Things that make me go “Wait. What?”
A Georgia healthcare task force headed by two Republican legislators has released a series of options for covering uninsured Georgians that they call a “conservative approach to Medicaid expansion”. I thought Republicans supported smaller government not expansion?
Vic Reynolds, the Republican District Attorney in Cobb County, on WSB 2 news last night suggested expanding federal laws to cover gang activity in all 50 states. Another Republican advocating federal government expansion and further erosion of the 10th amendment. I thought Republicans also supported the Constitution?
Education experts continue to cite poverty as the cause of poor educational performance when the child poverty rate has dropped to 7.8% in 2014. According to Michael J Petrilli of the Thomas B Fordham Institute,
If the real child poverty rate is anywhere near 7.8 percent, everyone needs to stop pointing to “poverty” as the cause of our educational underachievement. Less than ten percent of the student population can’t possibly be responsible for our disappointing PISA and TIMSS scores. (In fact, American performance is mediocre at every point along the socioeconomic spectrum.)
So could we stop blaming poverty and get to the real issues?
When 9th District Congressman Doug Collins complained to the IRS about poor customer service in the tax help center in Gainesville, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen blamed the problem on budget cuts. Shocked I tell you! Shocked that a bureaucrat would blame any and all shortcomings on budget cuts!
When an executive within the GBI charged some $80,000 in personal expenses on her Pcard over a three-year period, GBI Director Vernon Keenan said internal controls were being strengthened. So why were they weak in the first place and why did it take the state’s premier investigative unit three years to discover the problem?
Is it any wonder that so many Georgians are angry?
About Author
IrishPat
Patrick Malone is a Business Advisor and Leadership Mentor headquartered in Blairsville, Georgia. He co-hosts Mountain Daybreak and Mountain Mornings, weekday news programs, and hosts This Week in Blairsville a weekend program on WJUL/WJRB. He is a mentor in Union County High School, serves on his church council and writes a monthly column on leadership in the animal healthcare industry.
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Good start IrishPat. Another expenditure that pissed off most Georgians was ‘GoFish Georgia’, Perdue’s $40M fish tourism boondoggle. There are too many to list.
Add stories like this one about federal tax dollars being misused that was just released on Politico – http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/bill-clinton-used-tax-dollars-to-subsidize-foundation-private-email-support-teneo-227613 – Clintons tapping taxpayers to supplement their already outrageous speaking fee income to the tune of $16M. It just never stops. Amazingly just as this story was being released, former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (HRC surrogate) was on MSNBC saying the Clinton have not enriched themselves through political service. Even the Morning Joe crew in between Trump attacks laughed off such a ridiculous statement.
“I thought Republicans supported smaller government and not expansion”
Here we go again. Wanting government “small enough to put in a bathtub and drown it” isn’t a party or policy position. It’s a marketing slogan designed to let Grover Norquist grift through donor circles and cash large checks.
The GOP has been fighting Obamacare for 7 years, and looks to be setting up for at least four more. Meanwhile, most non-southern states have accepted Medicaid expansion. It’s now the status quo, and even if Obamacare is somehow repealed, those folks aren’t going to be kicked off their insurance. Meanwhile, Georgia has added 50% to our Medicaid rolls WITHOUT expanding Medicaid.
Medicaid is an entrenched federal and state program, with much of the country relying on the dollars going into this program. Georgia is paying our fair share of taxes, but refusing to even discuss how to best serve our patients and our taxpayers for a return on that investment. THAT is how you start a policy discussion, not from a trite and empty bumper sticker slogan that is devoid of a sense of reality or the status quo that we’re already paying for but seeking no advantage from.
Rino.
Starting a policy discussion is great as long as the options are not limited. What about direct primary care? Easing the current restrictions on nurse practitioners? More transparency on healthcare costs? Incentives for future doctors to consider direct primary care practices? The options go on.
The line you used above isn’t one to start a discussion, it is one used to stop one before it begins.
Something tells me you wouldn’t even consider a full nationalization of health care.
The federal workforce has never been smaller in proportion to the national population in the modern era. There were 2.6 million executive branch employees at the end of 2014 (most recent data on OPMs website) when the Greatest Conservative President who ever lived left office in 1988 there were 3.05 million executive branch employees. You have to go back to 1965 to find a year where the federal workforce was smaller than it is now (2.49 million). the population of the US was 180 million in 1960 and roughly 318 million today. So, yes, while the government spends a lot of money stupidly, sequestration has crushed the ability of agency’s like IRS and social security to provide any meaningful customer service to citizens.