Yesterday, big Media Matt highlighted Senator Ensign of Nevada telling us that the states just needed to cut back their “bloated” budgets:
Ensign (R-NV) — who began the show by saying that doing nothing would be better than passing this stimulus plan — insisted that states’ budgets are “bloated” and derided Frank’s concerns as “fearmongering,” denying that any teachers, cops, or firefighters would lose their jobs:
To get back to what Congressman Frank said, is that we’re going to be laying off teachers and firefighters. You know, that’s just fearmongering. We’re not going to be doing that in any of the states. … [The states’] budgets are bloated, the federal government’s budget is bloated. What we should be doing is cutting back.
Via Digby, here is an example of one of those simple cuts:
But now state governments — reeling from a historic free fall in tax revenue — have run out of tricks. And Americans are about to feel it.
In some cases, they already have.
Nevada resident Margaret Frye-Jackman, 71, was diagnosed in August with ovarian cancer. She had two rounds of chemotherapy at University Medical Center, the only public hospital in the Las Vegas area.
Soon after, she and her daughter heard the news on TV: The hospital’s outpatient oncology services were closing because of state Medicaid cuts. Treatment for Frye-Jackman and hundreds of other cancer patients was eliminated.
Apparently Senator Ensign is made of tougher mettle than I am, because if I were a Senator, I probably wouldn’t want to be glibly dismissing the trouble states are in while cutting the life-saving medical care for one of my constituents. Then again, I’m not an aspiring member of the Taliban, so our views on things might be a little different.