Texas State Capitol
Extension, Hearing Room E1.010

In NFIB v. Sebelius, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision in ObamaCare that threatened states with the loss of all Medicaid funding if states refuse to expand their Medicaid programs as prescribed in the law. In essence, the Court ruled that where large sources of federal funding for states are conditioned on state compliance with new programs, there may be impermissible coercion of state governments. In those cases, the threat of losing existing funding is unconstitutional, and the states are therefore free to ignore the threat.

The Court’s ruling has significant implications for other sources of federal funding in the Texas state budget. According to the February 2013 report of the Texas Legislative Budget Board, there are more than 400 sources of federal funds in the Texas budget, totaling about 35% of the Texas all funds budget for fiscal year 2012. Many of those programs have been transformed or conditioned on states’ acceptance of new programs, just like the scheme struck down in the ObamaCare decision.

Please join TPPF at 2 p.m. on Monday, October 7, as Center for Tenth Amendment Action senior fellow Mario Loyola briefs you on his new report, which analyzes the Court’s NFIB Medicaid ruling in detail, examines several state programs that are likely vulnerable as a result of containing a penalty similar to the one struck down in NFIB, and presents you with specific recommendations for pushing back against coercive federal funds.