Category Archives: Politics

Looking ahead to an eventful 2016

Calendar turning copyBy Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Happy new year. In Arkansas politics, it’s going to be an eventful one.

In January, Gov. Asa Hutchinson will meet with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to request a waiver for “Arkansas Works.” That’s his version of the private option, the program that uses federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private insurance for lower-income individuals. He’s asking for changes that will require more personal responsibility on the part of recipients, and which will make it more acceptable to Republican legislators. Those legislators will vote on Arkansas Works, or something like it, in a special session focused on health care in the middle of the year.

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Next year’s health care ‘cage fight’

CapitolBy Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

In mid-December, I wrote that legislators would decide how to reform health care in Arkansas by the end of the month. As the TV character Maxwell Smart used to say, “Missed it by THAT MUCH.”

What legislators actually did was give Gov. Asa Hutchinson a few months to negotiate with the federal government – and then sometime next year they’ll decide how to reform health care. It will be a “cage fight,” in the words of Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, chairman of the Health Reform Legislative Task Force (and Hutchinson’s nephew).

The task force was created last year to determine what to do about Medicaid and the private option. Medicaid is the health care program for the poor, the aged and disabled. The private option is the Medicaid program that buys private insurance for Arkansans with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The private option, which was created in 2013, currently is funded entirely by the federal government, but Arkansas begins paying 5 percent in 2017 and 10 percent by 2020.

The private option provides health insurance for about 200,000 Arkansans. It is the primary reason the state has cut in half its number of uninsured residents, lessening the unpaid care provided by hospitals. But critics believe it is an unacceptable concession to Obamacare that eventually will cost the state a lot of money. It must pass with 75 percent support from each house in the Legislature each year, which means nine senators can kill it.

Hutchinson, who wants to keep it, persuaded lawmakers this year to fund it through the end of 2016 while his administration and the task force create an alternative. He’s proposed a sequel, “Arkansas Works,” that like many sequels looks a lot like the original. It would, however, involve more personal responsibility on the part of beneficiaries, including requiring those with higher incomes to shoulder part of the cost for what is now essentially free health care.

Those changes will require a waiver from the federal government that Hutchinson has already started seeking. In January, he’ll meet with Sylvia Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He’ll probably get part of what he wants because Burwell will know the private option is on shaky ground. But he already knows he won’t get everything he’d like.

He requested and received the task force’s blessing to proceed. During a voice vote on a motion supporting his efforts Dec. 16, zero legislators voted no.

But legislators weren’t necessarily endorsing Hutchinson’s overall goals. Sen. Cecille Bledsoe, R-Rogers, a private option opponent who had led the task force in applauding Hutchinson the day before, didn’t vote at all. She’s not opposed to seeking waivers because it can’t hurt to ask. But she remains deeply concerned about the program, whatever it’s called. Among her fears is that the federal government won’t hold up its end of the bargain of paying 90 percent, forcing Arkansas to pay more.

The next few months will be eventful. Hutchinson will request and then await the waiver. On March 1, Arkansas’ party primary elections could reduce the number of pro-private option lawmakers, though the new officials won’t take office until January 2016. There will be a fiscal session after the primaries and then a special session regarding health care that could be a doozy.

Somewhat surprisingly, the biggest debate for now is not about the private option but about adopting a managed care model where a private company would be contracted to manage parts of Medicaid. Even the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ director, John Selig, says private companies could better manage some services than DHS can.

But DHS’ record on contracts has been disappointing lately – the most notable example being a computer system for tracking Medicaid re-enrollments that is $100 million over budget. And not everyone supports managed care, anyway. Opponents include a group of mostly Republican legislators who make their livings in health care and believe Arkansas would be better served expanding the reforms it’s already undertaken. So the same day the task force gave Hutchinson its blessing on the waiver, it also instructed its consultant, The Stephen Group, to see if it could find enough savings over five years using the current model to cover the state’s 10 percent in 2020. Then lawmakers will decide if that route is better than managed care.

So changes are still coming to Arkansas health care. It’s just the cage fight will be next year, not this past one.

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For additional reading: Is health care a commodity or an entitlement? Neither.

For legislators, The Stephen Group report was an ink blot test.

Tax-cut-and-spend Congress

Uncle Sam hangs on for webBy Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Many Republican members of Congress, including all six members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation, have signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge not to raise taxes, and mostly they stick to it. Many Democrats have signed a pledge not to mess with Social Security. But there’s no group asking members of Congress to pledge to reduce the national debt.

Much as I hate all these pledges, maybe there should be.

This past week, Congress rushed through two legislative packages that will make the national debt bigger. One was a package that permanently extended tax breaks that, in fairness, mostly were being routinely extended temporarily before. We’re now assured of adding $700 billion to the national debt over 10 years, whereas before we at least argued about it every year. All four members of Arkansas’ House delegation voted for the deal, which was consistent with the pledge they have signed.

And that wouldn’t be a problem, if Congress had voted to cut spending elsewhere to offset the tax cuts. Just as you and I ought to cut back on spending if we decide to take a job that pays less, Congress ought to cut spending if it cuts taxes.

Instead, Congress also voted this week for a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending package that increases spending by $50 billion. The 2,000-page bill is full of provisions that range from the important (allowing the U.S. to compete in the oil exporting market) to the mundane ($65 million for salmon restoration). It was negotiated by congressional leaders behind closed doors and then presented to the membership with little time for them to read it and nothing else on the table to avert a government shutdown.

To their credit, Arkansas’ senators, Sen. John Boozman and Sen. Tom Cotton, voted against both packages, which were combined in the Senate into one vote. In the House, Rep. Rick Crawford and Rep. Bruce Westerman get credit for voting against the spending package. Meanwhile, I can’t blame the two House members who voted for that package, Rep. French Hill and Rep. Steve Womack. Time was running out, there was no alternative, and many Republicans want to give new Speaker Paul Ryan, who helped broker the deal, a chance to succeed.

Also, the tax deal isn’t that much of a break from past policy. It mostly extended tax breaks permanently that were being extended temporarily year after year. Now at least we have clarity.

The problem is that once again, members of Congress voted to cut taxes, increase spending, and add to the debt because they don’t have enough motivations to behave differently. People often complain about “tax-and-spend liberals.” The truth is that most members of Congress often are “tax-cut-and-spend Republicans and Democrats.” And that’s why the national debt is creeping toward $19 trillion, or $58,000 for every American.

In signing the combined packages into law Friday, President Obama said, “I think the system worked.”

He’s right. The system worked perfectly. It did exactly what it was designed to do: Cut taxes, increase spending, and make the numbers work because the costs will be borne by future generations who don’t yet vote.

This has been going on for almost all of America’s history. According to the U.S. Treasury’s website, the national debt was $71 million in 1790, and then it dipped to less than $34,000 at the beginning of 1835, and it’s been pretty much rising ever since, until recently, when it exploded under your and my watch. It took about 191 years for it to reach $1 trillion and then needed 20 years to reach $6 trillion. Under the last two presidents, it’s grown another $13 trillion. As of Dec. 16, it was $18,796,279,678,290.28.

Two things can change this dynamic.

One is voluntary. Voters can elect fiscally responsible candidates. In office, those lawmakers must place as high a priority on future generations as they do on cutting taxes and increasing spending today. Would signing a pledge to reduce the debt help? It’s helped elsewhere.

More likely, there must be a mechanism, such as a balanced budget amendment, that makes it easier for elected officials to make responsible choices because, if they don’t, they’re breaking or at least skirting the law.

That way the system would work only when it does right by everyone – those who vote, those who don’t, and those who can’t because they’re too young or not yet born.

Next president: one of these four

Hand with ballot and box
By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

You might think there are 17 candidates still running for president – as of Thursday morning, anyway. There are actually four-and-a-half.

There’s Hillary Clinton, who’s been the Democrats’ 2016 nominee since then-candidate Barack Obama clinched the party’s nomination in 2008. Among Republicans, there’s Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Sen. Marco Rubio.

The next president is probably one of those four. Let’s give half a slot to someone else who might emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire as still a viable candidate.

Who could that be? Former Gov. Jeb Bush’s last name has helped him raise money but hasn’t helped him in the polls. Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina had their moments but have faded. Gov. John Kasich never caught on. This is not the year for Sen. Rand Paul’s brand of very-small-government Republicanism, if ever there will be one. Gov. Chris Christie appears to be on the upswing, a little.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee started in the top 10 but has never gained traction. His path to victory – win Iowa and build momentum with support from Christian conservatives – was blocked by Cruz, Carson, Rubio and, surprisingly, Trump.

This week, Huckabee was relegated to the undercard debate for the second time. His spokesperson, Alice Stewart, left the campaign. A traveler snapped a photo published on the Arkansas Times website of him pushing his bag through the Little Rock airport, head down and cane in hand after a recent knee surgery. Behind him was former first lady Janet Huckabee dragging her luggage. No one else was with them.

Little Rock is home to Huckabee’s campaign headquarters, but he lives in Florida now, and of course his focus has been on the Iowa caucus six weeks away. There are many reasons why he could be here in December, but a staff meeting followed by a press conference would not surprise me. His former campaign manager, Ed Rollins, said a candidate must be able to look into the mirror every day and see the next president of the United States. It would be tough for Huckabee to do that now.

That leaves Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Trump is the Republican Party establishment’s worst nightmare because he’s not part of their clique, and because he’s not really a conservative or even a Republican, and because they can’t control him, and because he’s accelerating the party’s descent into what Sen. Lindsey Graham once called a “demographic death spiral.”

What Graham was talking about was the fact that the GOP is too much the party of white people in a country where white people are shrinking as a percentage of the population. According to Gallup, President Obama won 89 percent of nonwhite voters in 2012 and 90 percent in 2008. John Kerry won 83 percent in 2004. As pointed out on fivethirtyeight.com, President Reagan won 56 percent of white voters in 1980 and won 44 states, while Mitt Romney won 59 percent of white voters in 2012 but lost the election. That’s because nonwhite voters have increased from 12 percent of the electorate to 28 percent and will keep rising.

Trump’s sweeping comments about Mexican rapists and shutting the door on all overseas Muslims play well with many voters but don’t help the GOP with its demographic problem. There’s also his comments about women, a majority of the electorate that voted for Obama by 14 points in 2012, Gallup says. If Trump wins the nomination, he’ll be running against a very tough woman. That should be interesting.

Republicans – who, let’s remember, control the House and Senate and occupy 31 governors’ seats – have other problems in presidential elections. Democrats have won four of the last six elections and the popular vote in five of them. Electoral College math elected George W. Bush president in 2000, but now it favors Democrats. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have voted for the Democrat in six straight elections, giving them 242 reliable votes, just 28 short of victory. Republicans have won 13 states with 102 votes six straight times, as shown by Politifact.

Other states are reliably red, but Republicans still must win most of the purple states. It’s hard to see that happening with Cruz, who sees and speaks about the world in black and white (and blue and red).

That leaves Rubio, who is quickly becoming the establishment’s choice. So was Jeb Bush.

Rookie still trying to shine light on campaigns

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers, is a rookie, and she admits she made some rookie mistakes.

During this past legislative session, her self-described rookie-ness got in her way as she tried to pass a bill that would have required legislative and statewide candidates to file campaign finance reports online in a searchable database. It failed in the House, 48-33, with 19 not voting, and never made it to the Senate.

Arkansas is one of 17 states where legislators have the option of electronically filing those reports, or to file by paper. At least 31 states require electronic reports.

Why does it matter? Filing reports by paper makes it harder for voters to follow the money trail. They can see the reports online at the secretary of state’s website, votenaturally.com, but only in document form. They can’t do a search to learn who is donating to more than one candidate, and how much.

True, it’s possible to print out every legislative report and wade through the information. But that would take an enormous amount of time that few people have – not we in the media who also must cover other news, and certainly not the average Joe citizen.

That information is important – certainly more important than what’s on candidates’ websites. The type of donors who give to multiple candidates are doing so because they want something. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something.

I could be naive, but I think most elected officials at the Capitol imperfectly are trying to do mostly the right thing most of the time – just like the rest of us when we’re put into gray-area situations with conflicting influences. But no matter how noble they are, they can’t ignore the people whose donations made it possible for them to be elected.

Because campaigning is a for-profit enterprise, money will flow to political candidates like water flows downhill. The most effective reform is to shine as much light as possible on the process. That way, voters can determine for themselves which elected officials are navigating an imperfect system appropriately, and which ones are being overly influenced by donors.

Back to the rookie. Della Rosa said one of the mistakes she made this past legislative session was idealistically focusing only on how the system would benefit the public when lobbying her fellow legislators, which is not the best way to change someone’s personal behavior. If she’s re-elected in 2016, she’ll push a complete redo of the system that will make campaigning easier for them.

Filing campaign finance reports is a huge pain in the neck. It’s very easy to make an honest mistake, and then an elected official finds his or her name in a headline alongside the words “ethics violation.” The current electronic filing system is kind of glitchy. So Della Rosa is promising an e-filing system that will be easier to navigate and will prompt and warn candidates to keep them out of undeserved trouble.

Implementation costs have averaged $500,000 to $2 million per state, but perhaps Arkansas could purchase a system already used elsewhere. Yes, that’s an expense, but it would be worth it to be able to follow the money.

Della Rosa outlined her proposal Nov. 19 before a legislative subcommittee that certainly seemed ready to embrace it. At least, no one was willing to speak publicly against more transparency. Sen. John Cooper, R-Jonesboro, another rookie legislator, was particularly ready to march alongside her.

One of the objections legislators raised earlier this year was that some candidates live in areas without adequate broadband internet access. So she brought along Shelby Johnson, director of the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems Office, who said the entire state is covered by satellite internet service and that a large part of it is covered by other services, particularly wireless. In other words, no one must travel that far to find internet service capable of uploading a simple document.

By 2017, another two years will have passed where some legislators who weren’t comfortable with the internet will become more so, or will be replaced by someone who is. No doubt some legislative opponents don’t particularly want their campaign donors known, but fear of change is often the biggest hurdle any salesperson must overcome. If Della Rosa is still in office, she’ll be able to make an offer that will be hard to refuse – a system that benefits both voters and candidates.