Vander Linden Weekly Update for February 25th
Rep. Guy Vander Linden (R)
Numbers Don’t Lie – Senate Democrats’ Budget Still Doesn’t Work
With Tuesday’s announcement that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had finally given approval to Iowa’s Medicaid Modernization plan, the pathway for developing the FY 2017 General Fund budget gets a bit clearer for Iowans. But it still does not fix the fact that Senate Democrats are proposing to spend more than what is allowed under the state’s expenditure limitation law.
Implementation of Medicaid Modernization will allow Senate Democrats to back away from the false argument that their FY 2017 budget targets did not account for any savings from implementing the program. Senate Democrats had claimed that they had not included the $111 million in Medicaid savings that were part of the Governor’s budget. But the Senate’s target amount for the HHS budget – $1,846,923,155 – was just $13 million less than Governor Branstad’s figure for that budget area.
Still, Senate Democrats continue to tell constituents that they are committed to provide a four percent increase in supplemental state aid for schools in FY 2017. But their budget targets tell a different story. If the Senate actually provided the funds necessary to give schools a four percent increase, their budget target for standing appropriations would need to be $3.7148 billion. The target they released on January 26 was $3.6560 billion – $58.8 million below what is needed to fund four percent growth in school funding.
When House Republicans pointed out these inconsistencies, Senate Democrats only response was that the numbers were made up. But the numbers used by House Republicans are remarkably similar to the figures Senate Democrats gave to the media when they revealed their budget targets.
On January 26, Senate Democrats said their budget would spend $7.3983 billion. According to their statements, this figure is $4.7 million below the 99 percent expenditure limitation law. This would make the maximum amount they could spend under their calculations $7.4030 billion. Last week, House Republicans pointed out that actions taken by the Senate so far would lead one to believe that the maximum they could spend under the expenditure limitation law was $7.4022 billion. The difference between the two calculations is $800,000. If the numbers to describe the Senate Democrats’ budget were “made up,” how can the actual Senate Democrat targets be described as anything but “made up”?
