Tag Archives: spending

This is Why

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Georgia recently won a court case in which the Biden administration had—illegally, as it turns out—blocked its program to expand Medicaid eligibility to individuals making up to 100% of the federal poverty line ($13,590 for singles) while conditioning benefits on working, going to school, or volunteering 80 hours a month.

However, under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, States are unable to remove able-bodied Medicaid folks—i.e., folks who are fully capable of working but who choose not to—from their Medicaid rolls as long as the Wuhan Virus emergency remains in effect. The CDC conveniently continues to extend that “emergency,” even though no less a light than our Progressive-Democrat President, Joe Biden, has said the emergency is over.

Alternatively, Georgia could remove those folks and the Federal government could withhold hundreds of millions in federal funds. In all, the Federal government mainlines $130 billion in additional Medicaid funds into all the States’ veins.

As The Wall Street Journal‘s editors put it,

The emergency is a Faustian bargain for states….

This is why it’s at best idiotic for any State to take Federal (our taxpayer) money under any circumstance. The dollars don’t come with strings attached; they represent yokes around the States’ necks.

Impressiveness

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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell had this to say about handling the burgeoning inflation extant in today’s American economy:

Slowing demand growth should allow supply to catch up with demand and restore the balance that will yield stable prices over time.

It’s impressive that a government official as steeped in economics as Powell is has such a deep misunderstanding of the situation.

It’s not a matter of slowing demand growth, it’s a matter of slowing government demand growth. The private economy, especially when it’s not competing with government for goods and services—and for the inputs to those goods and services—will easily and efficiently take care of itself, with changing supply and demand comprising self-correcting stabilizers on our economy.

They Should Take Him Up on His Offer

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Many California local jurisdiction officials dispute with California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) over which has the larger responsibility for the homelessness rampant in those jurisdictions and what action should be taken to mitigate the problem. As a result of the dispute,

Mr Newsom recently put a temporary freeze on $1 billion of state grants for city and county homelessness programs. He also rejected a slate of proposals from local officials outlining how they would spend the money, saying the measures would have reduced homelessness statewide by 2% between 2020 and 2024, which he deemed inadequate.

In response,

Mayors and county officials, meanwhile, have said they need the Newsom administration to provide reliable, recurring revenue streams and a cohesive statewide framework to address the issue.

No, they don’t. City and county officials need to reassess their own spending priorities and their own ordinances regarding housing, employment, and homelessness and make their own adjustments. Nor should they be holding out for a Statewide “framework” for the problem: each local area has its own unique set of homeless problems, even if there might be considerable overlap among the areas.

Then these city and county officials need to accept Newsom’s generous offer to step back from interfering in city and county governance; they should accept his withholding from them of State funding.

The less State funding a city or county takes from the State government, the less hold on the city or county the State has and the weaker the ability of the State to dictate behaviors to the city or county government. This would be a relative increase in city and county power relative to the State and a net gain for the individual liberties of the local residents and the State citizens resident in there.

What’s not to like?

NASA Finally Got It Off

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After two failed launch efforts, canceled due to hydrogen leaks during fueling, NASA finally got its Lockheed Martin Corp-built Artemis I to launch Wednesday morning on its multiple-week mission to the moon and back.

But not until after another hydrogen leak had to be fixed.

On Tuesday, NASA’s launch team for Artemis I was able to fuel the SLS liquid hydrogen tank relatively easily. A valve used to top off the tank, however, later began leaking, prompting the agency to send a so-called “red crew” of three people out to the launchpad to tighten the valve’s bolts.

That’s way too much hands-on massaging for what’s intended to demonstrate a routine launch; NASA still cannot handle liquid hydrogen fuel efficiently. Artemis, also, is another government (not just NASA) program that’s billions of (taxpayer) dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

No word yet on whether the rocket’s first stage successfully landed after it separated from the rest of the Space Launch System rocket.

Oh, wait….

DHS Responsiveness

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House Republicans have put Department of Homeland Security management on notice to hold onto a variety of data; they’ll be investing the department if they win a majority of the House this Tuesday (and the out-days of vote “counting”).

House Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member Congressman James Comer (R, LA) has warned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that Republicans would seek to hold him and his agency accountable for the ongoing crisis at the southern border should they win in next week’s midterm elections.
“We cannot endure another year of the Biden Administration’s failed border policies,” Comer and his fellow committee Republicans wrote to Mayorkas, per the Washington Times. “We have written DHS fifteen times this Congress to conduct oversight over the border crisis. Again, we request documents and information to understand the Biden Administration’s plans, if any, to secure the border.”

Here’s a thought. Republicans should withhold funding (defund, in the Progressive-Democratic Party’s favorite jargon) for the DHS other than ICE, CBP, and other border/immigration-related agencies, and the Coast Guard unless and until all documents are turned over to the new House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s satisfaction, and DHS Secretary and Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and John Tien, respectively, have resigned.

They shouldn’t just yap about having called repeatedly for documents or bark about “we’re going to investigate the Hell out of you,” knowing there’s no hope of subpoenas being enforced—they should put some teeth into their demands. They should take their own, purse string-related, steps to enforce their demands and investigations.

The Progressive-Democrat President certainly will veto such a budget, and he’ll threaten to shut down the government. However, both the Biden administration in general and Mayorkas’ DHS are prime examples of why that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Aside from that, the Obama Shutdown of 2013 is example of the harmlessness of the Federal government not operating for a time.