Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2007 > May > 14
Monday, May 14, 2007
Gloom, doom on PeachCare exaggerated
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“It causes death, my friends.”
That’s it.
Modify in the slightest a government program that didn’t exist in Georgia at all a dozen years ago and the consequence will be, in the worldview of state Rep. Lester Jackson (D-Savannah), children flunking and dropping out of school and worse.
“Recently in Maryland there was a young boy [who] died of a dental infection,” said Jackson during a legislative debate on PeachCare. “Do we need this to happen in Georgia? What would happen if vision and dental care would be eliminated? You have a decreased reading comprehension in our classrooms, a loss of school days because of dental pain, unnecessary pain and suffering for our children, for our working families, and also death because of infection.”
Until one listens to the full debate on how best to frame high-cost government social programs, like PeachCare, it’s easy to forget just how far to the left the Democratic Party in Georgia has drifted. This is not the party of Joe Frank Harris or of mainstream Georgia. The rhetoric employed to oppose legislation that would modestly rein in costs is so outlandish and absurd that one wonders what’s left to say this side of calamity.
The proposal for PeachCare that “causes death, my friends” would allow the Department of Community Health to charge an additional premium the bill’s author, House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) projects at $5 to $10 a month for dental and vision coverage. It’s now provided free by taxpayers.
The bill would, too, allow the board to adjust future eligibility to a range of 185 to 225 percent of the federal poverty level, and to fix it now at 200 percent, down from 235. Importantly, however, no child currently on the program would lose eligibility. For a family of three, the new income limit would be $34,340, down from $40,350. The bill is still alive, but was not resolved on the final legislative day.
The program required an $81 million infusion of cash, which was included in the unvetoed budget. The feds may or may not provide reimbursement, in full or part. Congress has it tied up in its Iraqi war games.
This Georgia debate goes to the heart of the two parties’ approach to government. It’s precisely why a Republican majority that shows flashes of conservatism needs to coalesce under the Gold Dome. Those who have no clue as to what they’re trying to do with government, or why, simply cannot bring change, no matter how essential, in the face of “death, my friends” hyperbole. And once conservatives start picking up that language for each other, all is lost.
On PeachCare, Richardson, in one of those flashes of purposeful conservatism, stood his ground. Said he: “This program was started as a block grant [by Congress] and [they] told us to set the rules. There were no rules. So the people that are now telling you we shouldn’t change the rules are the ones that set the rules that put the program in place and ran it out of money. And it is time to make a decision. Do you want to rein in this program and provide it to those that need it? … ” Said the speaker, too:
“This is a reasonable, measured response to reel in a program that was out of control, that a member of this body signed up a quarter-horse for and got a temporary ID number just three weeks ago. Because it was so easy, he just went online and punched in a name and you’ve got PeachCare. Anybody can get PeachCare. If you are not a U.S. citizen, it’s OK.
“And by the way, you don’t have to take your Social Security number. Now if that’s the kind of program you want, that’s what you had … ” The department is now being required to verify income and citizenship.
“All I’ve heard is how terrible it will be if we restrain spending just a little bit … In all the arguments … against this bill, not one of them talked about the taxpayers of this state who have to work for three and four months out of the year to pay for children to have health insurance.”
The conservative approach should be to create programs on a small scale, examine results to see what works and what undesirable behaviors have been unintentionally induced, and to make changes. That never happens. But it should.
Last week a Congressional Budget Office report found that the parents of as many as half the children enrolled in programs like PeachCare dropped private insurance coverage and shifted them to the taxpayer-subsidized plans. Democrats in Congress want to double the spending recommended by the Bush administration, to $75 billion over five years.
Conservatives create and examine. Liberals create and expand.
Permalink | Comments (79) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
An entitlement to college
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is proposing an $8 billion federal entitlement — he calls it a scholarship; it could also be called a voucher — that would go to high school graduates to cover tuition, fees and books for the first year of college. Before long, Edwards or some Democrat will succeed in creating a near-entitlement to a college education — not because such a program’s needed, but because it’ll be popular with the middle class.
As Edwards sees it, the $8 billion entitlement will be funded by a windfall profits tax on oil companies and by eliminating subsidies to banks for student loans. Edwards has tested a privately-funded “College for Everyone” program in a rural North Carolina community for two years. It pays most expenses for the first year for students who complete a college prep or college technology course in high school and who aren’t suspended and aren’t caught using drugs or alcohol or committing a crime. Students also agree to work or volunteer for 10 hours a week while in college.
Several points here. One is that “scholarships” is the politically correct word for vouchers and follows on FDR’s bright idea in creating the Social Security program that will sooner or later bankrupt this country. FDR called his entitlement “insurance” and the payroll taxes levied “contributions” that were to be socked away in a “trust fund” for old age. He knew if he called them what they were — taxes for a pay-as-you-go entitlement — the country would balk. Labels matter.
Entitlements like the one Edwards proposes do three things. For one, they send a message to parents that it’s no longer necessary to exercise thrift or to plan or be responsible for little Johnny’s education. The other is that it tells college administrators not to trim the fat or make any effort to control costs because Congress will levy the taxes to cover the entitlements it creates, no matter the burden on that dwindling percentage of Americans who actually pay federal income taxes. The third is that government entitlements crowd out merit-based scholarships given by foundations and other individuals and organizations.
Do the poor and the middle class save for college anymore?
