As of today, Arizona’s current governor is Jan Brewer; she was elected to office January 21, 2009; she serves as Arizona’s 22nd governor. Also Arizona’s Director of Strategic Planning and Budgeting is John Arnold. According to the website, “Budget Solutions”, Arizona’s budget timeframe is annual, but some smaller agencies receive biennial budgets. Arizona’s fiscal years starts July 1st. Also in Arizona, by law, the state is required to submit a balance budget. Also in Arizona, the law does not forbid the state to carry over a deficit from one year to the next ("Arizona State State Budget Solutions"). In Florida, today the governor is Rick Scott; he was elected to office January 4, 2011; he serves as Florida’s 45th governor. According to the website, “Budget Solutions”, Florida has an annual budget timeframe, its fiscal year begins on July 1st, and it is also required to pass a balance budget, like Arizona. But by law, Florida is forbidden to carry over a deficit from one year to the next year. Florida takes budget very seriously because “Florida has one of the most aggressive policies for maintaining a balanced budget in the country, requiring that when the budget isn 't balanced, it is to be made balanced” ("Florida State State Budget Solutions"). However, both Arizona and Florida have other issues, processes, and spending priorities that impact their budgetary systems. One issue that has impacted the state’s budget is the Medicaid Expansion in the states. According to
The governor is elected every four years by a plurality and holds many formal and informal powers including: the power to veto, control over the executive budget, and appointing new members for many boards, role as commander-in-chief for their respective state, and the duty to uphold and execute laws. A generation of modernization and reform has led to enhanced powers for governors. The governor’s most important powers for controlling the state government are the veto and executive budget. Governor Deal of Georgia utilized his veto power in order to strike down the campus carry legislation proposed earlier this year by the Georgia General Assembly. Unlike presidential vetoes, it usually is difficult for state legislatures to override gubernatorial vetoes. Similarly, the governors of some states, such as Georgia, possess the power to use a line-item veto. This veto allows governors to veto only certain parts of a bill rather than the entire bill. This power prevents legislation from holding a bill hostage. However, like the president, it is important for the governor to garner support from the public as well as other high-ranking officials such as the State Superintendent of Schools, members of the General Assembly, Board of Regents, etc. in order to maintain political clout. Governor Deal of Georgia often displays this such as in his decision to lower the number of state-mandated tests. The governors of today have tools and skills that assist them in controlling state government and guiding the state in the policy direction they think is
Governor Jan Brewer emphasized her long-lasting opposition to President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (Duda, 2013). With Obama’s reelection and the U.S Supreme Court upholding its key provisions, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the law of the land (Duda, 2013). Governor Brewer has since changed her tactics. When she opened the 2013 legislative, she announced that she was seeking a full expansion of Arizona’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. Arizona then became one of the several Republican-led states that have accepted the law’s Medicaid Expansion (Scott, 2013). According to the Health and Human Services website, Arizona will see a difference with the health care law. The people of Arizona who meet the criteria for the Marketplace cover a wide range
The legislative framework of a country refers to the process of creating, utilization, and governing of laws. In the United States, the government of each of the 50 states is structured in accordance with their respective constitution and although not required, each are modeled after the federal government, consisting of the three branches: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Each of the state governments are also organized as a presidential system where the governor is the head of the state. Due to each state having their own governor as their representative, their legislative framework will vary with each state. For this paper, I will be comparing the legislative framework of Florida with the state of California.
The U.S. states that border Mexico are Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. Because of that, there is some things similar about the four of them. For one, they all are more likely to have residents who are younger, not older. This comes from those who were born here, and those who have crossed the border and came here because it is close. We also have a large number of Spanish speakers because of those who come from the Mexican border. This makes more people in this area want to learn Spanish as their second language, since it comes in handy. There are though, differences between Arizona, Texas, California, and New Mexico. One is how to teach students Spanish. California has full immersion for a Spanish class, meaning to learn Spanish,
Arizona’s historical development dates back to thousands of years ago. Arizona holds the second largest amount of indigenous/ Native American population of any other state in the United States. One of the first groups of people to live on Arizona’s land was the Native Americans, or otherwise called the American Indians. These Natives came much before any of the Europeans, or the Spanish settlers came to Arizona. There were three main Native American groups that truly began the exploration of Arizona. These groups include the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon tribes. Each of their tribes settled in different sections of Arizona ranging from Northeastern to Southeastern parts of the land.
There are some differences and similarity between the State and Federal budget. The Federal budget is bigger than the State budget. The federal government have the sovereign bank. The Federal government have the ability to print additional money when the need arises. The federal budget needs not balance revenues and expenditures for each fiscal year. At the subnational level, appropriations must not exceed revenues in the State budget. This creates restriction which is mandated for almost all the state and local finances. “This imposes a discipline at state and local government which the federal government may chronically evade. States cope by setting aside reserves in good years to hopefully cover deficits in bad revenue years” (n.d., 2012).
Governor Brewer also planned on taxing hospitals in order to receive funds for the program. Her reasoning in doing so is because Arizona already charges a two percent insurance premium tax and a provider tax on nursing homes (Roy, A. 2013). She also feels that by expanding Medicaid, hospitals will start to receive payment for services that would have otherwise not been paid for by those who are uninsured.
The work and services provided by the State of Florida include services for children and families, such as services concerning adoption, child abuse, children with disabilities, food stamps, and marriage/divorce. They also provide services involving colleges and universities, courts and corrections, environmental and wildlife preservation/protection, healthcare administration, highway patrol and safety, utility regulations, transportation, revenue (taxes), and a host of other areas. In order to pay for all of the services which they provide, Governor Rick Scott has created a budget of $78.4 billion for the state of Florida in the 2015-2016 fiscal year (Scott, 2016, p. 13). This budget also includes the employment of 113,687 people who compromise the total state workforce (Scott, 2016, p. 14).
The Constitution divides the powers of the government of the State into three distinct departments: the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Under the terms of the Constitution, no person in any one department may exercise any power attached to another department unless specifically authorized to do so by the Constitution.
As mentioned by Thompson (2010), in the Associated Press, “Lawmakers bridged a $19 billion shortfall, more than 20 percent of the $87.5 billion general fund spending plan”. This shows that the state was heading towards a financial crisis and more deficit creation. Moreover, Thompson (2010), in the Associated Press also points out that “It includes no tax or fee increases but uses a combination of cuts, funding shifts, delayed corporate tax breaks and assumptions about money the state hopes to receive”. The budget gave rise to other dependent costs such as delayed tax refunds. It was uncertain that the State will receive the required funds from the federal government to ensure that the important programs will function the way it used to be until the funds are received.
Florida is a popular state when discussing political controversy. The media rushes to Florida during congressional and presidential elections due to its reputation as a conflicted state. Here we find the southern regions to be rather liberal and voting democratically, and on the other hand, we see the northern regions voting mostly conservatively. This creates controversy in the United States because Florida is a major determining factor of what kind of outcome we are going to get for a presidential election. This can be especially stressful for those running for office either presidentially or for the state specifically because they are unaware of their chances of gaining the states support and being elected into office.
The Affordable Care Act was into law March 2010. The law has planned to make wide-range of changes to healthcare in the United States. The Affordable Care Act efforts to offer universal right to use to healthcare for Americans, control the rising costs of healthcare, adjust the private insurance industry complete things like state-based private exchanges and online marketplace that brings together state-approved insurance plans from multiple companies so consumers can shop for individual insurance plans, improve the quality of healthcare and make healthcare choices more consumer friendly and easier to understand (Medical Mutual,2017). Healthcare reform involves nearly all Americans from old or young,
In a traditionalist state, such as Texas, the financial toll that Medicaid would have on its taxpayers was on the frontlines. The Texas legislature was worried about whether or not its taxpayers would face a tax increase to cover the increased cost of those covered by Medicaid. These taxpayers would inadvertently pay for the hospital bills of those who are uninsured in Texas through an average $1,800 rise in the cost of their premiums (Rapoport, 2012). In support of expanding Medicaid, Texas would receive federal funds in order to ease the cost that accompany the expansion. Since Texas decided not to expand Medicaid, Texas “would be leaving billions and billions of federal dollars on the table” according to Anne Dunkelberg (Rapoport, 2012). Not only does this monetary incentive give Texas an extra push to participate towards expanding Medicaid but it would also help the residents of the state to get insured. Texas legislators understood that this monetary incentive would not fully cover the cost of the newly enrolled Medicaid recipients. In the end, they would have to rework the annual budget and increase taxes in order to cover these extra recipients.
The health care reform debate between 2008 and 2010 led to the passage of Patient Protection and Affordable Act. It was reminiscent of opportunities for reform that have occurred on a cyclical basis throughout American history. These opportunities occurred most notably in the presidential administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and William J. Clinton. (Rich, Cheung, Lurvey, 79). We have to look at recent opportunities that have expanded today.
Originating from dates all the way back to 500A.D. these people ran the land and cultivated