Seven hundred million dollars. That's how much it will cost to settle the ongoing "FREW" lawsuit concerning Medicaid that has been raging for some 14 years.
The settlement means providers will receive bigger Medicaid payments and that more will be done to bring health care providers to underserved areas, call centers will be improved, and there will be more PR-type outreach.
All that is great. What's even better, though, is that this cost less than the "billions" that were estimated and that were left on the table during the first leg of the appropriations process.
The big question now is, what about the money the settlement isn't going to cost?
Or, (and, for your Tuesday morning amusement, we'll say this like we imagine President Bush would say it) "Do we be budgeting ourselves into a corner? Is we budgeting our children into a corner? Is our children learning? Where is the nearest corner? Nukkaloor. Kaaaaaarrrrrrllllll! Help! They's talkin' 'bout numbers again and I ran done out a' toes!"
All session, we've heard dire predictions. At one point, I even heard the outlandish prediction that it would cost $28 billion to settle the lawsuit, though conventional wisdom seemed to set the number somewhere between $1 and $8 billion.
Luckily, (and it's hard to say "luckily" about a lawsuit that will result in increased services to the poor, because increased services to the poor is a good thing), though, the price tag was much cheaper. Therefore, the question remains, what about the money left on the table?
Which brings up another question: how much money was left on the table, was there money left on the table, and where the Hell is the table, anyway?
As I recall, CSHB 1 left about $8.5 billion on the table, unspent. It's unclear to me (and probably to some lawmakers, too), exactly what the purpose of leaving this money unappropriated in such a mass sum was. Was it to fund future property tax reductions promised by Perry and necessitated by the over-the-top Texas Tax Reform Commission bills passed in the last Special Session? Or, was it to put the money in the "Rainy Day Fund?"
I've heard both, and I know I've seen different media outlets report that the money was unspent for either one or the other or both purposes.
Either way, we're in a quandary. Why? Because we're leaving $8.5 billion (give or take what little may be chipped away in the next seven weeks via conferencing on CHSB 1 or other legislation) unspent while we have things it needs to be spent on.
Yes, yes: Texas should have money set aside for a rainy day. No, no: we should not spend every penny available to us just because it is there because that isn't fiscally responsible.
But, there must be a happy medium somewhere between leaving $8 billion on the table, funding critical needs, and saving for a rainy day.
First off, we've got human services needs that are crying out for money after the cuts from the 2003 and 2005 sessions which, ironically, facilitated the existence of the surplus in the first place!
Second, we've got other needs, like state parks, which benefit all Texans, that need money.
Third, tuition for higher education is out of control since deregulation and Texans need relief.
Fourth, low income Texans need relief from high electric bills.
Fifth, what about the Texas Tomorrow Fund? The Perryman Group report released earlier this month says, contrary to the Comptroller's dire estimate, there is no reason not to get the damned thing reopened. Right there is a good use of a few hundred million or more.
Sixth...well, you get the point. We could go on all day: Teachers need a raise, we need more money in the classroom, we need money to fix a juvenile incarceration system where kids were being raped on the taxpayer's dime, etc., etc.
Yet, in light of FREW settlement fears, we had lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers, budgeted into a corner to the point where this is a possible reality:
[Senator Leticia] Van de Putte said negotiators tried to hold down the price tag so that improvements to children's Medicaid don't force lawmakers to cut other social services or higher education.
"If [compliance costs] got over $1 billion, to $1.4 billion, other parts of the budget that people care about would be ... slashed," she said.
Hell no! Not to Sen. Van de Putte, but to the whole system. Hell no! $8.1 billion left on the table and we're being forced to talk about slashing the budget to pay for something that costs a billion? Why? Worse yet, we're talking about slashing other social services?
Because we wasted money buying down the property tax rate too damned far.
I've said time and time again that the concept of public school property tax relief is 100% bogus because, by the time cities and college districts and counties raise their tax rates, and you end up factoring in additional debt service in growing school districts, this tax cut (which mainly helped out owners of property valued at more than $100,000), might as well not even exist, because within one fiscal year, no taxpayer is going to realize any savings over what they are paying now.
But, since nearly everyone in the Legislature disagrees that with the whole concept being bogus (perhaps it's all about it sounding so good), let's say it isn't bogus for a minute. So what? Well, for one thing, there was no reason, court-mandated or otherwise, for the tax buy-down to have been so significant this biennium. None, whatsoever. The significance of the buy-down was red meat for the right-wing anti-tax crowd.
We could have easily done a less expensive buy-down this biennium and not cut so deeply into the surplus which (say it with me now) was only the result of severe cuts to human services in 2003 and 2005.
It's all about the fact that the Republican-led, Republican-dominated legislature cannot see the forest for the trees and come to the realization that we must put human needs first. A government's primary responsibility is to provide for the governed, be that roads, assistance for the needy, or environmental protection. [Memo to Speaker Craddick: The Texas Enterprise Fund (aka Governor Perry's 'Economic Development' Slush Fund) is not the constitutionally designated golden calf you think it is. That dog don't hunt, that duck don't quack, that bird don't fly.]
And, an over-the-top property tax cut doesn't get us there.