It’s a two-fer that only President Barack Obama could propose with a straight face.

The Obama administration is proposing to extend a financial sweetener the federal government offers states that expand their Medicaid programs, in a bid to persuade more to do so before the president leaves office.
White House officials said President Barack Obama will ask Congress to include three years of full federal funding of expansion for any state that extends eligibility for the program to most low-income residents. Officials said the proposal will be made in Mr Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget, to be released Feb 9.

More Federal spending. Billions of dollars of spending to persuade States to expand their Medicaid programs, an addictive “offer”—addiction to Federal dollars.

And that’s the foolishness. Obama is promising to do this for three more years. Three years in which to get the suckered States hooked on the Federal government’s street corner product.

This move of his hasn’t anything at all to do with low-income citizens. It has everything to do with vote pandering.

In an election year.