Arnold Care Watch: Lease the California State Lottery
The governor’s latest claim on painless gain was issued this week in the form of a revised scheme to bring health insurance to the estimated 6.7 million Californians who lack it. The cost of providing such coverage is estimated at $14 billion a year, and originally, Schwarzenegger proposed “shared responsibility” taxes on hospitals and doctors, a levy on employers and a fingers-crossed assumption that the federal government would pick up about a third of the tab.
The plan quickly became bogged down in a political swamp of interests. Everybody was for the plan in concept, as long as somebody else was paying for it. The hospital industry eventually signed on after being guaranteed in writing that it would get billions more dollars than it would pay in taxes, but doctors and most employers continued to balk, and so did anti-tax Republican legislators.
Didn’t Flap tell you that Arnold Care was a boondoggle from the start? And would NEVER be implemented.
Why?
Because it is the same with Hillary Care 1.0 and 2.0 it is REDISTRIBUTIONIST POLITICS.
There’s been a lot of talk in the Capitol about asking voters to raise taxes to pay for expanding health care. But this week, Schwarzenegger took a new tack by proposing to lease the state lottery to a private operator and devote lease payments to health care, thereby negating the need for taxes on doctors and softening the financial impact on employers.
Implicitly, Schwarzenegger is promising that nobody would be taxed that doesn’t want to be taxed while many billions of dollars in new health care benefits will flow to the uninsured poor and medical providers — all gain and no pain.
The fiscal flaw is self-evident: If the lottery can be leased and the state can realize a $2 billion revenue gain, shouldn’t that money be used to balance a deficit-ridden state budget before launching new spending schemes? Or does Schwarzenegger intend to dump the mess on the next governor while he morphs into a senator-elect and/or self-appointed guru of global warming — all gain for him without any political pain?
Flap’s bet is that the Demcorats will NOT let Arnold’s plan out of the legislature because of the tax increases that would need to be approved by California taxpayers at the November 2008 Presidential election. Arnold’s plan is similar to Hillary’s and she doesn’t want to run on a tax increase next year.
Perhaps the Governor can now concentrate on reducing California’s budget deficit.
Don’t count on it.
Previous:
Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Arnold for United States Senate in 2010
Arnold Care Vs. Hillary Care 2.0: Arnold Care Covers Illegal Aliens
Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: California State Budget in Deficit as Much as $10 Billion
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hillary Care 2.0
Hillary Clinton Watch: Hillary Care 2.0
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Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Health Care FLOP
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