Well. Well. Well.
The Sacramento Bee reports:
BY DAN WALTERS
dwalters@sacbee.com
Opposition to new taxes has been a bedrock stance for
Republican legislators, one they can enforce because taxes require two-thirds
legislative votes.
Yes, and it must stay that way!
However, Assembly Republicans appear poised to bless a hefty
tax on “managed care organizations” that Gov. Jerry Brown wants, because it
would secure more federal support of health care for the poor.
The last thing that this state should be doing is open up its collective hands for more federal money, which is fickle at best anyway. Covered California has already been uncovered as a massive waste as well as an immoral fraud.
The last thing that the California Republican members should do is allow any tax on anything. They hold the cards, and they should play the hand that they want to play! They are the more powerful conservative voice in the California state assembly.
“Who benefits from MCO plan? Every Californian! Cutting
debt, helping disabled, improving healthcare access, saving CA $1.3B = great
package!” Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Riverbank, tweeted Monday.
Wow! Now, I am kind of glad that Olsen is not running for state senate at this point. I want leadership, not get along to go along.
I am so disgusted with Olsen's stance on this issue. The last thing that the California Republican Party should do is succumb to this media double-take.
It signaled that she and other GOP legislators would support
the package that Brown negotiated, although its fate in the Senate is
uncertain.
The new tax, replacing one that federal officials had nixed
as being too narrow, would be offset by cutting other state taxes on medical
insurers and gain the state an estimated $1.3 billion in net federal aid.
Damn it! Since when did Republicans have to cave on one set of issues to win on another?! This bait-and-switch compromising has to stop!
One provision would provide more money for services to the
developmentally disabled, which has been a Republican demand.
Great, but they should not have to give up on taxes to get this! Developmentally disabled persons need support, and should not have to cajole and beg the Governor to get this funding! He gives away the store to the Lanor
Some Republican factions are dismayed. Jon Fleischman, who
runs the influential Flash Report website, has been flogging Republican
legislators, saying that voting for the MCO tax would undercut the 2014 GOP
effort to gain enough seats to hold the line on taxes.
He's right! He is right on about this matter. The Republicans have been pushed into this corner too many times. When they went along with a horrendous budget deal in 2008, it hurt the state - and the state party.
However, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the
state’s most prominent anti-tax organization, has gone neutral, thus giving
political cover to Republicans who vote for the tax.
So what! Aside from the conservative wonks in the state, no one is going to notice a think-tank that plays neutral on this matter. The only thing that most Californians, and California Republicans, will notice is that the Republicans caved on a tax hike to get more federal money for subsidized health care, health care which is now going to illegal alien youth.
This is a no-brainer. Bad policy, bad politics, bad optics.
Jon Fleishman wrote as much for Breitbart CA:
In fact, in many respects, letting the MCO tax sunset would really be the keeping of a promise to the voters – that if they increased Republican numbers, the brakes would be hit on new taxes (and when you extend an expiring tax, that is a new tax by any reasonable definition).
Liberals in Sacramento are scratching their heads, saying, “Wait a second, there is over a billion dollars of annual federal money that will come to California if we adopt a new MCO tax!”But a liberal would have no idea how much it would gall a conservative that the federal government would seek to manipulate our state to raise taxes with the “carrot” of what are essentially matching funds.
Dan Walter writes for SacBee:
Approval of the MCO tax would be another indication that
medical care has become a dominant issue in the Capitol, as well as a very
important component of the state’s economy.
Medical care should not be a government issue at all. Obamacare has been a trainwreck from the moment that Washington DC shoved the mandates and regulations on the American people.
No Republican should take this carrot, because the driver at the end of the stick is more government, less freedom, more waste, and a wasted California Republican Party which will continue to lose votes, voters, numbers, and influence in California.
The residents of the state of California do not need two big government parties.
Contact your state legislators, and tell them:
"Hell No to the MCO Tax!"
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