CHIP Funds Heading To Mississippi

This from an article written in the Clarion-Ledger:

Mississippi could receive millions more dollars to cover thousands of uninsured children in a recent federal health-care expansion that rewards states for increasing and simplifying enrollment.

The federal-state partnership provides health insurance for children in mostly working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private coverage.

Under the new law, Mississippi could raise its income threshold to allow more families to qualify for CHIP. Or the state could try to enroll more children who are currently eligible.

CHIP serves 66,172 children at an annual cost of $30 million, according to the state Division of Medicaid. Agency officials say they have not been able to verify how many children in Mississippi are uninsured.

The state’s maximum CHIP eligibility level is set at 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which means children under age 19 in a family of four with an income of up to $42,000 a year may qualify.

The state estimates raising the level to 250 percent of the federal poverty level would allow it to serve 131,686 at an annual cost of $59.2 million. Raising CHIP to 300 percent of the federal poverty level would be an enrollment count of 146,686 at an annual state cost of $65.9 million, according to the Division of Medicaid.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the reauthorization act nearly triples Mississippi’s share of CHIP funds – from $64.1 million in fiscal 2009 under current law to $183.7 million. Rullan said Medicaid has not verified the numbers.

The reauthorization also fixes a funding formula that caused problems for the state, said Therese Hanna, executive director of the Center for Mississippi Health Policy. But the state still must put up its own money to draw down, or match, federal funds.

Mississippi receives $5.90 for every CHIP dollar it puts up, according to Rullan.

State lawmakers are negotiating on a cigarette tax increase to restore cuts made in the state’s current budget, which is $90 million below estimates, and shore up next year’s budget. Some legislators, including Dedeaux, want to use some of the revenue to offset Medicaid costs.

A federal stimulus package making its way through Congress is expected to provide almost $700 million for the state’s Medicaid needs.

A situation to watch and rant about….gonna be a couple of great years for us bloggers.

Note:  Increase anyone is not keeping track…..both Rep. Taylor and Sen. Wicker voted against the bill.

Taxes Go Up—Taxes Go Down

Since few will tell Mississippians the ultimate truth, I will…the state is in a serious situation….the economy sucks, the educational system is horrible and the only answer that the elected politicians have for an answer is taxes….they are so afraid of change that they continue a failed system of taxation, that has not worked well in decades.

Why is this happening?

Why does the state of Mississippi treat taxes like a yo-yo, up-down, up-down?

They want to raise the excise tax on cigs.  They want to lower taxes on corporations.

Okay let us talk about this in detail.  You do realize that most revenue the state has to work with comes in the form of tax collections?  Right?  If it wants to keep its income it must raise taxes on some things to cover the lower taxes on others.  Understand so far?  It is that simple.

Now the taxes that they are raising are the taxes that working families have to pay and the ones that are lowered are for corporations doing business in the state.  Did you know thgat the state gives corporations a tax cut to do business and then they gewt another for job creation and now they may not have to pay corporate income tax.  With that loss of revenue, it has to be made up somewhere and where would that be?  Most likely on the backs of working families.

Car Tag Price Hike

If you were expecting to see some analysis of yesterday’s inauguration then I suggest that the TV will be a better place to be.  They are dissecting every little piece of speech looking for something to use in their little 30 second sound bite.  Mississippi has major problems and that is my concern for they must be fixed if the state is to ever move into the 21st century.

Now on with the show.

A slump in automobile sales could lead to higher car-tag prices in Mississippi unless officials quickly find a way to head off the problem, a top lawmaker says.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of a memo the state Tax Commission sent this past week to Gov. Haley Barbour and lawmakers. The commission says money is running low in a state fund that, since the mid-1990s, has given drivers an annual discount when they buy or renew their car tags.

The price of car tags varies widely in Mississippi, depending on where people live and what kind of vehicles they drive. The tag for a new Lexus or Mercedes Benz could cost hundreds of dollars, while one for an old klunker is relatively cheap.

Officials say it’s impossible to pinpoint how much the price of an individual tag might increase because there are too many uncertainties now.

Lawmakers found a way in 1994 to ease the problem of expensive tags without gutting the county budgets that depend on the annual tax collections from tag renewals.

Figuring that buyers could add the cost of a higher sales tax to the financing for a vehicle, officials increased the sales tax rate for cars and trucks. They created a fund to hold a portion of the 5 percent vehicle sales tax. Money from the fund is diverted to the 82 counties to replace local taxes that are lost because of the tag-renewal discounts.

The result: The consumer pays higher taxes up front and gets some relief from the annual sticker shock of a tag renewal that can cost, in some cases, as much as a home mortgage payment.

In healthy economic times, the fund to provide the tag relief has remained in good shape. But during the plunge of the past few months, vehicle sales have dropped and so have tax collections.

With the passing of every day it becomes apparent that Mississippi needs a new way to generate funds, without screwing the people……there is an answer and it is as simple as “land value tax”.  It is simple to install and simple and easily collected.  Why not try a new approach?  Just what would be the harm?

To Smoke Or Not To Smoke

That is the question.  Whether let the state dictate to you or to make a decision on your own.

Some cities and towns have become smoke free, for the most part.  The state is considering a rise in the excise tax on a pack of cigs.  All this in an attempt to make the state a safer place?  Not really, it is an easy tax to put through with as little opposition as possible.  Is it an incentive to curb smoking by state residents?  Nah!  It is an easy way to raise funds that have been given away to corporations.  It is about money not health!

Where did the smoking lawsuit money go?  Does not look like it made it to Medicaid, the place it was suppose to go.  So where did it go?  Most likely into the general fund to cover the revenue loss from giving corporations such as Toyota a free ride.  Now the legislature wants to impose a further excise tax on cigs for Medicaid.  Are you people that flippin’ gullible?

Everyone is so concerned over who smokes and where that they are blind to the BS being pulled over their eyes by the governor and the legislature.  The residents continue to allow the their reps to do as they wish with no responsibility for the screwing the people take at their hands.  Why?

The only bright spot on this issue is HB 478, which states:

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 27-65-75, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO PROVIDE THAT SALES TAX REVENUE COLLECTED FROM THE SALE OF TOBACCO WITHIN A MUNICIPALITY SHALL NOT BE PAID TO A MUNICIPALITY THAT, EXCEPT FOR PROHIBITING THE USE OF TOBACCO BY PERSONS UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE, PROHIBITS OR RESTRICTS SMOKING OR OTHER TOBACCO USE WITHIN THE MUNICIPALITY; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

Of course that sounds a lot like legal-ese.  But it does sound like a good idea, IMO.

So sorry to say, if you smoke then you are a second class citizen and will be asked to pay a larger share to fund Mississippi’s failed programs.

Smile and bend over, the state is coming a calling!

Will Obama Be Good For Mississippi?

The possiblity is there for the state to capitalize on the Obama presidency.  Or so says Geoff Pender of the staff of the Sun-Herald.

As the nation undergoes the largest political and economic paradigm shift in at least a generation, political observers wonder where Mississippi, a state that has leaned heavily on its Republican power brokers for years, will stand in terms of clout in the new Democratic order in Washington.

“It remains to be seen,” said Pat Smith, University of Southern Mississippi history professor. “But in the history of the South, it always appears to do better with Democrats … Mississippi bought into the no-government or low-government ideas of Ronald Reagan, but really, that’s an unnatural philosophy for a poor, developing area to have. I think our state is likely to benefit more than others from what we’ll probably see with health insurance, or more government investment in education.

“I think Mississippi is going to benefit from the changes in spite of itself, in spite of our electoral behavior.”

Despite its solid Republican voting in presidential and Senate elections for years, Mississippi now has a 3-1 Democratic majority in its House membership and at least one congressman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, with close ties to the Barack Obama administration and a powerful committee chairmanship over Homeland Security.

We will havce to just wait and see…but may I suggest that they do not take too long….because <ississippi taxpayers, especially the middle class have been carrying this do nothing state for years….time for someone else to help pay for all the legistlature’s failures.

State Legislature To Tackle Taxes.

The sliding economy and their constantly adjusting of taxes is a norm for the state.
The Senate on Friday – in passing its first bill of 2009 — adopted legislation proposed by Brown to bar county supervisors from raising property taxes the year after land values get reappraised. It was unanimously approved by the Senate’s Republicans and Democrats.

Brown has complained that county supervisors are too quick to raise taxes after property gets revalued every four years. Requiring a year be lapsed before taxes are increased would give property owners time to question higher appraisals and ensure they’re correct, Brown said.

The bill also increases from $75,000 to $100,000 the homestead tax exemption for elderly and handicapped landholders.

Senate Bill 2300 now goes to the House, which has similar bills already filed by several Republicans and a couple of Democrats.

Increasing the homestead exemption for people over 65 or disabled is one of Bryant’s highest priorities for the 2009 legislative session.

“In troubled economic times, the greatest stimulus we can provide as elected officials is a tax cut, and I trust the House of Representatives will join us in helping thousands of Mississippians,” Bryant said.

There is an answer…it is as simple as the Land Value Tax…..why have this drama every year in the state legislature ?  The constant flutter of taxes….lower them…no wait…raise them….over and over again.  Why not find one simple plan that would eliminate the heartache and loss of hair trying to fund programs?

State Budget Cuts Coming

Gov. Haley Barbour and Mississippi lawmakers are taking the first steps toward tightening state agency budgets as a shaky economy causes tax collections to fall short of officials’ original expectations.

Barbour said weeks ago that agencies should prepare to cut 2 percent of their spending. He will announce $42 million in specific reductions next week.

House Democrats said if Barbour makes deep cuts to elementary and secondary education, they’ll try to put money back into the schools by taking cash out of the rainy day fund, which provides a financial cushion for the state budget.

The rainy day fund has a balance of about $367 million, but Barbour said he doesn’t want to deplete it because he believes Mississippi could face tough economic times for at least the next two years.

House Education Committee Chairman Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, said local school districts are obligated to pay for teachers’ contracts and for expenses such as electricity, buses and fuel.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee on Tuesday cut $78.6 million off the original $5.1 billion revenue estimate for the current fiscal year, which runs through June 30.

The lawmakers and Barbour also set a revenue estimate of slightly over $5.1 billion for the year that begins July 1.

The revenue estimate is the best guess by the state treasurer, the state economist and other financial experts about the amount of money the state might collect in a year.

AL: State Budgets To Suffer

Alabama’s fiscal year begins today, but the impact of the declining stock market probably won’t be known for several weeks.

The state’s $2 billion General Fund budget, which pays for most non-educational programs in the state, is counting in part on

$117 million in gains from investments made by the Alabama Trust Fund, gains that may not be there.

A state Finance Department spokeswoman said Tuesday afternoon that officials do not expect the General Fund to receive any trust money this year. “We do not expect any capital gains from the ATF this year,” Gina Smith, the Alabama Department of Finance public affairs director, said in an e-mail message.

State officials say, however, that the perpetually cash-strapped General Fund may have exceeded revenue projections as high oil and gas prices increased receipts from the state’s severance tax. But it’s unclear if that money could offset any lost.

FL: Budget Repair

Putting bleak budget numbers before the Florida Legislature’s money managers, Gov. Charlie Crist coined a three-word term that Republicans and Democrats will debate hotly until the economy improves.

The Legislative Budget Commission last week signed off on Crist’s request to take $672.4 million out of the state’s rainy-day reserve right away. But another $795 million is needed to balance the books of a $1.4 billion revenue shortage.

Crist said the remainder will be scrounged together after the Nov. 4 election with “other evolving options” — three little words that mean vastly different things on opposite sides of the partisan divide.

It will involve some combination of “sweeping” trust funds set up for various purposes, writing an IOU for up to $1 billion to the Lawton Chiles Endowment for health care, and holding back a penny out of every operating dollar sent to state agencies every three months.

LA: Jindal Whacks At Ear Marks

Gov. Bobby Jindal used his line-item veto authority to cut more than $16 million in proposed state spending Monday, killing hundreds of earmarks added by legislators for projects in their districts and signaling a new aggressiveness in dealing with the state budget.

The 258 vetoes in House Bill 1, the state’s nearly $30 billion operating budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, is more than double the combined number of line-item vetoes in the past 12 years. Coupled with Jindal’s veto of $9.3 million in spending from a previous budget bill, they suggest the new governor is serious about curbing a cherished legislative tradition of sprinkling the budget with items for constituents, often with little or no oversight.

While critics have long derided such earmarks as pork-barrel spending, defenders say they pay for critical needs that otherwise wouldn’t be financed. Gone is money targeted for museums, church groups, festivals, youth programs, nonprofit groups and economic development initiatives, including millions of dollars for the New Orleans area.

The line item veto has its good poinbts and bad points….like in this case millions that could help rebuild New Orleans.