Romney's Plan Shifts Programs to the States

In Romney’s CBS 60 Minutes interview that aired September 23, 2012, Scott Pelley said “You would move some government programs to the states. What would they be?” Romney: “Well, for instance, Medicaid is a program that's designed to help the poor. Likewise, we have housing vouchers and food stamps, and these help the poor. I'd take the dollars for those programs, send them back to the states, and say, "You craft your programs at your state level and the way you think best to deal with those that need that kind of help in your state." Pelley: “So how does moving those programs to the states bring relief to the taxpayer?” Romney: “Because I grow them only at the rate of inflation, or in the case of Medicaid, at inflation plus one percent, that's a lower rate of growth than we've seen over the past several years, a lower rate of growth than has been forecast under federal management. And I believe on that basis you're going to see us save about $100 billion a year.” Pelley: “So you're going to cap the growth on those social welfare programs?” Romney: “Exactly right”. Pelley: Why would shrinking the federal government on the large scale that you have in mind not throw the country back into recession? Romney: Well, the plan I have to go after the deficit and to shrink federal spending is metered out in a very careful way, such that we don't have a huge drop off with an austerity program that puts people out of work in government. But instead, through attrition, over time, we scale back the number of federal workers so I'm very careful in the way I do this. But lasting budget reform isn't likely without doing something about Social Security and Medicare. They are exactly one third of the entire federal budget.” 

So, in addition to health care, Romney would give states an allowance to handle housing and food stamps and he would cap the spending and growth of each. This is one way to fix the federal budget – put the burden on the states. Without consideration for unemployment and poverty levels their allowances would be fixed – I wonder how all this would be decided – in my mind it leaves a lot of room for inequities and favoritism. I find it interesting that his answer to marriage equality is also to put it on the states. If he’s elected, I’d hate to be a Governor with less money and more burdens.