The issue of health and human services spending is an apt place to begin this new debate series between the Justice Center and the Locke Foundation. Even as we ?speak,? lawmakers in the state House of Representatives are considering a package of amendments to Governor Easley?s proposed 2004-?05 budget that would slash human services funding by more than $90 million. A look at some of the details of the current situation reveals why this is not the place to find cuts for balancing the budget.
Earlier this month, Governor Easley presented a proposed series of adjustments to the 2004-?05 budget that he and state legislators crafted last year. As we reported in the May 10, 2004 edition of our weekly newsletter, NC Policy Brief, the Governor?s proposal was a bit of a mixed bag. On the positive side, the Governor did a reasonably good job of insulating health, human services and education from new funding cuts that would bring about reductions in essential services. On the negative side, the Governor failed to restore many of the painful funding reductions of recent years and opted instead for a package of corporate tax cuts and expanded ?business incentive? programs.
Today, unfortunately, budget makers in the House of Representatives are looking to impose additional deep cuts in health and human services spending in order to generate more funds for, as yet, undisclosed purposes (but, presumably, larger pay raises for state employees). According to information obtained by Justice Center advocates on the ground at the General Assembly, cuts under consideration include:
? Elimination of Medicaid health insurance coverage for 4,300 low-income pregnant women and hundreds of low income 19 and 20 year olds;
? Elimination of Medicaid dental coverage for as many as 94,000 poor and disabled adults;
? Reducing childcare subsidies for low-income families ? even though the waiting list currently stands at 24,000;
? A $25 million reduction for the state?s already troubled and inadequate system of mental health services ? including cuts to the successful Community Alternatives Program that helps keep disabled folks in their homes and out of nursing facilities;
? A reduction in the number of child abuse and neglect social workers (despite the already overwhelming caseloads and recommendations of a bi-partisan legislative study committee for more resources in this area).
These are not illusory cuts orchestrated in some kind of conspiratorial shell game by a group of bureaucrats bent upon self-preservation. Neither are they the wild imaginings of a group do-gooder advocates for the poor. These proposed cuts are but the latest in a long line of real and painful service reductions that have been implemented in recent years as state government has struggled to keep up with the effects of health care inflation and a struggling economy that has swollen the ranks of the uninsured. If adopted and implemented, they will translate into a direct reductions in the quality of life (and even life expectancies) of thousands of the most vulnerable North Carolinians.
Happily, there is a better solution for the state that ought to win the support of analysts and advocates across the political spectrum ? especially anti-corporate welfare champions at the Locke Foundation. According to the latest calculations of the N.C. Budget and Tax Center (a Justice Center project) lawmakers could easily free up over $200 million for 2004-?05 simply by diverting planned outlays from an array of corporate incentives, subsidies and tax breaks. Such funds would allow the state to avoid painful cuts, and maybe even to regain some of the lost progress of recent lean years. So how ?bout it John, can we agree that the first issue we?re raising is a ?no-brainer? for thinking people on the right and the left?
