Have you ever noticed that the states that
have governments dominated by conservative leaning GOP governors and / or
legislatures are among the first to cry
foul if the hated federal government turns down their request for disaster aid?
Or did you notice, too, that some states’ politicians who decry federal
spending the loudest get more money from
the feds than they pay back to the federal treasury in taxes? Both are irritating whiners.
The New York Times, June
23, 2013, reported outrage on the part
of Texans, victims of the West, Texas
fertilizer plant blast, who were turned
down for $17 million in FEMA (Federal
Emergency Management Agency) disaster
aid because FEMA told Texas they had
enough funds in its coffers to provide the aid themselves. FEMA regulations, the Stafford act, requires
federal funds to aid only those states that lack resources to address recovery.
Texas has just given its citizens $1
billion in tax relief, and their rainy day fund has another $8 billion in it.
The president had
already authorized the federal government to cover 75 percent of the state’s
cost for debris removal and emergency responders and $25 million to the state
and affected families and another $8 million in grants and low interest
disaster loans for individuals. The state
had then asked for an additional $17
million to cover public infrastructure that was uninsured because they claimed could not cover it.….and Texas wanted us, the
rest of the US taxpayers, to cover the additional
$17 million? That request is for an unnecessary federal handout from a state that
overwhelmingly supported Mitt Romney, who proposed to abolish FEMA.
On the other hand, Texas
is the same state that just refused to co-operate with Obamacare, turning down
an increase in Medicaid funds that would have covered 30% more than are being
covered now. Give Texas credit for being
ideologically purely conservative on that particular issue, but there will be
pressure to be more pragmatic. The cost to Texas for such coverage? 0, zip,
nada for the first several years and then to cover 10% of the increased federal
funds thereafter. It is a good deal,
requiring far less than the matching
required for the existing Medicaid program. Obamacare will not pick up that added 30% , leaving
a sizeable gap of the near poor of those
without health insurance.
The question will be how long their constituents will tolerate that and wonder why they do not have
coverage like other states or why continued masses of uninsured flooding their
expensive emergency rooms , and passing the uncompensated costs to the insured. The eyes of Texans will then be upon states like Colorado that accepted Medicaid expansion, and whose health
and financial well being of its citizens
benefited.
The most irritating whiners are the GOP
dominated states
that take in more money in federal
funds than they return to the federal coffers and are among the loudest to rant about Federal deficits, big
government, and federal overreach.
The Economist
Magazine on line, August 1st 2011, made a study of fiscal transfers
between states and the federal government from 1990-2009 and ranked them by
states receiving more from the feds than they paid in taxes. These debtor states ranking highest in receiving federal funds and
lowest in tax contributions to the federal treasury were New Mexico, Mississippi, West Virginia,
Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Vermont, Maine, Montana, and both Dakotas.
Some of those states
have high numbers of Native American
reservations that receive federal funding, but ironically, that list also contains many states that
are the home of the
most vocal Teaparty tax protestors. I wonder in what shape their budgets would be
or to what extent their poor would be helped
if those transfers were less.
