BuckeyeBlog

In a news report yesterday on the state pork capital budget, there was this interesting tidbit:

State Budget Director J. Pari Sabety told legislators yesterday that the budget needs another $344 million ($122 million in state funds) to cover increased Medicaid costs because 66,000 more people than expected are using the state-federal health-insurance program for the poor and elderly.

I hate to say “I told you so,” but:

Expanding Medicaid can lead to large increases in Medicaid spending when states can least afford it — during recessions. Ohio saw this earlier this decade when Medicaid spending increased dramatically during the recent recession. Spending grew at 11 percent annually during 2001 and 2004, squeezing other budget priorities at a time when the state was seeing reduced revenue. Expanding Medicaid now will only repeat this cycle during the next recession.

Remember when they made fun of Ken Blackwell’s proposal to privatize the Ohio Turnpike?

Pennsylvania just raked in nearly $13 billion for its turnpike. Ohio probably wouldn’t bring as much, being a bit removed from the east coast, but then again, there’s quite a little bit of transport comin’ through the heartland.

What do you suppose, say, $8 billion or even $10 billion would do for the Ohio capital budget? Heck, let’s make it $4 billion. Think of all the Third Frontier money we could give to private companies!

Hamilton County Commissioner Pat DeWine hopes to establish his county as the first in the United States to put all government expenditures online for public review - including everything from electronic funds transfers to purchase orders to ordinary checks.

Also included would be grants, leaseholds, contracts and subcontracts and vouchers.

“Every item of government spending is available to citizens on the Web in a way that they can easily search how the government is spending their money and who is getting their money,” DeWine said Thursday.

Named the Government Accountability in Spending Program, GASP, the project would require that each disbursement be identified by amount, the spending agency, the budget fund source, the payee name and location, the type of transaction, and the purpose of the expenditure.

DeWine said he hopes to introduce his resolution establishing GASP Wednesday, May 21.

Sandra Fabry, government liaison for Americans for Tax Reform, said GASP was one of the first efforts to apply substantial transparency standards to local government, following significant state and federal transparency initiatives in the last few years.

“It’s not a right-left issue, it’s a right-wrong issue,” Fabry said. “Government spending should not happen in the dark.”

Among models for the effort, DeWine cited the state of Alaska’s online checkbook, hosted by the state division of finance, available at http://fin.admin.state.ak.us/dof/checkbook_online/index.jsp

As S.B. 57, passed by the Ohio Senate, gears up in the Ohio House, there’s little doubt that the teachers unions, Democrat party and Gov. Ted Strickland will be angling toward the veto. The bill would establish scholarships for students with disabilities.

Strickland’s view is, “Funding private schools with public tax dollars deprives the state and its taxpayers of proper oversight .”

Yep. Proper oversight.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, a few free individuals are allowed to do what actually works, rather than report to bureaucracies and do the happy dance when their ignorance ratios move from 56 percent to 55 percent. Teachers, students, parents and those who care about getting actual things done for actual children have opened a school that avoids patterns in the decoration, installs obscuring, movable screens over mirrors - all things that are important to autistic students.

Autistic students gained their ability to benefit from funds spent for them several years ago, thanks to efforts by many people, including state Rep. Jon Peterson, R-Delaware.

Too bad students with other disabilities won’t be able to do the same.

In a hearing on the state Medicaid program yesterday this bad news about Medicaid spending was reported by Gongwer News Service ($):

Underspending on the managed care side of Ohio’s $12 billion-plus annual Medicaid program has offset some fiscal pressures caused by high caseload, but officials still project the entitlement to be $400 million over budget by the end of the biennium, lawmakers were told Thursday.

But then:

Since the federal government rejected Ohio’s plans to cover children at 200-300% poverty through the Medicaid/State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the state has submitted two additional proposals to cover children in families up to 250% and expects to hear back by May 15, Mr. Corlett said.

At a time when Ohio is facing fiscal troubles, does it really make sense to expand a program that in its current form is already over budget? And these folks want to lecture you about your personal financial choices?

The latest “stimulus” plan from the Strickland Administration proposed taking ‘excess revenues’ (oh, what wonderful doublespeak!) from the Turnpike and spending on things like historical building renovation and corporate welfare enticements to Ohio businesses to hire more interns.

We’ve written about leasing the Turnpike (here and here) the $6 billion of dollars it could put into the Ohio economy stimulating growth though both direct expecture flows but also through the windfall of true infrastructure investments.

Instead of paying interest on bonds, the state would be collecting interest from a private Turnpike operator.

Now that’s a better idea!