What the feds owe us, and what we owe ourselves
By Pete SchragCalifornia Progress Report Columnist
Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the first California governor to complain that the state gets shortchanged in federal funding. California contributes more than its share in federal taxes and gets less than its share in federal programs, contracts and aid. But in a severe state budget crisis, the inequities, easy to slough off in good times, become harder to ignore and the injustice more infuriating.
Last week the governor dispatched a letter to California’s congressional delegation focused on the inequities in federal Medicaid funding (in California it’s Medi-Cal) , pointing out that states like Texas, Florida and Michigan are reimbursed at much higher rates for their costs than California. The difference between what California gets and the average of the ten largest states, he said, runs to $2.2 billion
The governor’s letter, which primarily concerns provisions of the pending federal health care bills, comes at almost the same moment as the leaks from his office that in his effort to close a project $20 billion deficit, again without new taxes, he’s planning to ask Washington for as much as $8 billion in new federal aid. How, or whether, the two are related isn’t clear.
What’s clear is that in a recession in which as many as one of every six Americans is either unemployed, underemployed in a part-time job or has given up looking for work altogether, the goal of economic recovery adds an even more urgent reason for additional federal funding.
More than ever, this is a time for significant federal aid to states, not only to protect existing jobs but, if possible, creating additional employment in education, road construction, park maintenance and other public sector programs. As Barack Obama’s first year in office comes to an end, hindsight makes it increasingly clear that
