old rates if we get short. We seem to be reneging on that logic. What’s the dictionary word for avoiding reality?