In an era when legislation routinely exceeds 1,000 pages, the bill introduced by Sen. John Thune yesterday — at seven lines — doesn’t look like much. But looks can be deceptive. If adopted, those seven lines would guarantee the end of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a critical first step toward putting federal finances, and the economy, back on the right track.
Under current law, TARP, which provided up to $700 billion to support troubled financial institutions, is scheduled to expire on December 31 of this year, but can be extended until October of next year if Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner call for an extension. Geithner hasn’t made any final decision yet, but all indications are that he will so request. The Thune bill, S. 2787, would take away this authority, ensuring that the program will end this year.
The Administration has argued that more time would be useful, giving them the flexibility to extend taxpayer support to troubled financial institutions (and auto manufacturers) if necessary. That’s not good enough. The economic crisis that led to the adoption of TARP is over. Rather than a necessary tool to avoid an systemic collapse of the financial system, TARP has become at best just another source of stimulus spending, and at worst a slush fund providing ready cash, with little or no accountability, to whatever industry or firm the Treasury Department
chooses to support.
States Lose Control, Families Lose Choices Under Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion
Author: Dennis SmithSpeaker Pelosi’s mammoth health legislation, H.R. 3962, includes the largest Medicaid expansion in history, adding as many as 18 million people to the program. Not only will childless adults become eligible for Medicaid for the first time in the history of the program, approximately 5 million children who have been served under the successful and popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will also be transferred into Medicaid. Speaker Pelosi’s bill preempts the decisions previously made by the elected women and men in state capitols.
For more than 10 years, states have made the choice whether to run their SCHIP programs as a separate non-Medicaid program or as a Medicaid expansion. A majority of states including California which serves the most children under SCHIP have chosen to run separate SCHIP programs. A separate SCHIP program provides states with greater flexibility in managing benefits, service delivery, and eligibility. Under the current SCHIP program, there is no individual entitlement and eligibility is reserved only to those who were previously uninsured. States had the flexibility to impose a waiting period to protect against families dropping their private coverage. All of this will be overridden under the new legislation. State SCHIP programs will be dismantled.
Families will not have a choice between Medicaid and ability to use the new credits for private coverage. Families may be split as children will be forced into Medicaid.