Interlude: The Definition of Insanity

My governor, Doug Ducey, is a "trickle-down" fanatic. He believes in the nonsensical notion (popularized more than 30 years ago by Saint Reagan) that cutting taxes, particularly corporate taxes, will cause an explosion of growth that makes up for the lost revenue.

So it was that yesterday I was surprised (not) to see this headline in my local paper.

The Arizona Legislature’s budget analysts on Thursday predicted a budget shortfall that could top $100 million in the current and coming year as the impact of corporate tax cuts continues to overwhelm increases in sales, insurance premium and personal income tax collections.

Chief budget analyst Richard Stavneak told economists and state officials who make up the Legislature’s Finance Advisory Committee that the shortfall will hit $104 million. That’s out of an expected $10 billion in spending for the budget year that begins next July 1. A panel of state lawmakers also attended the meeting.

Excluded from that projection is $90 million in current spending that is labeled one-time but appears to be an ongoing commitment by the Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey, Stavneak said. That puts the expected shortfall next year close to $200 million if that spending isn’t cut. The revenue picture could also brighten, but signals are mixed, he said.

This is the same kind of bullshit that Kansas Governor Sam Brownback pushed. How is Kansas doing?

Kansas expects budget shortfall around $350 million this fiscal year

Kansas, facing huge budget deficits, wonders what to do next

From the second article:

Q: Back up: How did we get here?

A: There are hundreds of bar graphs and pie charts and, someday, probably cartoons to illustrate this, but the very quick version is: Republican Gov. Sam Brownback proposed dramatic cuts to personal income tax receipts in 2012, a position consistent with the tea party movement that aimed to take spending out of government hands.

The Legislature approved the tax cuts. The strategy has faded somewhat nationally but lives on as the governing philosophy in Kansas, even though the cuts did not spur economic growth as their proponents predicted. Result: the gaping holes in the state budget.

Ya think?

This idiocy has been debunked over and over again. And now my state is headed down this same misguided path.

What's the definition of insanity again?

And Now, A Political Interlude

Today my local paper featured this story on the front page.



Analysis: 380,000 Arizonans May Lose Medicaid

Some highlights:

The analysis by the state’s Medicaid plan obtained by The Associated Press Friday shows keeping most of those people insured would cost the state nearly $500 million a year by 2023.

In a Republican-led state where tax increases are nearly impossible to enact, that’s extremely unlikely.

The report looks at the patients who gained coverage under a Medicaid expansion pushed through in 2013 by former Gov. Jan Brewer over opposition from many in her own party. It now covers about 400,000 Arizonans out of the 1.9 million covered by Medicaid in the state.

Of those 400,000, about 316,000 are childless adults who earn less than the federal poverty limit, and 81,000 earn between 100 percent and 138 percent of the limit.

The analysis released Friday by Arizona’s Medicaid plan looks at several scenarios, none of them pretty for the poor Arizonans currently on Medicaid.

Freezing the current enrollment for the two populations covered by expansion is one option. Another is to only freeze those in the plan who earn above the poverty level.

But the current GOP plan would cut matching funds to states, increasing costs.

Since we have a Republican governor springing from the mold of Kansas' Sam Brownback (i.e., cut taxes every year, no matter what that does to the state coffers, or how public education, to name just one example, suffers as a result), he would never support raising taxes to cover the shortfall, nor would the majority Republican Legislature pass any such thing. So all these people would be shit out of luck. And since, as the story notes, most of these people earn less than the federal poverty level, good luck on them being able to buy insurance on their own.

To put it bluntly, that is obscene.

What do you expect these people to do when they get sick? They're just going to clog the emergency rooms like they did before, and hospitals will lose money from their uncompensated care (which just means you and I, the everyday taxpayer, will pick up the slack). Or, y'know, they'll do what the Republicans seem to want them to do, which is die and get out of the way.

People will die. Make no mistake about it, people will die.

And in the meantime, this asshole Paul Ryan will chortle over finally getting to reduce an "entitlement."

I've said for some time that the driving theme of the Republican party is a simple five words: "I've got mine; fuck you." They don't believe in civilization, other than as a form of feudalism for the 0.01%. They certainly don't believe in the words of Jesus, with his famous refrain: "As you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."

And now they've voted a narcissistic, tinyhanded monster into the highest office in the land, who will push this clusterfuck that will kill people (hey, remember the retired coal miners, many of whom are afflicted with black lung disease? Say bye-bye to your health care too! And all you malingering old farts who live alone and can't work or drive and get a free Meal on Wheel every day? Screw you, suckers!!) on the country.

But Her Emails.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Uganda and Pepe Julian Onziema Pt. 1...

This is an excellent, excellent rant from John Oliver. He hasn't been on the air very long, and he's already better than Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. He'd be worth getting HBO for, all by himself. (Well, and that little show called Game of Thrones.)