Abraham: La. needs better priorities, not more taxes

A pro-business, small government candidate for governor brought his message to a pro-business audience at the St. Mary Industrial Group on Monday.
One of the first and biggest targets Ralph Abraham, R-Alto, a physician and the congressman for Louisiana’s 5th District, was incumbent Gov. John Bel Edwards' signature achievement: Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
“I want everyone to have insurance,” Abraham said. “But I don’t want it to be on the taxpayer’s dime.”
Abraham is one of two announced challengers for Democrat Edwards’ re-election bid. The other is businessman Eddie Rispone, who is scheduled to speak at a March 11 SMIG meeting.
By both state figures and figures quoted Monday by Abraham, somewhere between 440,000 and 482,000 Louisiana people became eligible for Medicaid under the ACA expansion. Then-Gov. Bobby Jindal joined other Republican governors in turning down the expansion when Obamacare took effect in 2014, but Edwards reversed the state’s course in 2016.
Among the newly eligible were 3,999 people in the 50th District represented by state Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, and another 2,933 people in the 51st District represented by Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Gray, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
The current Louisiana budget is approaching $12 billion, about three-quarters of which is paid by the federal government. Medicaid spending is up by more than 60 percent in five years, according to The Associated Press. One Louisiana resident in three is now covered by Medicaid.
Abraham painted the Medicaid expansion as one of a series of bad moves by the Edwards administration.
“I do believe we are heading the wrong way,” Abraham said.
The Edwards administration pushed spending higher while raising taxes, he said. The most controversial move by Edwards last year was his successful push to renew 0.45 percent of a 1 percent temporary sales tax, which the governor said would plug a recurring budget hole will still allowing taxes to drop for many Louisiana people.
“We can’t allow taxpayers to be used as a piñata,” Abraham said.
He said the state government should have set priorities and gone after “waste, fraud, abuse and corruption, whatever you want to call it” before going after taxes.
Louisiana continues to be mired at the bottom of surveys of health, education and economic growth, he said.
“If what we’re doing worked,” he said, “we wouldn’t be 49th or 50th in every important category. …
“I truly believe we’re one election away from being like California.”