Kansas is suffering a double dose of despair from decisions made in Topeka.
First, was the much-maligned income tax cuts in 2012 and 2013, which Gov. Sam Brownback promised would give the economy a shot of adrenaline. Main beneficiaries were the wealthy, as well as 330,000 small business owners and farmers. Tax reductions would provide more money for job creators to create jobs, Brownback acclaimed.
Didn’t happen.
The state’s employee rates have lagged behind neighboring states and the nation as a whole. The tax cuts also negatively affected revenue, to the point some state agencies’ budgets were whittled nearly to the breaking point and extraordinary measures, such as borrowing from Kansas Department of Transportation reserves and retirement funds, have been used to keep the budget from drowning in red ink.
When Supreme Court justices ruled poorer school districts were being pushed deeper into muck and mud, Brownback and his supporters blamed others for our financial implosion. President Obama and his policies are the culprits, they proclaimed. Liberal judges have over-stepped their authority is another accusation. Also, lower prices for farm products and swoons in oil and aircraft industries have played a role in economic negativity, they countered; true but that is the nature of such economic drivers, ups and downs are part of natural cycles.
Meanwhile, another red flag has failed to draw as much attention.
A Wichita Eagle editorial, which ran on the Register opinion page Thursday, pointed out a deadly dagger twisting into the body of employment.
From the start, Brownback has refused to consider accepting Medicaid payments provided for in the Affordable Care Act. He cites concerns about guarantees the money will be there in the years ahead, but more to the point that it being a component of Obamacare is the work of the devil.
Last week, Wichita-based Via Christi Health announced it would eliminate 150 positions while adding 80 bedside nursing jobs. The health group’s CEO, Todd Conklin, told the Eagle Brownback’s refusal to accept additional federal Medicaid money “continues to have a significant negative impact on Kansas health systems.” His refusal figuratively — and in some instances almost literally — squeezed the life out of low-income families.
Conklin said the lost federal revenue meant loss of $14 million to Via Christi. A recent cut in Medicare dollars coming from Topeka, to shore up the budget for the umpteenth time, added to Via Christi’s and other hospital’s financial distress.
Mercy Hospital in Independence closed, with absence of Medicaid revenue dictated by ACA partly being to blame. Allen County Regional Hospital, early in its pay off of construction and equipment bonds, has lost a significant amount of income, perhaps as much as $1 million a year.
By not accepting the federal money — it “expands Obamacare,” Brownback says at every opportunity — hospital jobs are being cut throughout the state, while those would have been retained and others added if the governor and his supporters weren’t so bullheaded and fearful of stepping on the toes of fellow conservative extremists.
Trickle-down economics, as Brownback guaranteed with tax cuts, has a dismal track record in creating jobs — far from being a revelation for an economic strategy that has come up wanting numerous times in the past. Having revenue in hand, through Medicaid expansion, would have had just the opposite effect.
