Federal Policies Hurt Oklahoma Elderly, Community Health Programs

Study Shows Funding Problems

David Blatt, director of policy for the Oklahoma Policy Institute, has published a new, must-read study brief about how federal government funding guidelines and unfunded mandates are affecting state government here.

It’s not a pretty picture. The Oklahoma Department of Health, for example, has recently absorbed millions of dollars in federal budget cuts, and this means it cannot hire people for budgeted positions to investigate nursing home complaints, according to the report. The department, among other cuts, has cut back on some community health programs, the report shows."

(Click here to read the report.)

The report also shows how unfunded federal mandates continue to adversely affect Oklahoma’s disabled people and educational system. The federal government also continues to shift the costs of Medicaid to the state. Federal grants have been reduced as well, the report shows, and the federal government has restricted state taxing policies.

The bottom line is that Oklahoma government is taking a big hit from the federal government. Recent state tax cuts, which primarily benefited Oklahoma’s wealthiest citizens, have not helped the state budget situation either. The federal government’s reckless fiscal policies under President George Bush have compounded the problem. Bush and his incompetent regime are more interested right now in rescuing Wall Street bankers from their own greed than inspecting nursing homes or providing health care to children. What else is new, right?

Blatt, whose research and writing is always evenhanded, scholarly and exemplary, writes, “Our goal with this brief is to offer those engaged in state budget debates a clearer understanding of the impact that federal policies have on the state and, hopefully, to encourage state-level policymakers and advocates to devote greater attention to educating our federal elected officials on these matters. No one should expect the federal government, saddled with its own burgeoning budget deficit, to solve all the state’s budget troubles. However, we should encourage the elected officials we send to Washington to pay greater attention to the impact that their policy choices have on state budget situations and to promote policies that reflect a cooperative partnership between our various levels of government. “

McLiar and Paliar

When you’re counting up all the John McCain and Sarah Palin lies in sheer astonishment, don’t forget George Bush has changed the way in which people here and throughout the world view the American presidency and its relationship to the concept of truth.

McCain and Palin, the Republican nominees for president and vice president, are just pushing the new modus operandi of lying, secrecy and hypocrisy that most people in the world tragically expect from the GOP and America these days. Bush, as I have argued for years now, has changed the very nature of our democracy and presidency and how we perceive truth and reality in this country. To lie is to be normal under the prevailing GOP rubric. To tell the truth, under this same rubric, is a sign of weakness, perhaps an artifice of elitism or an archaic, laughable liberal gesture.

McCain’s and Palin’s lies are so numerous we need counters. Keep score here.

The bigger the lie the better its chances so Alaska Governor Palin says she stopped the so-called “bridge to nowhere” when, in fact she once supported it, was certainly not the reason for its demise and still allowed her state to pocket your tax dollars for it. Still, she lies and lies. McCain claims Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, called Palin a pig when, in fact, he did no such thing and didn’t even come close to it, never, no-how, no-way. It’s all so ridiculous and surreal.

The corporate media has been the complicit enabler in this mess, which unfortunately threatens basic democracy. It fails to call a duck a duck or an apple an apple or a liar a liar. Why not simply state, “Sarah Palin lied to an adoring GOP group today when she told them that she stopped the so-called ‘bridge to nowhere’”? That would stop her from lying about it again. Why not simply state, “The McCain campaign lied again today when it claimed Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a pig”? That would stop McCain from repeating the lie.

The corporate media has essentially given itself its own death sentence as newspapers dwindle to nothing and television stations lose viewers. Newspapers and television are losing out to the Internet, where freedom of expression still prevails for now. This is what happens when you cheapen the political discourse and report obvious lies as if they were salient, important arguments. Can the major media outlets redeem themselves this election and by doing so perhaps help their declining financial predicaments? There is some hope for that in the often-maligned “reality” community, but no one I know is overly enthusiastic.