Each Friday, Eye on the Statehouse will announce its “Porker of the Week.” It’s our way of calling attention to a particularly big or wasteful spender.

Cristal A. Thomas, the new Director of Ohio’s Medicaid program within the Department of Job and Family Services, wins our Porker of the Week award.

In testimony yesterday before the House Human Services Subcommittee of Finance and Appropriations, Ms. Thomas delivered one of the most misleading of arguments bureaucrats can give for spending, what Eye on the Statehouse calls the Fallacy of Government Economic Stimulus.

Ms. Thomas told legislators, “Ohio Medicaid is also a significant economic stimulus in Ohio….[in the last fiscal year Ohio] Medicaid purchased about $10.7 billion dollars of health care services from 77,000 health care providers in every one of Ohio’s 88 counties. I’m sure that many of you recognize health care related businesses as being major employers in your districts… In short, our office views Ohio Medicaid not as a liability, but rather as a true asset to Ohio’s economy, business and families.”

The Fallacy of Government Economic Stimulus, of government claiming to its credit the economic outcomes of jobs and cash resulting from a spending program, ignores one economic fact. Government has nothing to give Ohioans it hasn’t first taken away from Ohio’s economy, its businesses or its families in the form of taxes.

If Ohioans could keep the $18 billion of taxes taken from them to pay for Ms. Thomas’ Medicaid program over the next two years, they would do things such as get a new car or new appliances, eat out more often, put more savings money into the local bank, and spend more for their kids’ college education. In other words, if they could keep the money lost in taxes, they would stimulate the economy, support jobs and invest in Ohio’s future.

The economic stimulus from these activities is every bit as great as that claimed for Medicaid spending by Ms. Thomas. Actually it is significantly greater, as the things people tend to spend their money on are conditioned for efficiency by the free market system while Medicaid, like all government spending, is characterized by duplication, waste and inefficiencies.

In net, government taking money from some people and spending on others in the form of Ohio Medicaid is not economic stimulus, it is an economic depressant.

Furthermore, Ms. Thomas shows so little concern for the funders of Ohio Medicaid in her analysis of this $18 billion program that neither “taxpayer” nor “taxes” appear in her eight pages of single-spaced testimony.

After spending on schools, Ohio taxpayers pay more for Ohio Medicaid than any other single spending program. They have a tremendous stake in this program and their interests deserved better than to be completely ignored by Ms. Thomas in her testimony.

Ms. Thomas is not the first bureaucrat to employ the Fallacy of Government Economic Stimulus in characterizing government spending, nor will she be the last. Nor is she the first to forget the source of the funds she manages. But as the new director of Ohio’s second largest spending program, Eye the Statehouse says she needs to show more candor in her work with the General Assembly and the Ohio public, and to give more attention to the taxpayers who pay for her program.

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