Louisiana’s governor is Democrat John Edwards. On Tuesday, May 8, he had 37,000 letters sent out to Medicaid recipients who are on an “optional” list now threatened by the Republican Party’s tax cuts/no spending/no revenue sell-off of their constituency.
Edwards on Thursday also warned that both of the state's medical schools might have to close and that several big hospitals may have to lay off staffers.
The reason? The Republican-controlled state House of Representatives made deep cuts to the proposed budget to make up for a $650 million shortfall rather than continue a temporary tax which ends on June 30 — and had been buttressing the bottom line.
Republicans are predictably butt hurt about this all. It’s especially problematic for them because facts and reality are not on their side.
“This is premature at best, reckless at worst,” House Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry, a Republican, said. “His fix is to scare the elderly of this state, and that is an embarrassment.”
Henry’s broadside was followed by a strident statement from the state’s Senate Republican Delegation.
“Make no mistake, the situation is dire,” it said. “There is just not enough money to go around. However, we in the Senate have no intention of putting Medicaid recipients on the streets or closing down medical schools.”
The state’s “Senate Republican Delegation” should probably just read that statement back to themselves. For a group of people who pride themselves on their pragmatic use of “numbers,” their ability to do simple subtraction and addition is nonexistent.