The nation’s top health official signaled Tuesday that states should not try to use the Supreme Court’s ruling on President Obama’s health care law to make it more difficult for low-income people to qualify for Medicaid. While the Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the health law in its landmark ruling last month, the justices…
Category: State Government
Justice Department, Texas Face Off In Court Over Voter ID Law
The Justice Department and the state of Texas faced off at trial Monday over the state’s new voter identification law, which the Obama administration claims violates the federal Voting Rights Act. In opening arguments before a three-judge panel in federal district court in Washington, D.C., a lawyer for Texas argued that the photo ID requirement…
Florida accused of concealing worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years
According to the Post, the coverup began as early as last February, “when Duval County Health Department officials felt so overwhelmed by the sudden spike in tuberculosis that they asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become involved. Believing the outbreak affected only their underclass, the health officials made a conscious decision…
Study: Obamacare Medicaid Expansion Would Dramatically Reduce Numbers Of Uninsured In Conservative States
A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted two years shows that all states would see significant reductions in their uninsured populations because of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, at almost no cost to state budgets. But the effect would be particularly dramatic in southern states with low Medicaid participation — the conservative states most likely to…
High Uninsurance In States Prepping To Stymie The Affordable Care Act
Many of the governors threatening to stymie implementation of the Affordable Care Act preside over states with high uninsurance rates, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser data breaks down each state’s population by source of insurance, and by percent uninsured. Unsurprisingly, Massachusetts has the lowest uninsurance rate in the country, thanks to…
GOP governors say Medicaid costs are already breaking states’ backs. Are they right?
The Republican governors vowing to opt out of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion argue the program is already burdening cash-strapped state governments and would be a poison pill for state budgets in the long run. Are they right? When you look at all spending on state programs—including money from both federal and state governments—Medicaid is the single…
Republican Michigan Governor Vetoes GOP Voter Suppression Law
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) bucked his fellow Republicans on Tuesday by vetoing a voter ID law crafted by GOP members of the state legislature, the Detroit Free Press reports: Among the bills vetoed was one requiring photo ID for first voter registration or to obtain an absentee ballot, a requirement that African-American activists claimed…
Flawed Voter Purge Underway In Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that after a state-level investigation, Fulton County, Georgia identified at least 2,400 voters it believed to be registered to vote at vacant lots. Like with the Florida purge, county elections officials began sending letters to those voters to determine whether they lived at those address. Unfortunately, as with Florida, they ran…
Austerity Is Hammering State Economies
Public spending cuts, while on the rise worldwide, are bad for the U.S. economy. U.S. states provide a good illustration of this principle. Since the start of the Great Recession 20 states have cut public spending while 30 states expanded spending. Those that cut spending have fared worse economically than those that expanded spending. The…
Birther Secretary of State Bennett Is Romney Campaign Co-Chair
Before you write off Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett as another one of those fringy state officials diving deep into the birther waters of Hawaii, consider this: He is one of the co-chairs of the Romney campaign in Arizona. Then again, that honorary position already comes with a few smudge marks. Another of Romney’s…
Wind-Generated Energy Is Working Well For Us in Iowa
The wind-power industry is an American success story that is helping us build our manufacturing base, create jobs, lower energy costs and strengthen our energy security. As a country, we should support energy diversity and development of all domestic resources, creating an “all of the above” energy strategy. To that end, our state and national…
Tea Partiers Backing Scott Walker May Run Afoul of IRS
Tea Party Patriots could prove to be a formidable force in Wisconsin given the size of its fundraising machine; Martin recently bragged that the group raised $12 million last year. And that could be problematic. As a nonprofit group, TPP is banned from devoting the bulk of its resources to campaign activities—those resources are supposed to…
In Florida, Registering Voters A Whole New Game
Six months before the presidential election, the Florida ground game is already underway. In political terms, the ground game is the process of mobilizing voters and getting them to the polls. And the first step is registering people to vote. But in Florida this year, there are tough new restrictions on groups that conduct voter…
Government Is Getting Smaller in the U.S.
Spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, has risen at a slow rate under President Obama. But that increase has been more than offset by a fall in spending by state and local governments, which have been squeezed by weak tax receipts. In the first quarter of this year, the real gross domestic product…
Rick Scott Drug Testing Executive Order Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge
A federal judge has ruled that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) violated the Constitution last year when he ordered drug testing for state government workers. U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled on Wednesday that suspicionless drug testing testing for state workers violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure. Scott had suspended…
Governor Rick Scott Vetoes Funds For Rape Crisis Centers During Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) shocked the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence this week when he vetoed $1.5 million in funding for 30 rape crisis centers in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. State lawmakers allotted the money to offset an increase in need and a lack of sufficient funding for victim services. A…
Do voters really flee high-tax states?
The CBPP study argues that taxes are often much less significant than housing costs. For example, between 2004 and 2007, Arizona was the most popular destination for outgoing Californians. But it’s not clear that this was due to taxes. Indeed, many middle-income and upper-middle-income families actually faced higher local taxes in Arizona. More likely, many…
Take a Look at a Typical Urban Welfare Queen
A 25-year-old woman from Lincoln Park who continued to collect food stamps after winning the state lottery’s $1 million “Make Me Rich!” game show has been charged with two felonies for welfare fraud, Attorney General Bill Schuette announced this morning. Amanda Clayton, whose use of a food stamp bridge card was uncovered earlier this year…
Report: Mass. Health Law Not A ‘Budget Buster’
Outside Massachusetts, talk show hosts and politicians frequently blast the state’s health coverage law as a “budget buster.” “It has been an abject failure,” candidate Rick Santorum told the audience during a presidential primary debate in January, directing his comments toward former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. “He’s stood by the fact that it’s $8 billion…
Most Red States Take More Money From Washington Than They Put In
Most politically “red” states are financially in the red when it comes to how much money they receive from Washington compared with what their residents pay in taxes. A look at 2010 Census and IRS data reveals that the 50 states and the District of Columbia, on average, received $1.29 in federal spending for every…