Contrasting Governors

The governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, has been happily announcing that she plans to save a few million dollars towards the Arizona billions of deficit, by dumping about 280,000 of the poorest and neediest from medicaid rolls.  The savings will be a drop in the large leaky bucket of the state's spending.

The governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, has announced that he'd like to borrow a billion dollars to boost our state's employment by around 28,000 and accomplish a number of projects that will improve our state and our quality of life.  Yes, Minnesota also has a deficit of billions, 6.5 billion as I recall.

My question to Ms. Brewer: How many jobs will you create by dumping these poor and needy folks from Medicaid rolls?  How much are you willing to spend beyond your expected savings from this move towards the emergency care and treatment some of these people will need because they didn't have the early medical intervention that might have prevented emergencies?  Bottom line, why do some politicians continue to seek budget balance by snatching the safety nets of the poor?   The savings are really so nominal that the net effect is simply to punish the neediest and make hardly a dent in the deficit.

Borrowing a billion dollars may sound like a bad idea, but generating revenue, improving our intrastructure  and putting people to work are very good ideas.  And with interest rates at an all time low, borrowing now is much less expensive than when interest rates rebound to their previous or some future higher rate.  It's a gutsy and far sighted move by our new governor.