Category Archives: U.S. Congress

Will Arkansans see $430 Social Security cut?

Leave a reply

tax, taxes, debt, deficits, spending, trillion, State of the Union, deficit hawks, balanced budget amendment, Jonathan Bydlak, immigration, $98.8 trillion, $970 billion, Social Security cutIf Congress doesn’t act, the average Arkansas retiree could see a Social Security monthly benefit cut of $430 in 2032, based on findings from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

More than 19% of the state’s population, or 589,427 Arkansans, could be affected, including retirees, survivors and dependents. Arkansas could lose somewhere around $3 billion, which would be 1.6% of its economy. That percentage is the eighth highest among all the states.

All of that’s according to a new interactive tool, “No State Spared,” on the CRFBs website at www.crfb.org/nostatespared.

The reduction would occur because the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is set to become insolvent in the fourth quarter of 2032. 

That’s the funding mechanism that pays Social Security benefits to senior citizens and their survivors. Another Social Security trust fund for disabled Americans is in good shape for at least the next 75 years.

Continue reading →

Westerman tries to engineer health care fix

Leave a reply
Bruce Westerman Fair Care Act

Westerman

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., an engineer before he was a congressman, is trying to redesign the American health care system through the Fair Care Act.

He’s been introducing versions of the FCA since 2019 to reform a system that composes 18% of gross domestic product but often doesn’t produce better results than other countries’ systems that cost much less.

“I kind of approach everything from an engineering mindset,” he said. “You go through the engineering, problem-solving methodology. And it’s identify the problem, come up with a plan to solve the problem, do the work to solve the problem, and present your answer.”

Westerman said he proposed the 434-page FCA as a bipartisan solution. It has ideas from both parties and has had Democratic co-sponsorship in the past. He said past one-party efforts – the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the unsuccessful Republican repeal effort in 2017 – haven’t worked. Continue reading →

Lawmakers hit brakes on gas tax suspension

Leave a reply

Efforts to suspend the gas tax have stalled in Congress and went nowhere at the state level in Arkansas.

President Trump in May proposed temporarily suspending the tax. Doing so would partially offset gas prices that have risen to $4 per gallon because of the war with Iran. The idea seemed to have a lot of momentum at first, but no more.

Suspending the gas tax would require congressional action, which so far isn’t coming. Sen. Tom Cotton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it would not be a “durable solution” and that it would reduce funding for Arkansas highway projects.

Instead, he said the way to reduce oil prices would be to win the war and open the Strait of Hormuz that Iran has partially closed, and through which 20% of the world’s oil supply floats.

Continue reading →

Rep. Steve Womack: Biggest threat not Iran, China or debt

Steve WomackWhat’s the country’s biggest threat? According to U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, it’s not a nuclear-armed Iran, China attacking Taiwan, or the nearly $40 trillion national debt.

“It is the profound division in the body politic that prevents the legislative branch of the greatest country this world has ever known, that prevents that legislative body from doing its most basic function,” he said in Springdale Wednesday. “And then you have to ask, ‘How did we get here?’ …

“Let me tell you how we got here. We got here because we couldn’t control ourselves in the area of redistricting.”

Womack, who represents the 3rd Congressional District in northwest Arkansas, made his comments at a conference of the state’s engineering firms and the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

While part of his remarks covered infrastructure, he spent most of the last 10 minutes discussing partisanship and gerrymandering. The latter is the centuries-old process where majority parties redraw congressional districts using sometimes squiggly lines to ensure their states elect more of their own party members. Democrats and Republicans both do it. Continue reading →

Is SAVE America Act worth all the trouble?

vote, Mark Moore, 16-year-olds, Arkansas, primaries, Goodson, photo ID, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, SAVE America ActMost Americans agree with requiring voters to present an ID at the ballot box. It’s already the law in Arkansas. Should it be a federal law, and should the government also require people to present a birth certificate or a passport in order to register to vote?

Those questions arise as Republicans in Congress, under President Trump’s leadership, seek to pass the SAVE America Act.

The bill would require voters to present a photo ID when voting in federal elections and to provide documentary proof of citizenship – generally a passport or birth certificate – when registering. 

The House of Representatives passed the bill, 218-213, with one Democrat voting with Republicans. All four members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted for it. It’s now in the Senate, where Arkansas Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman are co-sponsors.  Continue reading →