Medicaid crisis a looming storm
Few in NJ have anders for possible fiscal disaster
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network
..... There is a major fiscal storm about to slam New Jersey and the rest of the nation, and on one - not the current governor nor the eight candidates vying to succeed him - have any idea how to prepare for it.
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The right-wing-retrenching of federal spending - where states will be forced to shoulder most of the safety net costs for the poor and vulnerable - is making its slow, bumpy march trough a Republican controlled Congress en rout to President Donald Trump's desk.
..... It also includes cuts for food stamps, housing assistance, public health programs and especially Medicaid, which provides health care coverage for the poor and disabled. Those spending cuts, in turn, will produce the revenue to finance tax cuts that will befit the wealthy and corporation. The Drain-The-Swamp MAGA is morphing into Drain-the-Disadvantaged GOP.
..... While some hardliners halted the bill's progress on May 16, [2025] most assume some version of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" will eventually become law.
..... Officials here in New Jersey are bracing for the worst. It's the political equivalent of watching Superstrom Sandy on the weather maps as it gathered in size and strength in the Atlantic days before it made landfall in late October 2012. there was nothing to do but wait and watch. New Jersey and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard held its breath, sheltered-in-place and hoped for the best.
..... The Big Beautiful-Medicaid Slashing bill inspires a similar dread. everyone in Trenton is hoping tha that it will blow over, that a bipartisan groundswell of opposition will stop the bill in its tracks and that life in the Trump 2.0 will go in its chaotic way.
..... Aside from this wishful thinking, no one really has any visible ideas on how New Jersey government can find the resources to backfill those federal spending cuts and how the state can avert harm to our most vulnerable or stress on health care and hospital systems.
..... "Republicans" proposed cuts would be disastrous - ripping away quality, affordable health care from families, forcing rural hospitals to close there doors and causing fiscal chaos across the country," the nation's 23 Democratic governors, including New Jersey's Phil Murphy, wrote in a joint statement last week. [05/14/2025]
What are the Democratic candidates for governor saying?
..... Candi ates to succeed Murphy after he leaves office in January [2026] offer little to say about the matter, other than suggesting that perhaps the $6.3 billion surplus booked for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1 [2025] might blunt some of the effect of Trump-Republican Reign of Slashing.
..... Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop told a Princeton audience earlier in May [2025] that "drawing down that surplus" might be one way to offset Medicaid cuts the reduction in benefits and coverage to the 1.9 million people enrolled in NJ FamilyCare, the state's Medicaid program and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
..... "It will hurt us, potentially in the credit rating game," Fulop, said referring to how Wall Street credit rating agencies look favorably on states what sock away sizable surpluses. "But the reality ... that the vulnerable communities rely on that money for life or death. i don't think there's a person in this room that goes to bed saying, "thank God for our credit rating.' "
..... Former Senate President Stephen Sweeney also said "we should start with the surplus," arguing that it was cerated for fiscal emergencies like the one that's looming.
..... But most fiscal analysts, and some influential lawmakers, acknowledge that the surplus is simply not going to be the panacea even though Murphy has fattened it up over his tenure. At best, it might cover a fraction of the cuts to come and here will also be competing priorities - such as a planed tax rebate for seniors - that will require maintaining a large surplus. And given the election season stakes, lawmakers are not eager to cut the rebate program for senior homeowners, known as StayNJ.
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Even Sweeney a veteran of state budget negotiations, acknowledges the limitations of a surplus.
..... "Someone said we could lose 422 billion right? You can't raise enough taxes, can't cut enough to get to $22 billion," he told the editorial board of NorthJersey.com . "and that's just one of the realities."
..... During a Democratic candidate debate earlier this month, [05/2025] U,S, Representative Mikie Sherrill, who is the putative frontrunner's for her party's nomination, expressed wariness about raiding the surplus, but offered little else on how to stave off the Republican cuts.
..... "I worry when I hear these things like, oh, you know, 'Use the surplus for this or for that'" she said. "We're developing a surplus so we can invest in things like housing that's affordable for people."
..... Other Democrats struck a more populist, tax-the-rich rhetoric without specifics. Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Sean Spiller all support higher taxes on the wealthiest citizens, with Spiller going so far as to propose eyeing to impose a tax or surcharge on the windfall that New Jersey billionaires will reap from Trump's tax cuts.
..... "If they give $1 to a billionaire, we take $1 back in state taxes,' Spiller told the NorthJersey.com Editorial Board.
..... Pressed to explain how he might consider sparing state programs form Trump-Republican spending cuts, U.S. Representative Josh Gotheimer, D-Tenafly, ducked the question and answered by offering up some fighting words.
..... "He;s gonna keep messing with us and he's screwing with our families, we're gonna screw with him," he said. "And that's gonna be our attitude."
What about the Republican candidates?
..... On the Republican said, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli of Somerville, who was endorsed by Trump on May 12, [2025] suggest that the sate has faced fiscal crises before - noting the steep budget shortfall former Governor Chris Christie inherited from Governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat - and the state found a way to balance the books and prevail.
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"I'm not going to comment on hypothetical projections as to what those medicaid cuts could be," said Ciattarelli, the GOP front-runner for the nomination. but, he added, the public health and safety of the citizens would be his top responsibility, and as to Medicaid recipients, "we'll make sure that they're taken care of."
..... On Friday, [05/16/2025] a number of conservative hardliners in the House stalled the Big, Beautiful Bill by complaining that the proposed spending cuts didn't go far enough. That gave Democrats (and privately, some moderate Republicans) a moment to breathe a sign of relief. But ti's likely to be a temporary pause.
..... It's more likely some concessions will be made and the slow train will be jolted back into motion. Everyone can then start holding their breath and wait and wait for the storm that's coming in from Washington.