Category Archives: Politics

Whew, that’s a lot of debt for football seats

football-on-tee-150-dpiBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The next time you’re tempted to base your beliefs purely on political stereotypes, keep in mind that it was a former Democratic U.S. senator who stood, basically alone at first, against a huge government spending program financed by public debt.

That would be David Pryor, University of Arkansas trustee and leader of the opposition against a $120 million bond issue to help pay for adding 3,000 premium seats to Reynolds Razorback Stadium.

Pryor’s was one of two votes last Thursday – the other being Cliff Gibson’s – against the bond issue. The debt, which rises to $186 million counting interest and fees, will also pay for rounding out the stadium, adding a video board, updating the Broyles Athletic Center, and other improvements. The bond issue will be repaid over 20 years through ticket revenues and is not expected to affect students, who, unlike at the state’s other four-year universities, are not charged a fee for athletics.

The business case for the expansion isn’t unreasonable. The University of Arkansas Athletic Department is well managed and one of a relatively small number across the country that pays for itself. Athletic Director Jeff Long said the department has already secured millions of dollars in commitments for those premium seats. To be competitive in major college football, a program must invest resources into taking care of its wealthy fans. They’re the kind who donate extra money.

Still, I’m with Pryor on this one, for three reasons.

– It’s public debt. Neither taxpayers nor students are supposedly on the hook, but if the financial arrangement isn’t working, somebody must pay that money back. While the state’s Revenue Stabilization Act supposedly forces a balanced budget each year, the truth is that the state of Arkansas has billions of dollars in debt, and the University of Arkansas is a state institution.

The other thing about debt is that it becomes your master. Future decisions will be made with this bond issue in mind. The team must keep winning to fill the stadium to pay for the bond issue, so Coach Bret Bielema had better keep engineering these late game heroics. The need to raise revenue for the bond issue will be one more reason for the Razorbacks to stop playing games in Little Rock after 2018 when the current contract ends.

– It’s regressive government financing. The bond issue is adding expensive football seats – suites, semi-private loge boxes, club seats – that are being financed by the fans who buy regular seats. Those regular seats already are priced at just about the limit for a middle class fan – for nonconference games, $35 for upper level seats and $55 for lower level ones, with conference games priced higher. Taking your family to a game already sets you back $250, and the bond issue payments will raise the cost.

– It sends the wrong message and allocates resources in the wrong direction. Pryor called this the largest financial commitment the state has ever made for higher education, and it’s for a football stadium. In January, while the Board of Trustees was advancing the stadium project, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences begged for $97 million to renovate its aging facilities. So far, that money has not been found. What should be the higher priority: the football stadium, or the hospital? The entity that teaches college students to be football players, or the entity that teaches medical students to be doctors?

The Razorbacks are a tie that binds, and I’m glad they beat TCU Saturday. But sometimes this state forgets that the University of Arkansas is a school, not a football team. The vote by the board of trustees is not a scandal, because the money is probably going to be there and the Athletic Department has a history of good financial stewardship. Still, $120 million – actually, $186 million? Woo, pig sooie, but whew, that’s a lot of debt for football seats.

‘Tis the season for lawsuits

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Every calendar year has four seasons, and so does every campaign year. There’s the filing season, when potential candidates decide to run; the primary season, when the parties choose their nominees; the general election season, which ends in November; and, tucked in its own little spot about now, is a fourth season: the lawsuit season.

Yes, ’tis the season when opponents of various voter-initiated acts and amendments try to remove them from the ballot, or at least keep their votes from being counted, by filing suit in the Arkansas Supreme Court.

This year, four initiatives have qualified for the ballot by gathering enough signatures from registered voters: a constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana for medical use; an initiated act that would do the same, with some differences; an amendment that would limit attorney fees and jury awards for pain and suffering in medical lawsuits; and an amendment that would authorize casinos in Boone, Washington, and Miller Counties.

All four have drawn legal challenges. Generally speaking, the groups are making the same arguments that are always made about these issues: that the ballot titles are misleading, and that technical violations occurred in the signature collecting process.

These lawsuits are just part of accepted campaign strategy, so both sides know they have to budget for legal fees. The lawsuits almost always happen when issues are this controversial and when someone stands to lose something. For example, the Arkansas Bar Association has filed suit to stop the amendment that would limit attorney fees and jury awards – which, when higher, produce higher fees. The casino amendment faces a lawsuit from a group supported in part by Oaklawn Park and Southland Gaming and Racing, which don’t want the competition.

That last paragraph sounded cynical, didn’t it? Human beings have complicated motivations. For example, the Arkansas Bar Association’s unanimous opposition to the medical lawsuit amendment probably is due partly from a desire to protect an income stream, at least with some members. At the same time, attorneys have a unique appreciation for the importance of why big verdicts sometimes are needed. Moreover, the amendment is being pushed primarily by nursing homes who want to reduce losses from big jury verdicts, some of which might be based on emotion and good lawyering. Can’t blame them for that.

So now the questions go straight to the Arkansas Supreme Court, where the wheels of justice will turn more swiftly than is normal. We’re reaching mid-September. Election Day is Nov. 8. Absentee ballots must be mailed to voters no later than Oct. 14. Early voting begins Oct. 24. That means the Supreme Court must consider arguments and render decisions as soon as possible. Even if it moves quickly, it’s not unusual for the ballot to be littered with proposals that the court has ruled invalid.

At this point, I’m definitely against one of the proposals, leaning against two and wavering on one. Still, my preference is to vote, even if something passes I don’t like.

In a state whose motto is, “The people rule,” it’s probably best if the measures stay on the ballot, if they can. All four were approved – actually, partly rewritten – by the attorney general’s office to comply with state law. All four’s signatures were validated by a small army of full-time and temporary workers with the secretary of state’s office. Should four Supreme Court justices override those efforts?

Also, all four represent the kind of issue for which voters are well-suited to express their will. These aren’t questions of bureaucratic minutiae. They’re big-picture questions about values and about what this state ought to look like. Whether there should be casinos in Arkansas when surrounding states already have them has been debated around many a kitchen table. So has whether marijuana’s clear harm to many means it shouldn’t be available to those it clearly helps. Would limiting a type of jury award help doctors and nursing homes lower costs for all of us, or would they become more negligent? The voters can decide.

If the legal minds on the Supreme Court believe that real problems exist with a ballot title or signature gathering process, then yes, disqualify a proposal. It’s their job to look at the details.

But if it’s in the gray area, let’s hope the Court errs on the side of not disqualifying. In a state whose motto is “The people rule,” the presumption should be to let the people rule.

Insurance hikes coming, fixes not

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

It’s hard to feel sympathy for a giant health insurance company, but Blue Cross and others will try next year to generate at least some understanding from state legislators, and they’ll probably succeed.

They’ll be doing this after the Arkansas Insurance Department last month required them to lower the rate increases they had requested. Those rates are for private individuals who buy their own insurance or have it bought for them through the state’s private option.

Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield asked for a 14.7 percent increase for its 213,955 individual consumers. The state told it to drop the request to 9.7 percent, which it did under protest. In a letter to Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr, Blue Cross Senior Vice President Lee Douglass noted that the Insurance Department’s own private consulting firm had said the company’s request “appears actuarially reasonable” based on the increasing costs of health care. The company’s reserves have been decreasing for the past three years to $1,265 per insured member by the end of 2015 – not enough to pay for a day of inpatient hospital care.

Douglass added this: “We also believe it is important to increase our efforts and resources so all members of the General Assembly are informed of the costs and issues associated with our state’s health care needs as well as any deficiencies in the filing process.”

Which means Blue Cross will be actively working the halls of the State Capitol looking for allies. It no doubt will be joined by the state’s other health insurers, who also were told to lower their rate requests. Qualchoice had asked for increases of about 24 percent and was told to lop off 10 points. Ambetter asked for 8.1 percent and was approved for 4 percent.

This is the part where you’re going to want me to blame someone, and this being Arkansas, that someone probably is President Obama. The reality is more complicated than that.

Without a doubt, the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is part of the reason for the increasing rates. The law required insurance companies to stop turning away sick people, and that’s who in large part is signing up for insurance. Sick people cost a lot to insure, especially when their ailments have been building up for a while, and many of the young, healthy people needed to offset that cost have opted to pay the fine rather than pay more for health insurance.

Furthermore, the Affordable Care Act does not allow for the creation of bare bones health insurance plans that cover only the major illnesses, and it doesn’t give states enough flexibility to experiment with ideas that could lower costs.

On the other hand, other factors are at play – particularly the rising prices of specialty drugs that are wonderful and life-saving and very, very expensive. Long-term trends such as the nation’s aging, overweight population are major contributors to rising costs as well.

The truth is that America’s health care system was unsustainable before Obamacare, and it’s unsustainable now. Obamacare made some things better and some things worse, but it did not create the cost problem, nor solve it. The law’s opponents never solved that problem when they were in power, either.

We can’t just “repeal Obamacare” because it’s now the health care system we live under, and just getting rid of it would be too disruptive for everyone. Besides, who would want to go back to the days when insurance companies turned away patients because of pre-existing conditions or dropped coverage when their illnesses became too expensive?

What should happen now is that policymakers should try to fix the system, calling it whatever they must. They should do next year what they should have done in 2009 – engage in a multi-year, bipartisan process that addresses access and cost. A solution should be created that includes ideas and buy-in from Democrats, Republicans, the medical community, insurers like Blue Cross, and average Americans. And then we should try to make it work rather than half of us trying to make it fail.

Unfortunately, America’s political system is too unhealthy to engage in that kind of productive advancement. So next year, at the state level, the insurance companies will ask for higher rates that probably are justified, and they probably will succeed because that’s the kind of “fix” the political system can handle.

And bigger, bipartisan solutions? Those will probably have to wait until the system is healthier – someday.

Polls a snapshot; big trends favor Clinton

Elections aheadBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Get ready to see a lot of polls in the coming months. One of the latest by Fox News has the presidential race the closest it’s been in a while: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump, 48-42 percent and by only two points, 41-39, when the Libertarian and Green Party candidates are included. Another poll by Suffolk University and USA Today has Clinton up by seven points in both a two-person and four-person race.

Even the best of polls is a snapshot of a given moment. Public opinion can shift a few points in either direction based on the latest news or maybe whatever phase the moon is in. But certain realities – particularly the Electoral College and the Democrats’ demographic advantages – won’t change, and those are better predictors of what will happen in November.

The constitutional realty is that presidents are not elected through a national election but through 51 separate elections in the states and Washington, D.C., with the winner chosen by the Electoral College. There, the numbers currently work in the Democrats’ favor, as noted by national political analyst Charlie Cook in a speech to economic developers in Little Rock Monday. Eighteen states with 242 Electoral College votes have voted for the Democrat in each of the last last six elections. If Clinton holds those blue states, she only needs 28 votes elsewhere.

In contrast, only 13 states with 103 votes have been so solidly Republican, though others are leaning that direction. Arkansas, for example, has voted Republican in the last four elections after choosing favorite son Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but it’s not likely to treat Hillary Clinton as a favorite daughter. Still, the Electoral College math means Republicans must win almost every swing state.

Meanwhile, Republicans face the reality that the nation’s demographics are changing. As Cook noted, the electorate that was 87 percent white in 1992 will be about 70 percent white this year, which means Republicans do best among the part of the population that is shrinking as a percentage. In 2012, 93 percent of African-Americans and 71 percent of Hispanics voted for President Obama, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. Those numbers are not likely to improve for Republicans this year – not with Trump at the top of the ticket.

Meanwhile, Democrats are leading among the demographic group that will compose future electorates: young people. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, Clinton led among voters ages 18-29 with 47 percent of the vote. Trump had only 21 percent of that group’s vote – less even than the Libertarian candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who had 22 percent support.

Republicans are counting on the fact that those young voters will become more conservative as they grow older and start paying property taxes on their Buicks, and no doubt some will change their views. But 47-21 percent is a big lead.

So Clinton has an advantage in areas that won’t change in the next two months: the Electoral College and the nation’s demographic realities.

But elections are just a poll taken in November, which means they can be determined by temporary things. As Cook noted, both Clinton and Trump have such high negative ratings that neither will ever gain a huge advantage. (“If Republicans had nominated a potted plant, they’d have had a pretty good chance to win,” he said.) A terrorist attack, an economic dip or a Clinton scandal could turn the election.

Also, Clinton, who has been playing the game better than Trump, could start playing it worse. She could lose the debates. While he was meeting with the president of Mexico, she has been hiding out, avoiding the press and raising money from rich donors – in other words, as others have pointed out, playing the “prevent defense” that never seems to work in football. Finally, let’s not overlook the importance of third party candidates, who can really mess with the numbers.

Democrats have won four of the last six elections and the popular vote in five of them. Cook expects Clinton to continue that trend, winning comfortably but not overwhelmingly by 3-5 points. He thinks Republicans won’t solve their big problems yet, but Democrats will overreach and the pendulum will swing back.

Parties are made of people, after all, and people make mistakes, sometimes learn from them, and then make new ones. Poll results may change, but human nature doesn’t.

Clintons’ post-presidency changes the deal

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

One of the problems with the Clintons’ post-presidential activities is that they mess with the deal the United States makes with its presidents.

That deal has always been this: You will perform the world’s most stressful job for four to eight years. You’ll be called upon to make life-and-death decisions that can affect millions of people around the world. The system limits your power, but many Americans will blame you for everything that goes wrong. The job will turn your hair gray. But when it’s over, you can cash in, get rich, and perform good works for the rest of your life.

Oh, and one more thing: You don’t get to come back. In fact, the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, expressly forbids a president from serving in the White House past two terms.

It’s not a perfect deal because conflicts of interest still are possible. This time next year, President Obama, like other ex-presidents and other high-ranking government officials, likely will be charging hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech. Those future huge paydays could affect the decisions he makes while still in office.

But Americans tolerate that possibility because we try not to stand in the way of anybody getting rich, and because ex-presidents are really nice things to have. President Carter has built houses around the world with Habitat for Humanity and has led the fight to nearly eradicate Guinea worm disease. President George W. Bush’s work in Africa is an extension of his good work with that continent while in office. President Clinton has helped lower the cost of HIV/AIDS medication for millions of people worldwide.

And for Arkansas, it’s been an especially good deal. The Clinton Library has been a catalyst for developing a part of Little Rock that once was a sea of decaying warehouses. The Clinton School of Public Service offers the nation’s first master of public service degree and has brought to Little Rock hundreds of eager young future leaders, as well as many high-profile speakers. A few weeks ago, Presidents Clinton and Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared together at Little Rock’s Central High.

But remember the part about presidents not being allowed to come back? It’s unclear how it applies to the first spouse.

When Bill Clinton left office 16 years ago, Hillary Clinton was 53 years old and being elected to a seat in the United States Senate. It was no secret then that she wanted to be president, which she indeed tried to become in 2008. She then became secretary of state.

While all of this was happening, her husband was leading the Clinton Foundation, which the Associated Press reported has raised more than $2 billion since 2001 – including between $100,001 and $250,000 from Donald Trump.

Did donors lend their support because they really supported the foundation’s work, or was part of their motivation gaining access and influence with Hillary Clinton, who was still very much in power and potentially soon would have more?

The Associated Press has reported that 85 of the 154 private citizens with whom Clinton had meetings or phone conversations during the first half of her time as secretary of state had donated to the Clinton Foundation. She also met with 16 foreign governments who gave money to the foundation.

In response, the Clinton campaign said the AP “cherry-picked” from Clinton’s schedule and that she had 1,700 other meetings. The Clintons did not draw a salary from the foundation. Would it be better if those millions of people didn’t get cheaper AIDS drugs?

At the very least, there’s clearly the potential for people to try to buy access. Aware of how this looks, the Clintons have announced they’ll step away from the foundation if she is elected president, although daughter Chelsea will stay on the board – which means the family is still very much involved.

It’s not the kind of situation anticipated by the 22nd Amendment or by the American people. Regardless of what the Clintons do, the question remains: When the first spouse is still young and has a good chance of someday becoming president, does that change the deal?