He just hates to admit it.
When 47 state and territorial governors sent a letter on Feb. 22 asking for more federal matching dollars for Medicaid, Perry refused to sign. He likes to talk about how he thinks the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a waste of money.
Yet on Aug. 25 Perry wrote an unpublicized letter to Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary formally requesting that Texas receive the increased federal match for Medicaid. The extension is part of the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act, and gives states a 3.2 percent increase in the matching funds from January to March 2011, and a 1.2 percentage point increase from April to June 2011. Additional increases are available for each quarter during this period for states with high unemployment rates. This higher matching rate was originally slated to expire at the end of 2010.
Perry’s office released the letter only after the Observer inquired about Perry’s position on the matching funds. It appears the Obama administration has also grown weary of governors like Perry rejecting the stimulus program publicly, and then accepting the funds privately.
Sebelius wrote a you-better-check-yo-self letter on Aug. 16 letting governors know that although President Obama had signed off on the additional funds that 47 of them had requested, those funds would only be made available to states whose governors formally requested them. Apparently Perry blinked in this game of chicken and wrote his letter like a good governor should.
I believe the proper expression here is “Thank you, sir, may I please have another”. While Perry prefers money he can spend unaccountably, he’ll still take whatever he can get. Those $21 billion shortfalls aren’t going to fix themselves, you know. As long as he can still bite the hand that’s feeding him, it’s all good with Perry.
