Posted on 05/31/2013 10:10:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Jan Brewer’s eagerness to impose new taxes to help the Obama administration finance its expansion of the welfare state has gone from unwise to unseemly: The Republican governor of Arizona is attempting to force the Republican-led state legislature to expand Medicaid and is threatening to veto all legislation until she is satisfied. She is calling her gambit a “moratorium” on legislation, and she already has vetoed five unrelated bills. This is conduct unbecoming of a chief executive.
Governor Brewer’s desire to expand Medicaid is predicated on a particular kind of economic illiteracy – to wit, the belief that there is such a thing as “free money” from the federal government, as though Arizona taxpayers were not also federal taxpayers. Medicaid is an extraordinarily expensive program, and one that has been shown in study after study to produce little or nothing in the way of measurable health benefits for recipients. It is an additional indicator of the program’s low quality that nearly a third of all U.S. doctors refuse to take on new Medicaid patients. It is the definitive federal entitlement boondoggle: big cost, little upside.
In addition to elementary economics, the governor requires a remedial education in civics. We have multiple branches of government and divided powers for a reason; she is the governor of Arizona, not its viceroy. Executives are entrusted with veto power to ensure that defective bills do not become law, not to hold the entire legislative process hostage until they get their way. Governor Brewer’s shenanigans are the political equivalent of holding one’s breath and stamping one’s feet. She is the Veruca Salt of governors. Other Republican governors have made it clear that they intend to reject the Obama administration’s plan to expand Medicaid, a key part of the president’s wider program of cultivating maximum dependency upon the federal government by the states and the people at large. It is a companion piece to Obamacare — a program Governor Brewer has criticized — and necessary to the full implementation of that regulatory mess. Governor Brewer’s calculation here is particularly cynical: She rejects Obamacare, but wants the money that goes with it.
The Medicaid expansion is superficially attractive in that states are at first required to kick in only 10 cents for every $1 in new spending. They will have to pay more down the line, of course, but Governor Brewer does not seem to be looking beyond the next election. The 10 percent that Arizona will be responsible for will be paid for with a new tax on hospital services. It takes a special kind of genius to make health care more affordable by making it more expensive.
Under law, the states cannot be forced to accept the Medicaid expansion. It is up to them. Some Republicans have stood strong against it, and some are rolling over for the Obama administration. Governor Brewer is for the moment unique in that she is throwing a gubernatorial temper tantrum on behalf of expanding government-run health care. Our hope is that Arizona’s legislators will keep the Medicaid expansion out of the budget and, for the good of the state, pass the budget over the governor’s veto. Governor Brewer may not be around to see the bill for the Medicaid expansion when it comes due, but Arizona taxpayers will.
This explains ALOT about Brewer:
Brewer was born Janice Kay Drinkwine on September 26, 1944, in Hollywood, California. She is the daughter of Edna C. (née Bakken) and Perry Wilford Drinkwine, a civilian supervisor at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada.[1][4] Brewer and her older brother, Paul, lived solely in Hawthorne until she was ten years old.[1] Perry died of lung disease when she was eleven years old, having been ravaged by the constant exposure to chemicals while at the depot. Shortly before her father’s death, the family moved to California, seeking “dry desert air and clean ocean breezes.”[1] She graduated from Verdugo Hills High School in 1962.[5] Brewer is of English and Norwegian descent.[1][6] Her maternal grandfather, Emil Theodore Bakken, was from Norway, and her maternal grandmother, Carrie Nelson, was from Minnesota and the daughter of Norwegian immigrants.[6] Meanwhile, her paternal grandmother, Sarah Rosina Ford (original surname Wilford), was an Englishwoman from Buckinghamshire.[6]
She married John Leon Brewer in Nevada, and worked briefly in Glendale, California, before moving to her husband’s hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1970. The couple later relocated to Glendale, Arizona, where John became a successful chiropractor, in addition to finding some real estate success. Settling in the Deer Valley section of Phoenix, the couple have three children.[1]
Yet ANOTHER Calipornia FLAKE!
We have met with the Governor about this. She is all in on this. And she is not letting go. Our Congresmmen AND Senator Flake have met with her and told her the Federal government has no money. It’s all a sham. But she is between a rock and a hard place right now. It’s hard to stand up on principle. She feels she has to do the right thing for all the people. Of course the Left is using all their scare tactics. Fortunately we have some great State Representatives and Senators who are standing firm. Ultimately I believe a compromise will be reached, and it will be one more step towards Socialized medicine. It’s all where it’s going to end..it’s just how long it’s going to take to get there. I curse John Roberts everyday.
Plus, we have an awful lot of Republicans in this State who agree with her.
Well, I guess the state legislature can just pack up and go home, then. If there are negative repercussions resulting from the legislature attempting to govern by the will of the people and holding firm, let the good Gov. bear the blame for halting the necessary legislation (if there is such a thing).
” . I curse John Roberts everyday.”
His opinion was intellectually contemptible!
Why would a proven legal scholar do this?
Was he threatened or blackmailed?
We will likely never know.
“Was he threatened or blackmailed?”, Uhh Yes Both. It’s the “Chicago “”Way””!
Talk about going wobbly...she toppled right off the Conservative stage.
I heard her on David Webb's show a couple of weeks ago and she was touting the AZ Medicaid expansion about like Rube-io touts his Amnesty plan. David Webb had great questions about the expense to taxpayers, but Jan had no part of that.
Maybe she’s eaten too many scorpions.
” I heard her on David Webb’s show a couple of weeks ago and she was touting the AZ Medicaid expansion about like Rube-io touts his Amnesty plan. “
The Republican nightmare just keeps on giving....
Sorry to FR ladies, but this is what men put up with all the time with women.
In complete agreement on the need for States NOT to buy into this program despite the expected financial benefit. If we don’t take the money someone else will get it. Heard it a thousand times. It is not an excuse for doing the right thing.
On another note, for what it’s worth, we share the same arrival date at FR. or in my case the date I stopped lurking because I couldn’t stand just lurking any more.
Here’s a little secret about Governor Brewer. First off, I like her very much personally. But she was never a Conservative. Back in 2010 she was being seriously challenged in the Primary, and she would have lost. One thing saved her: SB1070, the immigration bill. That bill was championed by Conservatives in the legislature. The same Conservatives she fought and cursed during her term. Overnight she became a Conservative darling, but she really didn’t earn it. However, once she did vote on SB1070, she defended it and I will give her that. That’s how she won the election. That is how she gained her popularity.
She never once thanked the legislature that put that bill in front of her to sign. Most of her other decisions have been moderate at best.
Jan Brewer is what you get when a S. Calipornian “Society Housewife(Carpet Bagger)” meets the “Peter Principle”.
Because rumors of her conservatism were always based on false impressions. The only time she’s ever been conservative was when she needed allies in the party, so for a few months she rubberstamped everything that came out of the GOP lead legislature. As soon as she actually got elected she reverted back to the person who wouldn’t sign a budget that didn’t include at least the possibility of a tax hike (her first act as governor).
Good one : )
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