Musings on a Sales Tax Hike: The Intercept Prod

The sales tax intercept that we’ve been writing about in this space has been tabbed by County Executive Maggie Brooks. She called it a gift from Albany, the way that state government has given county governments a solution to the Medicaid cost crunch.

The other way to view this is that the intercept may be the way to get state government to finally look at the Medicaid cost.

State lawmakers have found it easy to expand Medicaid because a) it means getting more federal aid from the match that the feds pay in Medicaid and b) because the local counties share the cost. No direct pain, no need to change. Maybe the state will finally look at cost cutting for Medicaid if they take more of it on.

Wouldn’t that be a novel approach by government – cost cutting.