News and Views on Politics, Policy and More
I was shocked to hear Governor Beebe in his “state of the state” address a few weeks ago that expanding Medicaid “will create additional private-sector jobs. We just have to say yes.” I was equally shocked to read this statement from Arkansas Business in their “legislative wish list:” “Expand Medicaid to the quarter of a million Arkansans lacking health insurance...you will be preserving rural hospitals, jobs, and and the health of your fellow citizens.” Saving jobs by … [Read more...]
Rep. John Burris, the Republican minority leader in the Arkansas House of Representatives, spoke to a meeting of the Central Arkansas Young Republicans today at Whole Hog Cafe in Little Rock. Since I've written here about the budget debate at the Capitol, I stopped by to hear Burris's thoughts on the current state of play. Burris, who along with his colleagues has proposed budget reductions totaling some $21 million, noted that Gov. Mike Beebe has been unreceptive to his message of reining in … [Read more...]
You guys, this Arkansas budget debate! What a mess! Let's see: House Minority Leader John Burris proposes cutting a handful of state agency budgets in a gambit to (very very very mildly) slow the rate of growth in state government. Gov. Mike Beebe, he does not like this at all, pal, mostly because he doesn't appreciate challenges to his budgeting authority. So Beebe tells the agencies to assess themselves and to let us know what effect these proposed budget cuts would have. And the agencies … [Read more...]
Our friends at the Tax Foundation are out with updated rankings on combined state and local sales tax rates, and here you go: Arkansas checks in with the sixth highest combined rates in the nation. I'll not belabor the point on that, as it's something we've seen before. But it's always a salutary reminder: since Arkansas legislators convened this week in Little Rock for a fiscal session devoted to budget matters, it's worth considering what you're paying in taxes and what you're getting for … [Read more...]
Recently we cast a questioning glance at the claim peddled by Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe that the state's K-12 education system is "the fifth-best in the United States." The governor bases the claim on the annual Education Week Quality Counts ranking released in January. Trouble is, it's not really true. The University of Arkansas Office of Education Policy issued a whiz-bang assessment of the problems with the rankings. They note that the overall state ratings, like the one Beebe … [Read more...]
Erroneous headline alert! Erroneous headline alert! A story over at the Arkansas News Bureau reports that "After Forestry Commission flap, state agencies’ budgets to get more scrutiny." I'm sure that "more scrutiny" was supposed to read "some scrutiny," since it's hard to believe most of these state agencies get any scrutiny at all. Now that the financial shenanigans at the troubled Arkansas Forestry Commission have been flushed into the open and the appropriate heads have rolled (Forestry … [Read more...]
(Part One of this discussion, which you can read here, took place yesterday. Part Two will be shorter, I promise) So yesterday we had a too lengthy, too windy and too pedantic discussion of income statistics in Arkansas, sparked by a dispute between GOP Rep. Charlie Collins of Fayetteville and the Democratic Party of Arkansas (DPA). Are you up to speed on the difference between per capita income and median income? Do you care? Of course you don't, because you are a normal human being with … [Read more...]
And it came to pass that there would be no state-run Obamacare health insurance exchange in Arkansas, and there was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. 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 … [Read more...]
