John M. Tomaszewski – 1/3/06

This page was last updated on January 4, 2006.

A matter of priorities; John M. Tomaszewski; Beaver County Times; January 3, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“The Republican controlled U.S. Senate passed legislation on Dec. 21 that slashes the Medicaid budget, thus services for the mentally ill and retarded, the elderly, the disabled, and child support will be greatly reduced.

“Yet the tax cuts that favor the very wealthy go on. The Republicans continue to push forward a much larger package of tax cuts. Our senator, Rick Santorum, voted for the budget to slash the above Medicaid budget.”

[RWC] Did you wonder why Mr. Tomaszewski didn’t tell us how much the Medicaid budget was “slashed?” It’s because the budget was not cut. All the Senate did was reduce the rate of spending increase a paltry $4.8 billion over five years. I wrote “paltry” because this amounts to only about 0.4% of the projected $1,117 billion ($1.1 trillion) to be spent over those five years. Even with the “cut,” Medicaid spending will increase from about $190 billion/year to about $260 billion/year. This 37% increase is what liberals like Mr. Tomaszewski call “slashing” the Medicaid budget.

Oh, and as we all know, everyone got a tax cut, even those who pay no federal income taxes.