How the State Senate Works
A handful of Senate leaders sit down in backrooms and make plans then come out of the rooms and a bill pops into a committee then they march over to the Senate Chamber and pass it in the blink of an eye.
The same Senate powers-that-be made a plan to ‘transfer’ millions of dollars in state sales tax revenue from suburban to rural counties, announced, That’s fair. And conservative – and the bill flew through the Senate.
But they never produced one shred of evidence their ‘Sales Tax Redistribution Plan’ was fair and, in fact, there’s a simpler explanation: Six of the seven Senate leaders represent rural counties which get more money under their plan.
They redrew the Wake County Commissioners’ districts, announced, That’s fair. That’s conservative, and passed the bill. But, in fact, they redrew the districts because their allies in Wake County lost the last election and new districts will help them win the next one.
They announced they wanted MCOs (Medicaid HMOs) to run Medicaid, said, Medicaid spending is soaring a billion dollars. MCOs will fix that. That’s conservative, and passed another bill. But their own experts – on the staff at the Legislative Fiscal Research Department – told them their claim Medicaid spending had soared a billion dollars was wrong.
They proposed a bill to shut down the state’s non-profit Community Care of North Carolina program (a network of doctors who cared for over a million Medicaid patients), said, Community Care costs the state millions. Shut it down. That’s conservative, and passed that bill too. But the State Auditor told them Community Care didn’t cost the state a penny, that it saved taxpayers over $300 million a year by reducing Medicaid costs.
That’s how politics work in the State Senate. And it’s like sowing the wind. But you have to give the moguls credit. They have every Republican Senator marching in line blindly, voting for their bills.
How the State Senate Works
A handful of Senate leaders sit down in backrooms and make plans then come out of the rooms and a bill pops into a committee then they march over to the Senate Chamber and pass it in the blink of an eye.
The same Senate powers-that-be made a plan to ‘transfer’ millions of dollars in state sales tax revenue from suburban to rural counties, announced, That’s fair. And conservative – and the bill flew through the Senate.
But they never produced one shred of evidence their ‘Sales Tax Redistribution Plan’ was fair and, in fact, there’s a simpler explanation: Six of the seven Senate leaders represent rural counties which get more money under their plan.
They redrew the Wake County Commissioners’ districts, announced, That’s fair. That’s conservative, and passed the bill. But, in fact, they redrew the districts because their allies in Wake County lost the last election and new districts will help them win the next one.
They announced they wanted MCOs (Medicaid HMOs) to run Medicaid, said, Medicaid spending is soaring a billion dollars. MCOs will fix that. That’s conservative, and passed another bill. But their own experts – on the staff at the Legislative Fiscal Research Department – told them their claim Medicaid spending had soared a billion dollars was wrong.
They proposed a bill to shut down the state’s non-profit Community Care of North Carolina program (a network of doctors who cared for over a million Medicaid patients), said, Community Care costs the state millions. Shut it down. That’s conservative, and passed that bill too. But the State Auditor told them Community Care didn’t cost the state a penny, that it saved taxpayers over $300 million a year by reducing Medicaid costs.
That’s how politics work in the State Senate. And it’s like sowing the wind. But you have to give the moguls credit. They have every Republican Senator marching in line blindly, voting for their bills.