The special legislative session called by Governor Bentley has finally drawn to a close. The score stands: no lottery for Alabama, $400 million for debt repayment, $120 million for road projects in southern Alabama, and $120 for Medicaid. The total $640 million represents the results of Alabama’s settlement with BP after the oil spill in 2010.
The bill to divvy up the money passed fairly easily through Alabama’s Republican controlled legislature. Democrats, however, argued that more money should be going to Medicaid, to the tune of $100 million. I’m afraid both groups have missed the main issue. While all of the causes the BP money is going to are important and deserve the money, they are long term problems. People will always need medicine. Until we get flying cars we need roads. While we have debt, we’re going to need to make payments on it. Emergency one-time funds should not be the solution to these long-term problems.
Before the BP settlement bill, Medicaid in Alabama was going to go between $165 million and $195 million underfunded. Despite Governor Bentley’s repeated attempts to add this funding back to the budget, it is repeatedly stripped. Even with the settlement, Medicaid will still not have enough money to cover its estimated costs. Why? Alabama hates taxes.
Granted, Alabama is not a wealthy state. However, those living in poverty are not the reason Medicaid (and roads, and debt payments) go underfunded. The income tax bracket system simply does not make sense. For example, if a student had a minimum wage job and worked 20 hours a week, or half time, they would make $6960 over the course of the year. This would put them in Alabama’s top tax bracket of $3000+. They would pay a state income tax of 5 percent. Nick Saban makes 7.9 million dollars per year. That puts him in the top tax bracket. He would also pay 5 percent state income tax. To the student, that five percent will feel like a pretty big deal. To Nick Saban, it might as well be petty cash. Coach Saban is not the only wealthy person in the state of Alabama. There are many others like him who could still enjoy the comforts of their wealth while paying a tax rate higher than a college kid flipping burgers.
However, this doesn’t happen. Promising not to raise taxes gets people elected, especially in red states like Alabama. The “tax and spend” insult gets thrown at Democrats and so taxes stay low. The thing is, as a state, we do have to spend money on things like Medicaid, prisons, schools and roads. It costs money to have government services. To spend that money, our government needs to take responsibility and raise taxes to serve Alabama’s financial problems in the long-term. There isn’t going to be an oil spill all the time to throw a lot of extra cash into our state budget, so we need to start planning ahead. Maybe while we’re getting more money for roads, we could put some of it towards the interstate between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, also known as the longest construction project known to man.
Allison Mollencamp is a sophomore majoring in English and theatre. Her column runs biweekly.
