BuckeyeBlog

The Dayton Daily News reports that there are some folks in Ohio who are eligible for Medicaid but are waiting to get on the rolls:

A backlog has placed 16,000 Ohio residents in an administrative limbo while they fight to receive Medicaid benefits from the state.

Services for Ohio’s poor, disabled and blind are in short supply and the lines are long. Administrative processes take months — sometimes years — to navigate, leaving in-need residents frustrated or suffering.

Quite a few states have waiting lists for people with disabilities. I think a lot of us would probably agree that providing care for people with disabilities who live in poverty is a legitimate function of the Medicaid program. The fact that these folks can’t receive service in Ohio and other states indicates (to me, at least) that Medicaid should stop trying to provide care for the middle class and instead focus on the truly needy.

Of course, in Ohio the Democratic governor and the Republican General Assembly approved a plan to expand the program to middle class kids. Perhaps they should take care of the folks on the waiting list before they try and dilute the program’s resources any further.

Crossposted at State House Call.

“Couric: Sexism more common than racism“

Some thoughts about Texas left over from my previous post. As mentioned, according to the US Dept of Labor, Texas added 139,000 jobs so far in 2008. Think what kind of job growth they would have there under a strong national economy. So far in 2008 Ohio has added a paltry 6,000 jobs.

Since the bottoming out of national manufacturing employment in March, 2004, Texas has added 40,000 jobs in the high-paying manufacturing sector. Ohio has lost a further 61,000 jobs.

Weekly wages in Texas are $831 through the 3rd quarter of last year. In Ohio, $730.

Could it be just a coincidence that one manufacturing state with no income tax, no compulsory unionization and a regulatory environment that gets out of the way of free markets is growing so much more robustly in terms of employment and wages than another manufacturing state burdened by a lack of economic and workplace freedom?

Nope, no coincidence. Our empirical work has and will continue to demonstrate this truth: the path to prosperity is lit by economic freedom, individual liberty and limited government.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Texas Oilman T. Boone Pickens and his plan to save us all from our “oil dependency.” Today, he outlined his humbly-named “Pickens Plan” before a Senate panel, seemingly adding to his credibility as an expert for solving the energy “crisis.” However, his plan has many faults, starting with the principles used to create it.

Many, including Governor Strickland and Senator Voinovich, are blinded by a politically convenient plan from an industry expert; as a result, they fail to remember (or ignore) both where Mr. Pickens’ strengths lie and where they end. Pickens may know a lot about oil, but this does not mean he knows how energy drives an economy. He has no special ability to predict the results and consequences of his recommendations on this nation’s economic health, for which cheap and efficient energy is crucial. In less than a minute, Mr. Pickens lets slip several insights into his lack of economic prowess—his use of the term “transfer of wealth,” and his wish to “slash our dependency.”

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National Review Online has posted an interview with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  Since leaving office, he has remained involved in education reform through the Foundation for Excellence in Education.  One part of the Q&A caught my attention in particular: 

NRO: In your opening remarks at the conference, you said that our education system is like “an 8-track system living in an iPod world”? What changes do you think need to be made to bring our education system into the 21st century?

  

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A rare and uplifting example of concern for some fiscal restraint from Gongwer News (subscription only):

[The Controlling] Board authorized the Department of Administrative Services to spend money that the non-profit Friends of the Ohio Governor’s Residence and Heritage Garden wants to collect [on Monday].

The group hopes to raise $2 million for construction of an educational center as an addition to the existing Carriage House on the three-acre site in Bexley. An additional $1 million would be sought for furnishings, fixtures, and equipment. (See Gongwer Ohio Report, July 17, 2008).

Rep. Ted Celeste (D-Grandview Hts.) described the proposal as commendable, but wondered about the extent of possible financial exposure to state government in the future.

“What potential obligations could there be to the state should the amount of funds not be raised?” Rep. Celeste asked Quentin Potter, the DAS chief financial officer.

While Representative Celeste has sponsored some bills that undermine freedom of contract and other unsavory things, he should be acknowledged for raising a question all too often left unasked in Ohio’s state government.

“The health insurance industry is coming to Columbus to tell us they can be trusted to fix the health insurance mess and Americans know that that is just ridiculous,” he said.

So says a “consumer advocate,” anyway. (Gongwer reports; sorry, it’s proprietary so no link.)

He’s absolutely right. Only problem is, he wants the government to give you all the health care you want, for free.

Now that’s ridiculous. There’s only one thing the government can do truly well, and that’s shoot you when you get out of line. In this case, literally, because there sure will be a long line for free health care, especially when it’s sold on the idea that no one ever gets sick, or even old.

Next time you find yourself reading about principles behind tax policy, note the principle of “equity.”

What this usually means is you want to use the tax code to redistribute income. The richer you are, the more you pay. From each according to his means.

What these folks don’t tell you, though, is that this is precisely what a percentage tax accomplishes. Pay 10 percent of your income, rich or poor, and guess what? The richer you are, the more you pay. Earned $10,000? You pay $1,000 in tax. Earned $1 million, a hundred times more? You pay $100,000 in tax, a hundred times more.

What big government folks want is more than that, however. They want an acceleration in percentage, which is to say, not only do you pay more, but the government has a free hand in making you pay more than that still. Earned $10,000? You pay nothing, and in fact we’ll give you some tax credits. Earned $1 million? You don’t really need all that; why don’t we take 40 percent of it?

The Wall Street Journal nails this today, covering one of the most important perennial stories, the income taxes paid relative to income earned. Guess what? The rich pay far more than their share, and you won’t squeeze more out of them. They’ll just leave.

(And for everyone who says, “Gee, you can’t live on $10,000,” fine. Tax the low earners the same as everyone else, but put your redistribution schemes into the expense side of government by writing them a check. That way even the poor will be unhappy when taxes go up, and even the poor will be unhappy when they see how much of their money is spent on things they don’t agree with.)

Students whose behavior is so poor as to embroil them in the Mahoning County juvenile justice system, including truants, will find themselves at a new school, Vindy.com reports.

It’s a charter school. Happens to be sponsored by the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, which already sponsors two others.

Too bad it’s only for the kids who are so poorly behaved that they are actually charged with crimes. What’s really needed is for a teacher to be able to put a student in an alternative school easily, for mere misbehavior. This is the single biggest issue behind problems in our large public schools. Change the equation so that it’s hard to stay in and easy to wash out, rather than a prison that you can’t escape from no matter how disruptive your behavior, and it will be remarkable how student attitudes will change.

The only tin note is the idea that they’re creating “education courts,” just as they have drug courts (and mental health courts). It’s not at all clear that we want this sort of judicial proliferation. What’s next? Debt courts? Eating bad food courts? Why don’t they start with Bad Judge Courts and see how they do there.

If we don’t carefully regulate the business world, can corporations take over the world and abuse it at the expense of helpless consumers? The belief that they can certainly is a popular one, and the debate started simmering in my head as I watched Pixar’s new film, Wall-E. In the movie, the fictitious “Global CEO” of the monopolistic Buy n Large Corporation, which Pixar implies used its power and market share to bury the globe in garbage, issues directives that determine the lifestyles of and choices available to humankind.

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