As medical, undergraduate and graduate students, we should work to promote funding for higher education, and also to ensure a strong primary and secondary education that allows the next generation of students to get to college. But what we cannot do is fall for the right wing's new strategy - forcing us to accept cuts in other vital public services, such as public health care programs, by playing education and health care off one another, dividing our communities through ideological constructs not based on facts.
A perfect example of this strategy du jour is the rhetoric used by Gov. Donald Carcieri '55 to attempt to justify the draconian cuts laid out in his new state budget proposal. In December, Carcieri told the Pawtucket Times that the lack of state funding increases in other areas could be blamed on the rising costs of Medicaid, the partially federally-funded health insurance program that provided crucial coverage to over 180,000 low income children, parents, pregnant women, and disabled and elderly residents in Rhode Island last year.
Medicaid, Carcieri said, was "sucking all the resources out of the rest of the budget. It is putting a strain on school spending and it is why higher education hasn't gotten any money."
It was no surprise, then, when last month Carcieri proposed a state budget that would make severe cuts to state-run health care programs, including Medicaid and RIte Care, the nationally-recognized health insurance program for low-income children and parents. Among the governor's most disturbing proposals are a cut in eligibility for RIte Care for 6,800 parents who currently receive the insurance, (all of whom make less than 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, or $30,710 for a family of three) and a proposal to cut 3,000 children from the program because their parents happen to have brought them here as undocumented immigrants.
In the introduction to his budget, the governor continued his strategy of pitting one group against the other in an attempt to justify his cuts. "Important and necessary programs," Carcieri wrote, "such as property tax relief, local education aid, assistance for higher education, asset protection and many other issues cannot be addressed when certain areas grow at rates that exceed general inflation and the rate of revenue growth."
What Carcieri neglects to mention is that one major source of funding for the state - federal aid - is not keeping up with inflation at all. In fact, as a result of President Bush and Congress' enactment of tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for the rest, next year's state budget assumes that federal aid to Rhode Island will go down by $122 million in real dollars. When you take into account wage inflation, the state is receiving $195 million less in federal aid for fiscal year 2007 than it did in 2006, meaning that federal cuts account for 88 percent of Rhode Island's budget hole. Bush and the Congress enacted major ($12.9 billion) cuts to student financial aid while they were at it.
But as much as our state's woes can be traced directly to the right-wing political leadership in Washington, Rhode Island cannot simply throw up its hands and go along for the ride. The General Assembly cannot let the federal budget cuts "trickle down" to the state level, because it will only make everything worse. For example, because the federal government picks up more than half the Medicaid tab, the annual cost for Rhode Island to provide health care to one adult through Medicaid ($1,263 per year) is less than the cost of care if that same adult to be uninsured ($1,385 per year) according to a recent report by the research group Community Catalyst. Indeed, the cuts in health care funding proposed by the governor would force Rhode Island to forfeit another $16 million in federal Medicaid spending. In addition to cost, growing ranks of uninsured Rhode Islanders affects us all in other ways. Longer waits and higher bills at the emergency room are frustrating examples.
And it's not as if we have no other choice when it comes to getting revenue. Over the last five years, the Bush tax cuts showered an average of $152,206 onto the top one percent of Rhode Island earners, who make an average of $923,000 a year! Is it time for these folks, who have seen such great benefits from the Bush tax cuts at our state's expense, to pay their fair share?
The governor is describing one path we can take, that will lead us to a two-tiered society. This vision is one where children are pitted against our elders for funding, where education is pitted against health care, and where our working people and poor pay a higher share of our social investments than do our state's wealthiest individuals.
Our legislators don't have to follow Carcieri's path. They can choose a different, better path, one that leads us towards a fairer, more secure Rhode Island. This vision is one where all Rhode Islanders contribute their fair share, where we all benefit from quality health care, education and housing and where children are provided the opportunities they need to flourish.
The authors ask you to support the Emergency Campaign for Rhode Island's Priorities.
