Yesterday brought news from Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will give the Golden State $22 million to advance "telemedicine." I take a back seat to no man in singing the praises of telemedicine. In fact, regulation of telemedicine is one of the 24 factors measured in the U.S. Index of Health Ownership.

Unfortunately, California falls near the bottom of the pile in this indicator. A key benefit of telemedicine is that it allows patients and health professionals to communicate across state lines. This depends on states recognizing each others’ licensure of health professionals, and California lags in relieving this regulatory burden.

The $22 million from the FCC will do nothing to fix this. Also, it’s not clear why $22 million of private capital cannot find its way to investing in the proposed infrastructure. Nevertheless, $22 million is barely a drop of sweat on Leviathan’s brow, so I’m not going to spend too much effort puzzling over whether it’s a good use of tax dollars.

Of greater concern is Gov. Schwarzenegger’s increasing dependence on the munificent (and mythical) "federal taxpayer." I suppose if we could rely on the Martian or Venusian taxpayers to finance states’ grandiose plans, I wouldn’t get so upset about it. But the idea that the federal government has money that we, as individuals and as residents of our own states, didn’t have before the federal government took it is a great deceit to play upon the people.

Dependence on the "federal taxpayer" is the main cause of Medicaid’s relentless growth over the decades. Each state pillages the 49 other states in a grim "death spiral" of government growth. California is one of the biggest culprits: because we are a rich state, our government can use more own-source tax revenue to leverage more federal matching funds than the state "deserves" according to the number of low-income residents. (This is also an indicator in the Index of Health Ownership, based on calculations by Pamela Villareal of the National Center for Policy Analysis.)

Gov. Schwarzenegger let forth a real howler earlier this month: we need to pass his increasingly expensive health reform proposal in order to solve California’s budget deficit! That’s right: The Golden State’s $10 billion deficit will shrink by the $4 billion he expects to take as federal matching payments for his mandatory, "universal" health insurance.

Hmm….. Unfortunately, there’s a deficit in DC too, so that doesn’t really solve the taxpayers’ problem, does it? But the real deficit is neither in Sacramento nor on the Potomac. It’s in the proposals of politicians who seek to bribe us with our own money.