Reminder: Buy Nothing Day runs for twenty-four hours starting at midnight tonight. Puzzled? Click here. Let’s see if we can collectively send a message.
The headline on the front page of the Spokesman this morning read “GOP MAY PLACE MEDICAID FUNDING ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK.” The budget resolution passed the U.S. House late last Tuesday on a vote of 217-215. Every “yea” vote came from a Republican—including the only two Republican U.S. Representatives from Washington State, Rep. Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside and newly elected Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Spokane. (They are supposed to be representing the voters of the two eastern-most Congressional Districts in the state, CDs 4 and 5, respectively.)
Let’s be clear. Both of these guys use the “the budget deficit” as their lame excuse for their ‘yea’ vote. They really, really don’t want you to understand that the whole reason for this budget is to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, tax cuts that largely benefited the already wealthy, tax cuts that would otherwise expire at year’s end. That extension (without offsets like cutting Medicaid) would add another $4.5 trillion to the deficit over ten years. Even if they succeed at excising $2 trillion from the federal budget by defunding children’s health care (see map below) and grandma’s assisted living, this thinly veiled gift to the wealthy in the form of a tax cut extension would STILL add $2.5 trillion to the deficit. If Baumgartner, Newhouse, and the rest of Republican slim majority in the U.S. Congress were really concerned about the deficit they would abandon the tax cut extension.
So how does Baumgartner deal with that? He deflects:
In an interview on Wednesday, Baumgartner emphasized that states are responsible for how Medicaid funds are spent and called the program “a broken system that costs too much money and does not serve the most needy well, or in a sustainable way.”
“Not only is the system broken and in need of reform, the reality is that America is broke,” he said. “We are $37 trillion in debt and are spending more money on debt payments than we are on national security, so the economic reality and responsibility has to set in, and that is going to require some very needed reforms in Medicaid.”
“Costs too much money and does not serve the needy well.” Really? Where’s your evidence, Mr. Baumgartner? Worried about the expanding deficit? How do you dare cite the deficit as you vote to cut government revenues by rewarding the wealthy?
For a full-throated factual defense of Medicaid I recommend reading Paul Krugman’s Substack article, “Cruel and Usual: "Republicans Prepare to Gut Medicaid, And their own supporters will be among the biggest victims”.
Call Baumgartner’s and every other Republican’s office and tell them you disapprove.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. Sadly, Baumgartner probably believes his own talking points, even as we should all recognize them as bulls—t. As to the Republican rhetoric about extending the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 trying to focus voters on its supposed personal benefits to their wallets, I ask you, did you notice a big reduction in YOUR taxes in 2018? I didn’t think so. But I can guarantee that Musk and his ilk smiled all the way to the bank.
The map below I screenshot from the “paper” version of the Spokesman article. Notice that Baumgartner and Newhouse represent the two congressional districts in the state with the largest percentage of children dependent on Medicaid for their health care—kids many of whose parents likely voted for these two Representatives, parents who likely did NOT vote to have health care taken away from their children. Get the word out.
