Greenwood Commonwealth. March 4, 2022.
Editorial: Medicaid expansion better than tax cuts
While the Mississippi Legislature puts most of its focus on tax cuts as a way to boost the state’s economy and reverse its population decline, it continues to ignore the more powerful tool it has had at its disposal for the past eight years: Medicaid expansion.
Recently, Bobby Harrison, one of the Capitol reporters for Mississippi Today, compared the analyses done five months apart by the nonpartisan state economist on the impacts of Medicaid expansion and the massive tax overhaul championed by House Speaker Philip Gunn.
There is, in a nutshell, no comparison. Extending Medicaid benefits to the working poor would do more for the state, at least for the first five years and probably indefinitely, than Gunn’s desire to eliminate the personal income tax, cut the cost of car tags in half, reduce the tax on groceries while raising the sales tax on most everything else.
Not to get bogged down in the numbers, but a few from the two studies are worth emphasizing.
- In 2024, Medicaid expansion would create 2½ times as many new jobs as the tax-cut plan. Three years later, the difference would be 6-to-1.
In 2024, Medicaid expansion would raise the state’s gross domestic product — the total value of its goods and services — by almost $800 million, more than double the impact of the House tax cut. Again, the gap just grows with time. By 2027, Medicaid’s impact on GDP would be five times higher than the tax cuts.
- Although neither effort would do much by itself to increase the state’s population, even there Medicaid expansion beats the tax cuts by about the same margins.
The House plan, of course, is not the only tax-cut plan in the works. The Senate has a more modest idea about how much revenue Mississippi government can stand to forgo. But the logic stands that if the most radical (and risky) tax-cut plan is a weaker economic driver than Medicaid expansion, so, too, would be the less dramatic alternative.
Tax-cut proponents have said the state can afford to do this — and raise teacher pay by more than $200 million a year — because the state is so flush with cash right now. Problem is, that prosperity is not going to last, since it’s largely based on a massive federal infusion of coronavirus relief funding. Medicaid expansion, by contrast, is the gift that would keep on giving, with the federal government committed to picking up at least 90% of the cost for as long as the expansion law stays on the books — in other words, most likely into perpetuity.
Given the present budget surpluses, some tax relief is in order, such as the onetime rebate proposed by the Senate or a lower grocery tax, as both chambers advocate. But rather than going whole hog with tax cuts, as Gunn wants, it would be a much better, long-term economic strategy to expand Medicaid, as all but a dozen states have already done.
The cost to Mississippi — and it’s debatable, once all the effects of Medicaid expansion ripple through the economy, whether there would be a cost at all — would be at worst about one-fifteenth as much as Gunn’s tax-cut plan. The financial return would be significantly higher, and that’s not even counting the benefit of providing a couple hundred thousand working adults with medical coverage.
How come most of the Republican leadership in this state can’t see this? Because they have let the politics of Medicaid expansion blind them to rational analysis.
Tax cuts are a Republican priority, Medicaid expansion is a Democratic one. It doesn’t matter how much better the Democratic idea might be, most Mississippi Republicans simply refuse to consider it.
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Columbus Dispatch. March 9, 2022.
Editorial: Spirit of cooperation benefits both county and city
There was a day, not that long ago, when what George Irby proposed at the Monday Lowndes County Board of Supervisors’ meeting would have been an exercise in futility.
Irby, in his role as Columbus’ interim city planning and community development director, appeared before the supervisors at their Monday morning asking for financial support to address blight conditions in the city.
In February, Irby asked the city council to devote $1 million — roughly 20 percent of city’s ARPA funds — to address blight, an approved use of the funds. Although substantial, the $1 million will not cover the full cost of the program, which would buy dilapidated property from the owners, clean them up and resell them to developers for new housing/commercial buildings.
On Monday, Irby asked supervisors to devote $500,000 to $1 million for the program, which would represent between 4.5 and 9 percent of the county’s $11.2 million in ARPA funds.
While the board took no action on Irby’s request Monday, it was clear the supervisors are open to partnering with the city on the blight project, although it may not be at the funding level Irby requested.
District 1 supervisors Harry Sanders suggested a more appropriate contribution would be $300,000.
That number is obviously not set in stone, but it’s a sign that the county and city are again on negotiating terms at least, something that probably could not have been said as recently as 18 months ago.
A change in leadership in both the city and county have created a more cooperative environment. First, Trip Hairston replaced Sanders as board of supervisors president in October 2021, then in July Keith Gaskin replaced Robert Smith as mayor.
Anyone familiar with city/county relations prior to those changes can recall the epic clashes between Sanders and Smith, whose forceful presences often dominated policy in their respective governments.
In 2017, the rancor between two reached critical mass as the county opted out of the joint parks and recreation department to form its own parks department. Bitter disputes over joint board appointments and the 2-percent restaurant tax followed. By then, there was no relationship to speak of.
But the change in leadership signaled a thawing in the city/county relations. Soon after Gaskin was elected, supervisors agreed to help the city’s public works department, which had fallen behind in debris removal. It was not a big commitment from the county, but symbolically it signaled that the supervisors understand they have a vested interest in the city’s well-being.
We believe collaborating on blight would move from symbolic to tangible and perhaps open the door for future cooperation.
District 5 supervisor Leroy Brooks suggested that city and county officials meet next week to further discuss ways the two entities might combine APRA funds on blight as well as exploring other opportunities.
We can’t speculate the result of that meeting, but we continue to be encouraged that the city and county continue to make strides to repair their relationship, something that benefits county and city residents alike.
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