September 2, 2010
With apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford…
If they ever write a country song about the Wake County school board, the chorus might go something like this:
Sixteen Zones
You create sixteen zones, what do you get
A county more divided and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call them ’cause they can’t go
They owe their souls to Luddy and Pope
New oil rig disaster spawns interesting headlines
These are from the New Orleans Times-Picayune website:
Gulf oil rig explosion reportedly spreading sheen in Gulf of MexicoPublished: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 1:30 PM Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 1:46 PM
Gov. Bobby Jindal says company reports no oil is leakingPublished: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 1:32 PM Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 1:37 PM
Fixing Medicaid for the better
Like all states, Wisconsin felt a crushing pressure to save money in Medicaid in 2009.
The governor and legislature decided to cut as much as $625 million from the program. Slashing public programs is nothing new. But what is interesting is how the state achieved its savings.
Medicaid directed a 6-month process dubbed the Rate Reform Project where advocates, academics, providers and others met and hashed out how the program could be made more efficient. In theory this is an attractive idea, as we know there are ways to save money and improve care.
In the end Wisconsin not only cut costs, it expanded coverage. You can read the entire story at Stateline.
I’m …
Late Lunch Links
Blue NC has a winner in their contest to come up with something of great significance Richard Burr has accomplished. Try “Amendment to allow for exportation of nuclear-bomb-grade uranium.”
Wake up folks. Public Policy Polling on the latest generic NC poll numbers: “The Republican lead is coming not because folks who voted Democratic in 2008 are turning against the party, but because so many of them are planning to stay home.”
New issue brief from our friends at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families: How the new state health insurance exchanges will work for children and families.
Check out AZ Gov Jan Brewer’s debate meltdown.
And if you haven’t seen it, check out …
Conservative radio station bashes its owner
You gotta’ hand it to our friends at WPTF radio here in Raleigh. The station’s afternoon program featuring Bill LuMaye (a personable and friendly guy who has kindly invited folks from Policy Watch and the Justice Center on as guests with great regularity even as he occasionally tries to treat us like piñatas) took things to a new level yesterday afternoon.
Yesterday, Bill’s show featured a Pope-Civitas summer intern who is part of the group’s dishonest and inaccurate character assassination attempt against new UNC president Tom Ross. According to the intern and – it seems, I fear – Bill, North Carolinians should be aghast that Tom was once the E.D. at the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. According to …
Nationwide subsidized jobs program employs 250,000
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report on the TANF Emergency Fund’s subsidized job program today which provides a wage subsidy to employers hiring low-income workers. North Carolina’s program employed more than 1,000 workers across the state. As the authors conclude:
The subsidized jobs supported by the TANF Emergency Fund have helped families get work and income and have helped employers maintain and even expand in tight times. That, in turn, has given a needed boost to communities trying to recover from the recession. Moreover, families that are stable, housed, and employed are better able to support the community — economically and otherwise — and are less likely to require local social services.
The current economic recovery …
Was the stimulus too small?
Martin Wolf, the award winning journalist at the Financial Times, makes a convincing case (registration required) that the real debate over the US stimulus is not whether the stimulus package worked but whether it should have been bigger.
Although it’s doubtful that there were enough ’shovel-ready’ projects to make quick use of a major expansion in stimulus funding, cumulative state government shortfalls from fiscal year 2009 through the end of fiscal year 2012 will likely total over $450 billion, even after accounting for federal recovery dollars. A substantial minority of states chose to close at least part of their budget shortfalls by raising additional revenue, but real cuts to state budgets will probably total over $350 billion …
Maggie Gallagher meets St. Peter
They talk about gay marriage.
I often tell people that what we call “traditional” marriage in America is really only as old as 1967. This video makes the point in a humorous fashion:
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Previous Posts
- With apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford…
- New oil rig disaster spawns interesting headlines
- Fixing Medicaid for the better
- Late Lunch Links
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