Category Archives: Politics

It’s the social issues, stupid

A pro-life supporter expresses his opinion at the Capitol in Little Rock during the March for Life January 17.

A pro-life supporter expresses his opinion about Planned Parenthood at the Capitol in Little Rock during the March for Life January 17.

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

Current events are demonstrating that what moves political elites and what moves normal people often are two different things.

The big debate among the political elites is over the size and role of government, particularly regarding the economy. That’s why they donate hundreds of millions of dollars to an establishment candidate like Gov. Jeb Bush who promises to cut spending and taxes, and why they assume, like I did, that Donald Trump would eventually go away. As President Clinton’s 1992 campaign said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” right?

Well, not always. What really moves people often are social and cultural issues: guns, gay rights, abortion, etc. Economic issues are mostly about what people do. Social issues are about who they are.

The prevailing national example of this reality is this year’s presidential race, where Trump is driving conservative elites crazy because he’s never been one of them. He has a history of supporting liberal and moderate political positions and has given money to many Democrats, including the Clintons. During this campaign, he’s not really talking that much about cutting government, the Republican elites’ favorite topic.

But he’s established a connection with many voters talking about illegal immigration, which for elites is merely an economic issue but to average people is also a social and cultural one. He’s going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. That’s not an economic policy. And he’s made political correctness, which is definitely a social issue, part of his campaign by pushing the envelope with his words time and again and never apologizing for it.

Closer to home, on Sunday, thousands of Arkansans opposed to abortion participated in the annual March for Life at the Capitol. They carried handmade signs. They prayed. They donated money to Arkansas Right to Life, which has won a lot of victories in recent years and will push this next legislative session for a ban on dismemberment abortions, where the fetus is torn apart and then extracted from the womb.

Thousands of conservative Arkansans do not march on the Capitol to cut the capital gains tax.

This upcoming Saturday, the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice will respond with a pro-choice rally. Because this is Arkansas, and because abortion is already legal, there won’t be thousands of participants. But, weather permitting, there will be hundreds.

During the 2015 legislative session, the most far-reaching public policy debate was over Arkansas extending the private option, the program that uses federal dollars to purchase health insurance for 200,000 lower-income individuals.

But what really grabbed everyone’s attention was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which some saw as an effort to protect religious belief while others saw it as a tool for discrimination against gays. Activists chanted “Shame on you!” at legislators and then lined the steps inside the Capitol. Corporate interests like Wal-Mart also were opposed. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who initially supported it, sent it back to the Legislature when it reached his desk, and a milder version mirroring federal law was passed.

With economic issues, a lot of people care a little. With social issues, a few people care a lot. In politics, the second is often more powerful than the first. In an October CBS News/New York Times poll, 92 percent said they support background checks for all gun buyers, but Republican candidates know the other 8 percent will base their votes on that issue alone. So no background checks for all gun buyers.

While compromise is doable when it comes to economic issues, it’s very difficult with social ones. If one side says a tax should be 10 percent and the other 14 percent, the two can meet in the middle. With social issues, where the debate is over absolute right and wrong, finding the gray middle ground is harder. Then those deep-seated social divisions bleed into other areas. Elected officials can’t make the difficult compromises needed to balance the budget, for example, after the trenches have been dug over gay rights and guns.

I guess it doesn’t matter that much. Few candidates are seriously talking about balancing the budget, anyway. Maybe they would, if someone could figure out how to turn it into a social issue.

Reducing debt and cures for cancer

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

During the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday, there was an elephant in the room, and I’m not talking about the Republican Party, whose mascot is the pachyderm.

The elephant would be the $19 trillion national debt, ignored by President Obama during an hour-long speech, which was otherwise pretty good, and alluded to a couple of times by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in her Republican response, which was also pretty good.

What was good about the State of the Union speech was its optimistic tone and its call for reason on issues both at home and abroad. The United States should identify and respond to threats, not inflate them so that it makes bad decisions out of fear. Its politics should be messy, not ugly.

However, the president’s only referral to the government’s red ink was to say that annual budget deficits have been reduced amidst other aspects of an improving economy.

That’s true, but while deficits have decreased, they’re still occurring each year, and still adding to the national debt. At the tail end of the Bush administration and the first half of Obama’s, the United States government was spending more than $1 trillion more than it collected each year – more than $3,000 per American per year, and at its worst, $4,000. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the deficit for fiscal year 2015 was $439 billion, or almost $1,400 per American.

Yes, that’s an improvement. We’re adding to the debt less quickly than we were before.

But during this prolonged period of economic growth, policymakers have failed to act to reduce future deficits. They haven’t make changes to the government’s retirement and health care programs that soon will help drive those annual deficits back to $1 trillion levels. They’ve failed to reform a tax code to juice the economy by, if nothing else, reducing the time we all spend doing our taxes. They haven’t created a sustainable method to fund the country’s infrastructure.

The economy is much better than it was in the midst of the Great Recession. Unfortunately, it remains dependent on debt – and worse, the kind caused by in-and-out spending, not investment.

That’s why potentially one of the most important paragraphs in Obama’s speech was tucked in the middle, when he said the United States should cure cancer.

That’s exactly the kind of investment that can make life better for Americans and help reduce all that red ink described earlier in this column. According to the National Institutes of Health, cancer cost the health care system $124.6 billion in 2010 and will cost $158 billion in 2010 dollars in 2020 – and that’s not including the impact of each invaluable life lost, nor the financial and emotional losses suffered by cancer patients and their loved ones. The disease often strikes people during their most productive years, or before they’ve even reached those years. All those things slow the economy, cost taxpayer dollars, and add to the debt.

At the same time we’re spending that kind of money to treat the disease, Congress recently appropriated $5.2 billion for cancer research this fiscal year, which is actually a raise from the previous $4.9 billion. That’s pretty good, but we could do better.

Since 2009, the national discussion over heath care has been about bureaucracies – what kind and how much. At some point, it would be helpful to talk about health care when we’re talking about health care. Curing the various types of cancer would be one of the greatest investments America could ever undertake. It would increase Americans’ ability to enjoy their inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It would be a far greater service to the world than many of the things we’ve been doing since 2001. It would be a wonderful gift to future generations and sort of make up for the debt we’re passing down to them.

The research must take into account not only medical effectiveness, but cost-effectiveness. The NIH assumes in its analysis that new technologies and treatments will cost more, not less. So not only must cures be found, but costs must be affordable – both for Americans and for poorer countries.

We can do it. Americans put a man on the moon. Let’s find cures for cancer next.

Related: Who gets first dibs on Uncle Sam’s money? Its creditors, of course.

Dividing the divisive King-Lee holiday

Gov. Asa Hutchinson

Gov. Asa Hutchinson

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

Gov. Asa Hutchinson is still at the point in his young administration where legislators tend to give him much of what he wants, so it will be interesting to see if he gets this: separating the state’s commemorations – this year on Jan. 18 – of the birthdays of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

In response to a question during a press availability in his office Jan. 6, Hutchinson left no doubt where he stood on the issue, which flared and then faded in the 2015 legislative session. “It’s important that that day be distinguished and separate and focused on that civil rights struggle and what he personally did in that effort,” he said of King.

Hutchinson said lawmakers should vote to separate the holidays when they meet in their next regular session in 2017. “As to this year, I’m certainly going to be celebrating Martin Luther King’s special day. I’ll be attending Martin Luther King events and celebrating the great contributions that he has made to this country,” he said.

He did not say anything about Lee.

The legislation last year to give King his own holiday was pushed by Reps. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, and Rep. Nate Bell of Mena, then a Republican and now the Legislature’s only independent. Asked last January about the issue when he was still brand new in his office and was looking at a very full plate, Hutchinson said, “I haven’t thought about it, so I’d have to give it some more thought. History is important to me, and we’ve just got to balance those, obviously,” according to the Associated Press.

As the legislative session continued, Hutchinson did support separating the commemorations but focused on other issues, such as his tax cut package and the private option, the controversial government health care program that today purchases private health insurance for 200,000 Arkansans.

Clearly, Hutchinson is more willing to confront the issue now. On July 7, 2015, he wrote in a letter to Dale Charles, president of the Arkansas NAACP, “The acts of violence in Charleston have sparked national debate on numerous issues. In Arkansas, the state’s dual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and General Robert E. Lee on the same holiday has reemerged as an issue that must be addressed. As Governor, I will do what is in my power to strive for an exclusive Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as well as develop a strategic plan with valuable stakeholders, including the NAACP and state legislators.”

Hutchinson is sensitive to issues that affect Arkansas’ image and could affect its economic development efforts. Last year, he originally supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which, depending on your perspective, either defended the consciences of traditional believers or allowed for discrimination against homosexuals. When a national firestorm erupted and businesses like Wal-Mart expressed their opposition, he sent the bill back to the Legislature so that a new one could be written that attempted to split the difference by mirroring federal law.

There has been no such firestorm with the King-Lee holiday, but there could be someday. Arkansas is one of only three states, the others being Alabama and Mississippi, that combine the holidays. Even Lee’s beloved home state of Virginia separated the days in 2000. Regardless of the intentions, Arkansas’ pairing, which occurred in 1985 two years after the King Holiday was created nationally, seems like a poke in King’s eye. It’s like the state is saying, “Yes, we’ll give the civil rights leader his day, along with the rest of the nation. But we’ll also honor the Confederate general, just to make it clear that we’re not 100 percent sold on this.”

The King Holiday is meant to bring people together. In Arkansas in 2015, its pairing with Lee’s birthday was a source of division. Is the answer therefore to divide the holiday, with one day remembering King and another recalling Lee? It could be after the Legislature meets in 2017.

Related: The Confederate star on Arkansas’ flag: a history lesson, or a celebration?

Executive orders, congressional disorder

U.S. Capitol for blogBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

This past week saw two big news events that weren’t actually very “new”: President Obama’s announcement that he is issuing yet another executive order, this one related to gun restrictions, and Republicans in Congress voting to repeal Obamacare.

Obama’s executive order, which attempts among other things to close the gun show loophole, doesn’t seem to be that significant a policy move or even a bad proposal. Sellers should all play by the same rules, and I’m not opposed to there being one less avenue for crazy people, convicted felons and terrorists-in-waiting to be able to purchase military-grade weapons.

The problem is the process. Congress has not voted to accomplish what Obama wants to accomplish. More concerning, executive orders are becoming a habit of his, the most obvious example being his attempt to completely bypass Congress on immigration policy. That effort is now being tied up in court, where it should be. And I write that despite the fact that, as with the gun show issue, I agree with Obama in principle that the United States should focus on deporting dangerous illegal immigrants while finding a path to legalization for those who have been here awhile and are otherwise obeying the law.

But that’s another column. This is about misusing the presidency’s powers.

I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to write about Obama in hysterical, apocalyptic terms. Let’s instead have a calm, rational discussion, shall we? President Obama is exceeding his constitutional authority. He should stop doing that.

Actually, Obama is doing exactly what the Founding Fathers anticipated a chief executive would do, which is try to exercise power. They knew that was a bad thing, even if the president’s goals were agreeable.

So they included in the Constitution a system of checks and balances to keep that from happening. Congress makes the law; the president enforces the law; the judiciary interprets the law.

Unfortunately, Congress is failing to check and balance the president, and it’s time for congressional Democrats to step up.

Members of Congress are supposed to place their branch above their political parties – which, by the way, are not even mentioned in the Constitution. Throughout American history, senators and representatives have stood up to presidents who have tried to usurp their role. Instead, with exceptions, congressional Democrats today too often are behaving as if this is a British parliamentary system, where a prime minister leads the government and most everybody falls in line most of the time.

Because I’m determined to offend everyone in this column, congressional Republicans share blame as well. The system is supposed to work through a system of checks and balances, not unending dysfunction. Republicans made a political decision from the beginning of Obama’s presidency to make him fail, no matter what. It’s worked for them – politically. They’ve made huge gains in Congress, in governor’s offices, and in state legislatures. But a more constructive approach would have been better for the country.

Now we’ve had yet another vote to repeal Obamacare – one that actually will make its way to Obama’s desk, where he will veto it.

This is happening because Republicans believe it will help them in November prove once again that President Obama supports Obamacare, along with Democrats, as if there were any doubt about all that. Meanwhile, Republicans still haven’t coalesced behind a plan to replace the system they would repeal. The bill they sent to his desk would give policymakers a couple of years to create an alternative, but if they don’t, or can’t, would we all go back to the days when insurance companies denied coverage to people because of pre-existing conditions, or cut them off when they became too expensive to cover? At the moment, I guess we would.

No one’s the hero, and no one is the villain. What’s happening is that a lot of officeholders are caught up in the big game up there, which is one reason why Obama’s approval ratings are only 45 percent, according to Gallup, while Congress’ are at 13.

Anyway, it’s 2016, and time for us regular folks to vote. If we do our jobs better, maybe they will too.

What Dale Bumpers was

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

In 1992, I interviewed the late Sen. Dale Bumpers while working my first reporting job for the Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald. As we sat on the hood of his gray Pontiac Bonneville outside Ouachita Baptist University’s football field, I asked him why he had never run for president despite once being included as a possible contender on the cover of Time magazine. He looked wistful for a moment, munched some popcorn, said I didn’t have enough space to print the reasons, and then talked about the strain that being president would cause for his family.

His campaign tagline that year while being challenged by future Gov. Mike Huckabee was, “What a senator should be.”

Bumpers, who died last week, would never be president. But even though I was a fan of Huckabee’s at the time and not covering the race as objectively as I should have, I remember thinking that the tagline was appropriate.

The important word in that tagline was “be,” not “do.” I can’t always agree with what Sen. Bumpers did, which is no criticism of him. For example, he voted against President Reagan’s military buildup, which many say hastened the end of the Cold War, which needed to be hastened. I buy their argument.

But more important than what Bumpers did was who he was. He was an orator and a statesman who respected the Constitution and appreciated history. Because of who he was, he took unpopular stands – against banning flag desecration, for handing the Panama Canal to the Panamanians – and then trusted that voters would understand his reasoning and be fair. Back when he was a country lawyer, he advised the Charleston School Board to obey the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka to let black students go to school with white students. Charleston became the first school district in the former Confederacy to do so.

He had common sense and understood simple math – specifically, that if you want to spend more, you’ll have to collect more. As governor of Arkansas, he increased teacher salaries, which he funded by raising taxes, not by financial trickery or by the state accepting money from Uncle Sam.

He was one of three senators to vote for the Reagan budget cuts but against the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, believing that the numbers did not add up in the midst of the defense buildup described a few paragraphs above.

Boy, was he right on that one. In 1981, the national debt, accumulated over nearly two centuries, was $1 trillion. By 1986, it had more than doubled. In the years since then, it’s grown to $19 trillion.

A big reason why is that a grand, unspoken bargain was created during the 1980s. The Republican Party had come under the spell of a theory, supply side economics, whose adherents promised that tax cuts would more than pay for themselves because of the increased economic growth they would spur. One unfortunate consequence of that thinking was that cutting government, while laudable, became not really necessary. That combination of growing government without paying for it obviously appealed to Democrats as well. No one had to make tough decisions because economic growth supposedly would fill in the gaps.

Only it didn’t. Government spent more, and tax receipts didn’t cover it. It was a great deal for officeholders in both parties and current taxpayers who’ve gotten a lot more government than they’ve paid for. But it’s been a terrible bargain for tomorrow’s taxpayers who will make up the difference or else follow our example and load up their own kids with debt. More than most in Congress, Bumpers refused to participate in the bargain.

Bumpers told me that day in 1992, “I want to be remembered as a guy who was proud of being a politician and who stood up for what he believed and what he felt was best for his country, even at times when it was very unpopular to do it.”

That is how he’ll be remembered – because of who he was, even more than what he did.