A series of short posts summarizing my thoughts as I work my way through the archives of the Imprimis newsletter from Hillsdale college.
As the title states, Evans takes on the idea that our cities are in the midst of an urban crisis. Evans believes that rather than being in a state of crisis the cities are just a dramatic example of the result of identifiable governmental policy errors. Evans goes on to list a number of these policies and a few possible remedies. I found this particular article very difficult to read so I won’t bother to summarize much more. The most interesting part of the article was the section below discussing the forced implementation of Medicaid.
Three years ago we were told by the federal government that unless we instituted a Medicaid program we would lose some eight million dollars in federal welfare funds. In order to save this eight million in “free” money, our Legislature enacted a minimal program that would supposedly cost only $300,000 or so a year. But once Medicaid was on the books, the federal government came back with still more demands, guidelines, and standards that we had to adopt. This year the program that was going to save us eight million dollars is costing $45 million in state money alone, and in the next biennium, as currently projected, is supposed to go to $107 million a year. We have lost both our autonomy and our money.
Free money is never free.
