Robert started our week with his piece on Medicaid. I thought I would include my take on it to start our weekend.

A program essential to the health, even the survival of many of our most vulnerable citizens has been targeted for massive cuts by the Bush administration and the Republicans in congress. The poor, the elderly and disabled children will be particularly affected by these cuts and in many states are in a more tenuous situation than ever before. These groups may fare a bit better in North Carolina than in other states, but the possibility of a negative impact looms in the future.

Keep reading . . .

In his plea, defense contractor Mitchell Wade, admitted to paying his employees to make campaign contributions to two Republicans, though he says these two did not know the contributions were illegal. In the 2004 cycle Katherine Harris(R-Fla) received $32,000 from employees of MZM, Inc and Virgil Goode(R-Va) received $23,551. Goode also received $34,625 in the 2006 cycle. The above information is from Open Secrets.

According to Paul Kiel of TPM's Daily Muck:

After Wade made the campaign contributions, Wade asked that one of the Representatives and his staff request appropriations funding for an MZM facility. The Representative's staff later confirmed to Wade that an appropriations bill would include $9 million for the facility.

The State Board of Elections has determined that Jim Black's campaign did break election laws by accepting contributions over the legal limit, by making contributions in the name of another contributor and by accepting over $27,000 in contributions from businesses.

While no action was taken against Black, Rep. Michael Decker (R-Forsyth) and Scott Edwards, treasurer of the optometrists' PAC were referred to the Wake County District Attorney's office for possible prosecution.

From the Charlotte Observer:

Investigators concluded that Decker, a Black ally, failed to disclose contributions, transferred campaign contributions for personal use without reporting them and filed false campaign reports. Edwards, a Murfreesboro optometrist, was accused of violating campaign contribution limits and filing a false report

The Charlotte Observer has an excellent piece on the editorial page from a couple of weeks ago about the gas tax and the state highway budget funds and how they are used. It gives a lesson of fairly recent legislative history that serves to shine a light on the ignorance of many critics of the gas tax and how the money is used by the legislature.

Revenues for roads/highways goes into one of two funds in the state budget. The Highway Fund is used to pay for general maintenance and repairs of state-owned roads. It also pays for some smaller construction projects and transportation programs. Revenues that support this fund come from the state motor fuel tax and vehicle registration fees. No money from this fund is transferred to the General Funds in the state budget.