Chanting Points Memo: “Slashing Health And Human Services!”
By Mitch Berg
The other day, I paraphrased an old PJ O’Rourke quip; only in baseline budgeting can it be said one is “cutting” a budget when one merely reduces the “planned” increase.
Where have you gone, P.J. O’Rourke? Our state turns its broke eyes to you.
The local leftyblog buildup and and array of special interest pimps have been caterwauling “Emmer Plans To Cut $2 Billion From Health And Human Services!”. It’s a return to the Reagan era Democrat attack, “they want to starve the children and throw Grandma out into the street!”.
Like virtually everything the DFL and media (ptr) have said in this campaign so far, it’s either grossly lacking in context, or it’s a lie.
In this case, it’s both.
The Health and Human Services budget from the 2010-2011 biennium is 9.083 billion.
The “Autipilot” increase calculated by the State Office of Management and Budget, which assumes everything increases in proportion with previous requests and calculated “needs” for the 2012-12 biennium, was 12.0 billion. As Emmer notes in pretty much every stump speech, that’s a 32% increase. And there is nothing to say that budget, if left on autopilot or to the DFL (pardon the redundancy) won’t grow by that same rate in perpetuity, until it is the entire budget.
Mark Dayton’s budget “plan” stated no figure for HHS spending. Tom Horner plans to spend an incredible 12.14 billion – more than even the “autopilot” increase – a 34% hike in spending. To be fair to Horner, his stump rhetoric says that some of that spending is to go to getting people off of the HHS bandwagon. It’s a laudable goal – indeed, it should be part of future HHS spending planning. But leaving aside the fact that Horner hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected, and that the DFLers that survive in the legislature will make sure that all spending goes to entitlements, the fact is that in the middle of a deep recession when state unemployment has just topped 7% for the first time in decades, Emmer’s premise is that jumpstarting the economy and re-engineering our wasteful government is much more important. That’s the premise; it’ll be tested this November.
Emmer plans to spend 9.75 billion on HHS. Do the math yourself. That’s a 7% increase.
So the DFL chanting shrieking point is “Emmer is slashing two billion dollars from the HHS budget!” It’s buncombe, of course; for starters, there will be no actual official 2012-2013 budget until the next legislature and administration produce one.
The “budget” from which Emmer will “cut” is a hypothetical estimate, with all numbers basically entered via an opaque formula that is based largely on recent-past growth. It is not an actual budget.
And, most importantly, by every rational measure, Emmer increases HHS spending. Not as much as the DFL would prefer, and not to the extent to which they’ve jiggered the system, and not in a way that might not require HHS to prioritize its spending more wisely – which is, indeed, what Emmer’s plan calls for. But it is not a cut.
The DFL must be really worried – or really not think the citizens of Minnesota are very smart – if this is the best they can manage.
I’ll wager “both”.
September 17th, 2010 at 11:22 am
That would be an excellent point, except for one problem. The HHS budget from this biennium is 10.49 billion.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t believe going from 10.49 to 9.75 is an increase.
http://www.mmb.state.mn.us/doc/fu/10/complete-feb10.pdf, p. 46.
September 17th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Well, Jeff, suffice to say that’s not the number on Emmer’s, or anyone else’s, website…
…but it’s still a diversion. You and the rest of the local leftosphere have been telling the uninformed that Emmer is going to “cut two billion from the HHS budget”, without telling people what “HHS budget” you’re referring to. The one that has no weight in law.
September 17th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Actually, Mr. Rosenberg, you shouldn’t use outdated documents. You should use the ones reflecting the final budget agreement:
http://www.mmb.state.mn.us/doc/budget/report-pie/general-may10.pdf
Omnibus Bills: Health & Human Services 9,083 (in millions.)
September 17th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Mitch, Jeff’s numbers are outdated. They don’t reflect the HHS budget reached as part of the final budget agreement. Your numbers are right.
FYI- The ‘budget’ that JR’s referring to come from the omnibus bills that got signed into law. They’re actually the out year PROJECTION, aka the bill’s tails.
You’re 100% right in saying that this isn’t a budget. In fact, DFL Budgetting 101 teaches the DFL to ‘oversize’ the tails dramatically to make it appear as though there’s a huge deficit. That’s where they start making their case for the ‘need’ to raise taxes.
September 17th, 2010 at 11:57 am
On page six of the report Jeff links, it states clearly that the budget for H&HS is 9.016 billion for 2010-2011. This is repeated on page 45. Your figure includes the federal “spendumore” dollars noted on page 46, which sane budgeting should NOT do. It is supposed to be a temporary stimulus, and just because it obviously didn’t work doesn’t mean we ought to keep doing it.
Emmer is slightly incorrect at 9.083 billion, but he’s a LOT closer than you are, Jeff.
Going further, the plan coming from the budgeteers is 11.7 billion, a 30% increase. What on earth can justify this?
Same thing with a lot of line items: I can see a LOT of places to cut, starting with light rail and MPR’s funding for polls.
September 17th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
They’re not outdated, they’re two different numbers. Actually, you’ll find that your numbers match up almost exactly with p. 45 of the document I linked.
The difference between the two sets of numbers is that Gary and Mitch’s numbers don’t take into account billions of dollars in Federal aid that Minnesota received to help us avoid billions in painful budget cuts this biennium. When you take that aid into account, we’re spending about $10.49 billion this year.
September 17th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
“The local leftyblog buildup…”
You really should scub your toilets more often.
September 17th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Who uses Oracle as a remote database solution at around 50 sites (IIRC, the presentation was a couple years ago) around the state?
That would someone actively searching for ways to spend large chunks of their budget (read: HHS).
I think they’ll probably survive the “cut”.
September 17th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Jeff, reality here is that about 15% of your number is the spendumore plan–which was intended to be a one time boost, NOT a long term budget baseline.
At least if you listened to the Democrats who voted for it. Are you telling me that they all lied to us?
Again?
And AHEM; yes, the February report is outdated when the May report comes out. Is this so complicated?
September 17th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
“Painful budget cuts” in HHS. Someone is going to have to give up the cell phone and cancel the cable TV. I’m crying a river over here. Oh! The humanity!
September 17th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Wait a flipping minute. Did Rosenberg just say we need to count Obama’s porkulous into Minnesota’s ongoing budget?
(scrolls up to check)
Pfffft! Why yes, yes he did!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!
Speaking of painful, Jeff, did it hurt awfully much when you had half your brain sucked out of your ear with a straw in moonbat boot camp?
HAHAhahahahahahahahahaaaa!
September 18th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Yeah, Swiftee, that’s the plan. Of course, in order for this to work, Minnesota will have to sell long term, low interest bonds to the Chinese, just like Obama and Pelosi & Reid did.
Not a single Republican congressman voted for porkulus. Maybe they are getting smarter.
September 19th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Perhaps we could just sell Lake of the Woods to Canada instead. That should keep Education Minnesota “fully funded” for another biennium.
September 19th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
not with land values where they are at now Kermit. We’d have to sell all of the Iron Range to cover that.