Strange Priorities In Governor's Budget Proposal

In an effort to plug a $468 million budget hole, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen proposes cutting funds to help some very sick state residents pay for medical treatment and avoid financial ruin.
But he’s found an extra $100 million to fill an economic development slush fund meant to lure out-of-state corporations to Tennessee. It appears that even a tough budget year is no reason to call a truce in the economic development incentives arms race that pits state against state.
Bredesen’s priorities are out of whack. State lawmakers should reject the call to provide more incentives to corporations at the same time that ordinary state residents – their constituents – are suffering.
The governor’s budget cuts $80 million from a TennCare program that provides temporary help to state residents on the brink of financial ruin as a result of a catastrophic illness. That $80 million could help up to 80,000 people and their families.
The “spend down” program, as it is called, assists medically needy state residents who make too much money to qualify for the main TennCare program, which covers those who are at or near the federal poverty level and eligible for Medicaid. It isn’t a permanent handout; the assistance is usually good for about a year, according to Marilyn Wilson, a Tenn-Care public affairs officer.
Bredesen froze the “spend down” program as part of painful, but necessary, TennCare reforms a few years ago. Before the latest batch of negative economic news arrived, he had planned to provide $100,000 in funding for the “spend down” program in the coming budget year. Now, he has pared that amount to $20,000.
Administration officials term this a more limited expansion of the program. TennCare advocates consider it a cut.
Whatever it is called, the reduction will mean that fewer state residents suffering from very serious, costly medical conditions, like cancer and heart failure, will get help paying their bills. Some might be forced to forgo care – causing their grave conditions to deteriorate, perhaps to the point of death.
Budget hawks will argue that the state is not responsible for any potential bad outcomes. Benefits aren’t being taken away from those who receive them now; they’re simply not being extended to any new enrollees. The distinction matters little to seriously ill state residents waiting for help or to their families who fear for them.
If there was simply no money for any new priorities, this hard, heartbreaking choice might be justifiable. But that’s just not the case. The governor found the money for his pet economic development fund, and the state’s Rainy Day fund remains well stocked.
And, it isn’t just sick Tennesseans who will feel the pain of the budget ax. The governor proposes to cut more than 2,000 workers from the state payroll – although some of this will be accomplished through buyouts and attrition.
He also has suggested cuts to state colleges and universities – cuts that will probably be passed along to college students and their families in the form of bigger tuition bills. And he has announced that no new public pre-kindergarten classrooms will be funded – a blow to those families who will now have to find other, costlier options for preschool.
Perhaps all of these cuts can be justified in light of the lean budget year. But Bredesen undercuts his own case by prioritizing the economic development fund, which has rather hazy guidelines for its use, over other programs that directly benefit state residents.
Lawmakers should think at least twice before going along with this plan. Corporate executives aren’t more deserving than college students, preschoolers, state employees or the very ill.