Category: Video
NJPP’s Ray Castro on Protecting Medicaid
As the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act began its final unraveling Friday, New Jersey Policy Perspective senior policy analyst Ray Castro was a featured panelist at a NJ Spotlight conference on health care in New Jersey – and NJTV was there to talk to him and others about the impact of the GOP’s plans.
“We’re concerned about block granting the entire Medicaid program,” Castro said. “We’re even more concerned that they want to accelerate the repeal of Medicaid expansion [which in] New Jersey would have such an impact – we have half a million people in our state. About 10 percent of all adults in New Jersey get their health care from the Medicaid expansion.”
NJPP’s Sheila Reynertson on the 2018 Budget
New Jersey Policy Perspective senior policy analyst Sheila Reynertson recently joined Larry Mendte on WJLP’s “Jersey Matters” to preview the 2018 budget and discuss New Jersey’s economy more broadly.
“We’ve had eight years of trickle-down economic policy that clearly hasn’t worked,” Reynertson said, pointing to billions in tax cuts and tax breaks for the most well-off residents and big businesses. “It is time for something different.”
New Jersey’s Immigrants Pay Taxes, Boost Economy
“There’s a common misconception that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes. In reality, that is not true at all,” New Jersey Policy Perspective Vice President Jon Whiten told NJTV News this week.
In fact, New Jersey gets an injection of cash from its unauthorized immigrant population — nearly $600 million in state and local taxes, according to a new report.
“They are not here just ‘taking,’ if you will. They’re contributing to our tax base and to our economy more broadly,” Whiten said.
A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy crunched the numbers in all 50 states and found New Jersey gets more money from its unauthorized population than 44 other states.
“They buy things at stores and pay sales tax. They rent a home or an apartment and pay property taxes through their rental or sometimes they even own homes themselves. And a lot of undocumented immigrants also pay income taxes,” Whiten said.
Four Takeaways from Christie’s Budget Address
In a segment last night on Gov. Christie’s budget address, NJTV News reported on the governor’s plan to tap into the reserves of Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield to create a fund that would provide money for drug treatment for poor people.
For analysis, NJTV turned to NJPP’s Ray Castro, who said it was not the right time for the state to be making such a move.
“I think this proposal should be explained further. We should look at the implications. But it just seems to me that we should wait and see what’s going to happen in Washington before we make big changes like this,” Castro said.
Ray Castro Explains Damage of ACA Repeal
Last night, NJTV News turned to NJPP’s latest report and our senior policy analyst Ray Castro to help explain to viewers the damage that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would inflict on New Jersey:
Over 1 million residents would lose benefits, according to the report. The state would lose over $4 billion a year in federal funds; 86,000 jobs would be lost and, most dramatically, the report says almost 800 would die as a result.
“This is what would happen if they repealed and did not replace it,” said Castro. “Unfortunately, we don’t know what they’re going to be replacing it with, but what we’ve heard so far is that it’s not really going to help. In fact, it could make matters worse. For example they’re talking about block granting Medicaid, so Medicaid served a lot of different people including children and seniors in nursing homes, so all of them would be vulnerable to further cutbacks in this replacement, so we’re very concerned about that.”
Audit Finds Lax Oversight with Tax Subsidy Program
Last night, NJTV News covered a recent state audit that found lax oversight of New Jersey’s business tax subsidy programs, and turned to NJPP President Gordon MacInnes for insight and analysis.
“It strikes us that the likelihood is very strong that most of the jobs that were retained — where the subsidy gets the credit — were going to stay anyway,” he said.
MacInnes heads the left-leaning New Jersey Policy Perspective. He points to Panasonic as an example.
“The chief financial officer — after the deal was struck — said, ‘Eh! That had nothing to do with our moving and staying in New Jersey,’” MacInnes said.
The audit found lax oversight, noting, for example, “…four of seven businesses reviewed had fewer employees than they needed to receive a full grant but their awards had not been adjusted.” In Camden the EDA offered companies like Lockheed Martin, Holtec and Subaru even bigger, enhanced tax breaks. But the audit examined that rationale and advised, “…such an increase should be questioned and revisited as it may not be in the best interest of the state.”
And MacInnes adds, the EDA can’t verify a company’s motive.
“Yet, that is the threat that is employed by supporters of these tax cuts, to say, ‘If you don’t do this, we’re going to see even greater flight out of New Jersey,’” he said.
NJPP Joins Allies to Discuss ‘State of Our State’
On Tuesday, hours before Gov. Christie gave his annual State of the State address, New Jersey Policy Perspective joined community, labor and environmental groups to discuss the real state of the Garden State. NJTV was there, and spoke to NJPP president Gordon MacInnes about the state’s precarious financial situation:
NJPP on 2017’s Meager Minimum Wage Hike
About 100,000 low-paid New Jersey workers will get a pay increase next year, when the state minimum wage rises by 6 cents to $8.44 an hour.
NJPP policy analyst Brandon McKoy talked to NJTV News about the wage hike and the fact that it really won’t do much to truly boost New Jersey’s workers.
“It’ll help them afford a couple basic daily needs like groceries, maybe a few emergencies here and there. But it really is not enough,” he said.
McKoy says Jersey’s an expensive place to live, and calculates even the most affordable areas require a $14.80 living wage. This six-cent raise — driven by an increase in the national Consumer Price Index — amounts to an extra $402 in 2017.
“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you work. The fact of the matter is a $15 minimum wage is what’s necessary to live in New Jersey,” said McKoy.
NJPP’s Ray Castro on Medicaid Block Grant Proposal
On Friday, NJTV News put together a segment about the national proposals to turn Medicaid health coverage into a block grant – a proposal that Gov. Christie has been promoting as something that will give states “much greater flexibility.” But as NJPP senior policy analyst Ray Castro notes, capping the program’s funding, which is essentially what shifting to block grants will do, could harm hundreds of thousands of New Jersey’s most vulnerable residents.
“We now receive about $3 billion additional in the Medicaid program,” he says. “The Medicaid program itself is around a $15 billion program so even if you get a one or two percent cut that’s hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s a cost that’s shifted to the states. The original proposal for block grants down in Washington cut the program by one trillion dollars nationwide over ten years, so you can see what the disastrous consequence of that could be for our state.”