Why are Arkansas Democrats exaggerating the Natural State’s progress on income growth? Or more to the point, just how damn stupid do they think we are?

I was thumbing through the Wall Street Journal this morning, in the manner of all good plutocrats everywhere, when I came across this story about declines in household income over the last few years.

Citing a study by a Maryland-based consultancy group, the WSJ reports that 38 states saw a decline in median household income from 2007-2010, according to an analysis of Census data. Arkansas was one of those 38—in the Natural State, median household incomes dropped 2.9 percent. (Meanwhile, Washington D.C. led the nation with an 8.1 percent income INCREASE, “in large part because of federal government employment.” If you need me, I’ll be sharpening my pitchfork.)

That got me thinking: Wasn’t there a to-do just a few days ago in which the Democratic Party of Arkansas (DPA) took a Republican state legislator to task on this very question? Why, it turns out there was!

Rep. Charlie Collins

Here’s the deal: Some weeks ago, GOP Rep. Charlie Collins of Fayetteville published a letter to the editor in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s northwest edition arguing that the state needs income tax reform to create jobs. Collins cited the slow growth rate in the state’s median income to suggest that Arkansas could be doing better. (For our discussion purposes, I’m pasting the text of Collins’ original letter below).

Last week, the DPA issued a news release charging Collins with “misleading” voters….

Actually, no, that’s not right. Let’s carefully read the lead of the DPA news release: it says that Collins’ letter “leaves voters to wonder if he was being intentionally misleading about Arkansas’s economy and deriding the state, or even worse, was he ignorant of the facts?”

Got that? They’re not actually suggesting Collins did all that bad stuff they just said; they’re not leveling a charge. It just “leaves voters to wonder” if there’s a charge to be made, by someone, maybe. Oh, my, this is an unprepossessing start.

Let’s read on. Here’s DPA spokeslady Candace Martin:

“What is worse, if Charlie Collins was intentionally misleading people and badmouthing Arkansas’s progress or if he was just ignorant of the facts? He owes the people of Northwest Arkansas an explanation,” Democratic Party of Arkansas Spokesman Candace Martin challenged. “Politicians shouldn’t use these lean economic times as an excuse to falsify facts or mislead Arkansans. Rep. Charlie Collins condemned Arkansas for making no economic progress when in reality USA Today ranked our state 11^th in the nation for personal income growth. It is bad enough when people from other states talk down about Arkansas, but for an elected official to do so, and falsely, is inexcusable.”

OK, here’s where it starts to get thornier. Martin invokes a USA Today ranking that says Arkansas is “11 in the nation for personal income growth.” But note the shift here: Collins in his letter writes about median incomes, not “personal income growth.” Moreover, if we follow the link to the Bureau of Economic Analysis data on which USA Today based its ranking, we see the data used is per capita personal income. So they’ve subtly changed the subject.

And here’s the thing: Per capita income and median income are not the same thing. Median numbers tend to be a more reliable measure because they aren’t swayed by extremely high or low extremes, and they’re more useful for comparing numbers over time.

If you look at per capita income, Arkansas does a shade better; moreover, if you look at the rate of growth in per capita income, you’re talking about something else entirely. So they’ve moved the discussion away completely from what Collins was talking about, and then they charge him with being “misleading.”

Candace Martin and the DPA seem confused on these issues (that’s the charitable interpretation). In paragraph 3 of the news release, they state that “Arkansas steadily moved up three rankings in the national average for median income at a time when other states were falling” (emphasis added).

Except that’s not quite right, based upon a reading of the data that they themselves provide. The news release points us to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of New Mexico, which reports that Arkansas moved up a few slots on per capita income, not median income, from 2007-2010 (from 47th to 44th).

Now, if you just go Google “state rankings median income,” you’ll get a number of results that show Arkansas languishing around 48th or 49th, which is in line with what Collins discussed in his letter. Like this. Or this. Go ahead, roll your own. Collins wasn’t “misleading” anyone.

I think Charlie Collins does know the difference between per capita and median incomes, since he’s careful in his letter to always refer to “median income,” and doesn’t sloppily swap the terms around.

Look back at that DPA news release, in which all the accusations against Collins are leveled as rhetorical questions, rather than actually flat-out making a charge that he was being “misleading.” It seems clear the Dems recognized they were on shaky ground, or they didn’t really care, because all they wanted to do was muddy the waters of the discussion, so the facts didn’t much matter.

Or we might put it this way: What is worse, if Arkansas Democrats were intentionally misleading people and exaggerating Arkansas’s progress on income levels, or if they were just ignorant of the facts?

You know, it really leaves voters to wonder.

WHAT YOU ARE PROBABLY THINKING: “Thank you, David, for that not at all fascinating discussion of  a dispute over per capita and median income in a stupid party news release, which sounds like something Greenberg would write, because, ugh, Greenberg.”

But bear with me! There is, indeed, a point to all this! No really, there is! I think! But you’ll have to wait for the explanation as to why this matters in the EXCITING PART DEUX OF THIS POST (forthcoming!)

Collins letter follows.

Letter to the Editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

January 5, 2012

State at disadvantage

Thanks for your editorial calling out the disadvantage our income tax places on Arkansas workers compared with workers in nearby states. Why is there outrage when China creates a disadvantage for our workers through tax and currency policy, but not when we do it to ourselves? We’re regularly ranked near the bottom of all states for median income. We haven’t made substantial progress in decades. It wasn’t always this way. From about 1940 to the early 1970s, Arkansas improved from about 44 percent of national median income to about 75 percent.

Then we raised our income-tax rates in 1971 (with the top rate up 40 percent from 5 percent to 7 percent) and relative income-growth progress stopped. Today, Arkansas median income remains around 75 percent of national income almost four decades after the higher income-tax rates took effect. If we had left tax rates alone in 1971 and remained on the pre-tax-rise trend, the Arkansas Policy Foundation found that Arkansas median incomes would be at or above the national average by now.

The editorial highlighted two income-tax ideas to create jobs: A special deal for new residents only, and bigger exemptions for capital. How about this instead? Let’s simplify the code and give all our workers a fair playing field by eliminating the 2.5 percent and 7 percent rates. This approach lowers the rate by 60 percent on low-income workers and 14 percent on workers making more than $33,000. We won’t need to say “Thank God for Mississippi” anymore.

CHARLIE COLLINS, Fayetteville

The Hopefuls: Cotton, Rankin & Richmond

If you’re looking to check in on what the candidates in the Arkansas Fourth Congressional District Republican primary have to say on the issues, then you do not want to miss the Twitter debate to be hosted tomorrow (Wednesday, January 18), by the Arkansas College Republicans.

And by “do not want to miss,” I of course mean that you absolutely want to miss this, because a Twitter debate is just a terrible idea. Who needs this? This, this Twitter debate, I do not think anybody needs.

Here, to make things simpler for you, I have developed a short checklist to let you know if you should, uh, watch the Twitter debate. (watch? view? read? endure?):

• You are a masochist.
• You like to read boilerplate political statements in incoherent, decontextualized, non-sequential 140 character bursts.
• You are Jason Tolbert.

If you suffer from one or more of the above conditions, please tune in to Twitter on Wednesday for the Arkansas Fourth Congressional District at 2 p.m. CST. The rest of you, please, for the love of god, just go about your business as previously planned.

I’m not 100 percent sure how it will work—presumably you’ll have to follow the @ARkCR feed and all the participants, if you’re not already? The College Republicans’ news release says that the two confirmed participants are Tom Cotton and Marcus Richmond, which I guess means Beth Ann Rankin won’t be participating, which I guess means we have a winner. Congratulations, Beth Ann, on your sound judgment and your decisive Twitter debate victory! 

In conclusion: Terrible.

College Republicans Plan Twitter Debate for Fourth District (Talk Business)

But is that true? Will the feds, in fact, be running the Arkansas health benefits exchange?

Not so fast! The short (6 minute) interview at the top of the page with Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, casts doubt on that claim. Cannon argues that, should states decline to establish exchanges, it puts the feds in a bind, as they’re not authorized to offer “premium assistance” (tax credits, subsidies, etc., needed to make Obamacare viable) in federal exchanges under section 1321 of the law. The short of it is that the inability to provide premium assistance will drive up costs and undermine the exchange as people decline to participate in the system. That’s some section, that section 1321.

Cannon covered this issue in more detail in a Wall Street Journal op-ed  last month, co-authored with Jonathan Adler, explaining how the premium assistance glitch could serve to undermine the entire law:

The law encourages states to create health-insurance exchanges, but it permits Washington to create them if states decline. So far, only 17 states have passed legislation to create an exchange.

This is where the glitch comes in: ObamaCare authorizes premium assistance in state-run exchanges (Section 1311) but not federal ones (Section 1321). In other words, states that refuse to create an exchange can block much of ObamaCare’s spending and practically force Congress to reopen the law for revisions.

The Obama administration wants to avoid that legislative debacle, so this summer it proposed an IRS rule to offer premium assistance in all exchanges “whether established under section 1311 or 1321.” On Nov. 17 the IRS will hold a public hearing on that proposal. According to a Treasury Department spokeswoman, the administration is “confident” that offering premium assistance where Congress has not authorized it “is consistent with the intent of the law and our ability to interpret and implement it.”

Such confidence is misplaced. The text of the law is perfectly clear. And without congressional authorization, the IRS lacks the power to dispense tax credits or spend money.

Oh, Obamacare, you are a disastrous gift that keeps on disastrously giving, in all your rickety, shoddily designed, half-assed glory. Don’t ever change! Just please go away, forever.

How States Can Shut Down Obamacare (Cato Institute Daily Podcast)

Another Obamacare Glitch (Wall Street Journal)

State Insurance Commissioner Jay Bradford issued a tear-stained news release today (PDF) announcing the death of the (unlamented) state exchange, the demise of which he attributes to “legislative opposition” (read: opposition from minority Republican lawmakers).

Oh, but if only Arkansas had had a Democratic governor in the statehouse and Democratic majority in the legislature, who might have forestalled this sad development by selling voters on the urgent need for a state-level health insurance exchange!

Oh, wait…riiiiight.

Anyway, this is the end of an era and now the federal government is going to run the health insurance exchange, maybe? Except that’s how it was going to be all along anyway, for all practical purposes, because the feds would be writing all the regulations and calling the shots, really, and no one could actually explain just what the difference between a state-level exchange and a federal exchange might be. And Arkansas can probably take over the exchange later, right? There is no bad news, etc. 

Meanwhile, Arkansas Democrats are weeping crocodile tears, as they think this development gives them a bully club to use against GOP candidates in next year’s campaigns. That is something they seriously appear to believe, because apparently Arkansas voters care very deeply whether the Obamacare exchange is administered by the federal government or state government, yes? It is a known fact that the 2012 election will turn on this very question, and no other.

I have casually spoken to several GOP lawmakers, asking if they are worried about this devastating line of attack. I found that a small percentage are worried about that. I estimate it as somewhere in the neighborhood of zero percent are worried about that.

Cue inevitable lament from superannuated liberal newspaper columnist about how the politicization of this issue by Republican lawmakers is utterly unconscionable, while the politicization of this issue on the part of Gov. Mike Beebe is the very mark of a savvy master straddler. Normally John Brummett would write that piece, but a couple of months back he retreated behind the walls of Fort Hussman. No one’s heard from him since.

Oh, Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times is worked up over this, too, with his customary mix of subtlety and carefully considered insight. He attributes the Republican opposition to Obamacare to “racism,” because that is an explanation that makes sense. Go read his post and then call 911, because, seriously, I’m pretty sure he’s having an aneurysm.

UPDATE: More from The Tolbert Report, including responses from GOP Minority Leader Rep. John Burris and Lt. Gov. Mark Darr. Jason also gets a couple of rogue Democratic lawmakers, Rep. James McLean and Rep. Nate Steel, on the record talking trash about setting up the exchange.

So wait, does that mean opposing the health care exchange is the bipartisan position, and supporting it is now the rigid partisan position? Sounds about right, but don’t tell Democratic-lockstep blogger and noted ridiculous person Michael Cook.

State Health Insurance Exchange ‘Quashed’ (Talk Business)

Worried about Obamacare? Gov. Mike Beebe has a message for you.

Man, what is the deal with Gov. Mike Beebe’s state Department of Insurance? These guys! After lawmakers declined to pass legislation to set up a state health care exchange, the Department of Insurance, under the leadership of Beebe hand Jay Bradford, got right down to work…planning an insurance exchange with a $1 million federal grant. Hm, OK.

Then they came back to the legislators last month asking to request another $3.8 million from the feds to continue planning the state run health exchange. Which they’re absolutely not setting up. Six Republican lawmakers said they didn’t think pursuing the grant was a good idea, since the state isn’t setting up an exchange, after all. In response, Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe said he’d not proceed. Well, guess that settles that! We’re definitely not setting up a state insurance exchange!

Which is why it’s so strange that this morning I attended an event in west Little Rock, hosted by the state Insurance Department, all about setting up this new state-run insurance exchange. What the hell, guys?

You can read all about it in this report from the AP’s estimable reporter Andrew Demillo, but the most fun, at least in the part I attended before I came to my senses and left, was when they opened up the floor for a Q&A session with Bradford, Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson and Joel Ario, who until recently headed up the federal Office of Health Insurance Exchanges.

At that point, a steady stream of GOP lawmakers stepped up and started challenging Bradford et al. on the decidedly one-sided, propagandistic nature of the taxpayer-funded summit. That’s when things got slightly edgy.

“I think the legislative body as a whole asked the governor to not move forward,” on the exchanges, said Sen. Jonathan Dismang, and the governor said he would not move forward, he continued. “What are we doing here today?”

Good question, Sen. Jonathan Dismang! Bradford responded with a nebulous word cloud, mumbling something about “home rule,” I think, and for a few brief minutes everyone was very uncomfortable. Which was fun! Other lawmakers stepped up with equally feisty queries: Sen. Cecile Bledsoe! Rep. Mark Biviano! Minority Leader John Burris! Even former Rep. Dan Greenberg, doing his Greenberg thing!

They threw the schedule a little off course and shook things up a bit, for what it’s worth, which may not be much, because clearly the Beebe administration is just going to move forward with this as if the legislature doesn’t exist, which would be fine if Beebe didn’t make a big show of “consulting legislators” when he’s just going to do whatever he wants.

So the state health insurance exchange is dead, long live the state health insurance exchange, black is white, up is down, what health insurance exchange, I didn’t say anything about a health insurance exchange, here’s your shiny new health insurance exchange! We are through the looking glass here, people.

In conclusion, I am now eagerly awaiting the launch of the new ObamArkCare™ Health Insurance Exchange, Mike Beebe and Jay Bradford, co-proprietors. They assure us it will be a triumph, as it will be run by state government. Why, I hear it promises to combine all the administrative integrity of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery with the fiscal responsibility of the Department of Workforce Services. I cannot wait!

Look, guys, let’s face it: You don’t want to keep reading about the Arkansas health insurance exchange, and I don’t want to keep writing about it. The thing is, we’ve posted a lot about that issue lately, and it’s kind of murky and confusing. Also, it’s growing increasingly difficult to find amusing or entertaining photos and images to illustrate the concept of a “health insurance exchange.”

That said, ugh, let’s talk a little more about the Arkansas health insurance exchange, dammit.

I’m reading this weekend piece from Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett, who asks Gov. Mike Beebe just what he thinks about all this Obamacare business, anyway:

He has said all along, and continues to say, that he would have voted against the [Affordable Care Act] had he been in Congress. It is for the very reason that he’s a governor that he especially understands the new law’s vulnerability. It will put heavy strain on already stressed state Medicaid budgets. Some of his business friends tell him it could have the effect of prompting employers to discontinue their group health insurance plans and simply push their workers over into these new publicly established exchanges of private options (emphasis added).

But, as always, it’s the law and we must abide by the law. In that regard, it would be wise for the state to accept planning money for a state exchange because a state exchange would be better for us than a federal one.

The remarkable thing is that Beebe, even if finessing artfully, has sized up health care precisely. You don’t have to like everything about this law to accept that, unless overturned, it is the law and must be applied as efficiently as possible.

Note that, in the first graf, quoted above, Beebe via Brummett recounts some extraordinarily serious problems that will stem from the implementation of Obamacare. Bankrupting the already expensive and overburdened Medicaid system? Employers dumping health care coverage and dropping their employees onto the exchange? Those are huge issues just to sweep under the rug.

Having passingly acknowledged those problems, Beebe essentially follows up with a shrug. “Oh, well, the law is the law, and we must grimly accept our fate,” and a state-run exchange will be better than a federal exchange, although no one can really explain what the difference will be.

Brummett celebrates this mush-mouthed temporizing as a uniquely brilliant “straddle,” which is completely to be expected, because Brummett’s decades-long man-crush on Beebe is The Great Love Story of Our Age, unseemly though it may be.

Beebe’s game is to divorce the matter of the state health insurance exchange from the larger question of Obamacare, as if that’s possible. I’m guessing he has poll numbers that tell him he can win on this issue if it’s framed simply as a matter of setting up a state-run exchange vs. federal control of the exchange. The key is to keep the focus entirely on the PROCESS of setting up the exchange, while carefully avoiding any discussion of the policy or its effects, which, as seen above, even Beebe recognizes as being dreadful.

But that requires a pretty big leap of logic, because the state health insurance exchanges are, along with the individual mandate, the most significant factor in how Obamacare will be implemented. It’s going to be tough to separate them out, because they’re inseparable. (If you were following the dust-up last week between the Democratic Party of Arkansas and Little Rock’s KARK-TV, lovingly chronicled by The Tolbert Report, you saw just how incoherent that approach can be.)

What’s perhaps most notable about the whole affair is that none of these players—not Mike Beebe, not Arkansas Democrats, not even Brummett—can be bothered to make a case for how the much vaunted reforms under Obamacare might provide any benefits to Arkansans. You would think that “selling the benefits” would be their trump card, but no.

They’re hanging their hopes on questions of bureaucratic administration and applying the law “as efficiently as possible,” whatever that means, rather than trying to persuade anyone that anything good could possibly come of this extraordinarily expensive “reform” effort. Which is understandable, because as they have more and more time to look under the hood, people are realizing that the entirety of the health care reform law was built upon lots of shiny forecasts and promises to be broken.

Do we even have any idea, any more, of what those elusive “benefits” of the new law might be, at this point? Do they even exist? Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow at the (compellingly titled!) Health Benefits Exchange Stakeholders Summit in Little Rock.

*Man, the headlines on this site just get BETTER and BETTER all the time. 

The nightmare that is the state unemployment insurance program has slipped from the front pages, so let’s check in to remind ourselves what’s going on there, and what happens next.

As you’ll recall, last month we learned that the federal government had identified an estimated $161 million in improper unemployment payments issued by Arkansas government from 2008-2011.

The state Dept. of Workforce Services, which administers the unemployment program, has argued that it wasn’t that high—they claim to have found “actual, verified overpayments of $23.8 million“ for the three year period in question. I suspect the DWS estimate is laughably low, given the gulf between the two totals, and I suspect a more thorough review will reveal some number in the middle. Regardless, we’ll still be talking about tens of millions of dollars in poorly administered taxpayer funds.

It’s worth revisiting these developments for two reasons:

1) Because the bleeding continues! The state borrowed more than $360 million from the federal government to meet demand for unemployment benefits. Just last week, on September 26, DWS made an interest payment of more than $10.1 million to the feds on that debt. That $10.1 million vig followed a payment on the debt earlier in the month of $29.1 million. The balance owed currently stands at around $330.8 million, according to the DWS spokeslady.

2) Because we may soon get more clarity on just how large the improper payments were! Two state lawmakers, Sen. Jonathan Dismang and Rep. Davy Carter, requested that the Division of Legislative Audit review the administration of the unemployment insurance trust fund (PDF) to provide a clearer picture of how DWS is administering the funds. That request has been approved, I’m informed, and Legislative Audit is preparing to undertake the review in the coming weeks.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this to see how it shapes up. You should, too.

Democratic blogger Michael Cook at the Look Who’s Cookin’ blog weighs in today on the disputed matter of the Arkansas health insurance exchange. Last week, Gov. Mike Beebe elected to forgo pursuing a $3.8 million grant for establishing the state level exchange after receiving pushback from a handful of Republican lawmakers.

(Pushback = a two-and-a-half-page letter signed by six legislators arguing that they don’t think it’s such a great idea. Man, these Republicans play hardball!)

Cook is, predictably, certain that this is yet another of Beebe’s tactical masterstrokes, but that’s mostly because Beebe is the master and Cook’s job is to stroke him. “It’s a rope-a-dope strategy, see! Why, yessir, ole Mikey’s got them no-account Republicans on the ropes now, boy howdy!”

Except probably not.

The argument that Beebe is advancing, with the help of his swooning handmaidens in the state media and at the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce (which we’re required to pretend is an independent organization representing the business community, but which is in fact an unofficial arm of the Beebe administration), is this: Either Arkansas can set up a health insurance exchange, or the federal government will set it up and run it. Who would you rather have in charge? Huh? Who? Well?

It’s a nonsense argument. In fact, the much-vaunted “state control” of health insurance exchanges is likely an illusion, given the heavy hand of federal rules and regulations that Obamacare brings. That’s according to health care policy whiz Ed Haislmaier at the conservative Heritage Foundation:

The combined effect of these regulations and grant requirements are that a state would have to agree to surrender any last vestiges of meaningful control over how Obamacare is implemented. Thus, a state would now have no more real control over an exchange it set up than over one HHS established.

While just 24 months remain until exchanges must open for business, HHS has made little discernable progress toward creating federal fallback exchanges.

Consequently, at this point the best course of action for states is to neither apply for nor accept exchange establishment grant funding.

Moreover, there’s also the question of why, if the health insurance exchanges are such a winner, so many states are moving slowly to establish them. (According to the National Council of State Legislatures, 14 states have moved to establish exchanges in the 18 months since Obamacare was passed.)

Florida has opted out, turning away millions in federal grant money. Kansas and Oklahoma returned federal grants totaling $32 million and $55 million, respectively, rather than accept the chains that come with Obamacare. Even in deep blue New York, obstreperous Republicans in the state Senate blocked the state from pursuing federal money to set up the exchange—the same grant rejected by Arkansas Republicans, who, let’s not forget, do not control either arm of the legislature here.

And anyway, why all the posturing and maneuvering from Beebe? If he wants to continue pursuing federal money to set up the exchange, he has control of the executive branch and his party has control of the legislature. And we’ve already established that Beebe doesn’t need Republican lawmakers to give him the go-ahead. If moving forward with setting up the exchange is the right thing for Beebe to do, as Cook and others would have it…what’s stopping him?

In a column published Saturday under the uncommonly compelling, informative and evocative headline “Obstruction is the preferred conservatism” (“Great headline writing! Nailed it! Time to call it a week.”—Arkansas News Bureau headline writer), Brummett takes those six (6) Republicans to task for “playing politics” on the issue of health care reform. The six (6) lawmakers took the extraordinary step of sending a letter to the governor politely explaining that they don’t think it’s a good idea to apply for federal grant money to plan the exchange.(Full letter here, PDF)

Of course, Brummett notes in his column that Beebe is also playing politics on the issue, since, as he reports

I’m told that Beebe believes the politics of all this could play to the benefit of Democrats and to the detriment of Republicans.

He thinks “local control” could resonate, especially when sought by the relevant and affected private sector, including, tentatively, the powerful lobby known as the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce.

But that’s different, you see. In BrummettWorld, Beebe’s political play does not offend, because the governor is a acting on calculation to achieve an advantage, rather than principle. The horrifying thing about these Republicans is they might actually believe what they espouse. “Why, I was so appalled I almost dropped my mustache comb!” Brummett declares.

Brummett

Downplayed in Brummett’s dissection is the fact that the six (6) Republicans involved don’t actually have the power to stop Beebe moving forward with planning the insurance exchange. If the governor thinks pursuing federal funding is the way to go, he can do so.  That’s because the authority to request a federal grant to continue with the planning rests with the Arkansas Insurance Department headed by Jay Bradford and with the governor, not the legislature. (This point is ably made by our friend Jason Tolbert at The Tolbert Report as well.)

Here, don’t take my word for it—let’s just look at the application materials on the Arkansas state web page dedicated to the exchange. Go ahead and scan to page 11 of this PDF grant application and let’s see what’s required under “Eligibility Information”:

No legislative approval is necessary. By the standards of “obstruction,” the letter from the six (6) Arkansas lawmakers expressing their opposition to the exchange is pretty weak tea. If this is all the “obstruction” it takes to get Beebe to call off the hunt for a $3.8 million federal grant, then he’ll be reduced to a quivering mass of jelly, cowering in a corner of his office, should these Republicans actually take control of one or both legislative chambers in the 2012 elections.

The Red Arkansas blog offers a more pungent take on the contretemps. Poke him with your long sharp stick, Red Arkansas!:

From our perspective, it appears Mr. Beebe was looking for some political cover for his own legislative minions in 2012 by putting Republicans publicly on the spot to support this grant application. After all, if Republicans supported this grant application to fund ObamaCare’s health exchanges, they couldn’t really use Democratic support of implementing ObamaCare in Arkansas as a campaign issue, right?

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: Governor Beebe was playing politics with health care in order to bolster his party’s chances to control the General Assembly in 2012. 

Say, just where ARE those legislative Democrats on the question of this grant and the planning of the exchange, anyway?

*”Another great headline! Nailed it! Time to call it a week.”—David Kinkade

Now that that’s over, keep your eye on this (more consequential) matter: At a legislative hearing today (opens as PDF), state insurance commissioner Jay Bradford will make the case for requesting more federal money to set up a state level health insurance exchange.

As you know, a central tenet of the Obamacare law passed in 2010 is that all states are required to set up online health insurance exchanges. Two weeks ago, Bradford asked lawmakers to give his team the OK to move forward with an application for a planning grant from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.

Some legislators are grumbling at the lack of specifics (Bradford presented no budget for how the money would be spent, rankling House Minority Leader John Burris) and the short time frame (the grant application is due by Sept. 30).

Dan Greenberg at the Advance Arkansas Institute has just released a new paper analyzing the status of state health insurance exchanges that should be a must read for policymakers grappling with the issue. He poses some pertinent questions and urges legislators to step carefully before taking on any additional commitments related to setting up the exchange in Arkansas. Do go and check it out! (Opens as PDF)

Specifics on the 1:30 p.m. legislative hearing are here.