Category Archives: U.S. Congress

Here are my Arkansans of the year. Who are yours?

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

Recently, Time magazine announced its “Person of the Year,” based on who its editors believe had the most impact, for good or bad, in 2016. It’s choice was President-elect Donald Trump.

Based on that criteria, who would be the Arkansans of the Year?

The list would have to include David Couch, the attorney who – basically by himself with the financial support of two donors – legalized marijuana for medicinal use in Arkansas. Couch proposed the amendment and qualified it for the ballot in a way that it survived a Supreme Court challenge when all the other voter-initiated proposals were declared invalid. He helped engineer the removal of a rival medical marijuana proposal. Then he ran just enough of a campaign to pass the measure with 53 percent of the vote.

As a result, Arkansans will have greater access to a natural remedy that clearly helps some patients. Sick people will have an option other than manufactured chemicals produced by industrialized, bottom-line-focused pharmaceutical companies. For some, marijuana will replace opiates, which, though legal, potentially are far more addictive and dangerous, even deadly. At least for now, no longer will otherwise law-abiding citizens be forced to sneak around state and local authorities to help themselves or their loved ones.

At the same time, the drug inevitably will find its way into the hands of people who are not sick, including curious young people using it for experimentation, not medicine. The state has taken a step in the direction of full legalization – the potential destination being Denver, where marijuana stores are more common than McDonald’s restaurants. The medical profession must now incorporate a treatment process it doesn’t fully understand. Employers must now negotiate a regulatory minefield using maps that keep changing.

In the upcoming legislative session, medical marijuana will command the attention of legislators who, in many cases, voted against it. Policymakers must now create a system legalizing a substance in Arkansas that’s still illegal in America, while keeping an eye on an incoming U.S. attorney general who has indicated strong opposition to the drug.

How’s that for impact?

Right up there with Couch is Cindy Gillespie, the state’s new director of the Department of Human Services. While so many others argue about past and future health care systems, she is in charge of administering much of the one we’ve got.

What has her job been like this year? In March, she took over an $8.4 billion agency that was a mess, and began cleaning it up. As of May, there was a backlog of 146,000 Medicaid applications, some dating back to 2013. Now there are less than 9,000, and probably none by the end of December. Her agency is in charge of the controversial private option, soon to be Arkansas Works, where the state buys private health insurance for more than 300,000 Arkansans – more than a tenth of us. Medicaid pays for nursing home patients and children’s health care. It also is responsible for finding temporary and at times permanent homes for the state’s foster children – yet another systemic crisis she is tasked with taming.

Two others would qualify for my list. Sen. Tom Cotton increased his national profile through his forceful denunciation of the Obama administration’s Iran deal and further positioned himself as a future presidential contender. If Hillary Clinton had won, he’d be running for president in 2020. (Bonus points for him for becoming a father for the second time this month.) Christie Erwin’s Project Zero organization this year connected 113 children with their adoptive families. What a huge impact she had on all of them.

Finally, it must be said that “impact” is impossible to measure. Seemingly earth-shattering people and events are soon forgotten. What happens in obscurity can set in motion world-changing chains of events. We must place little stock in journalists, or anyone, trying to explain The Meaning of It All. After all, a baby born in Bethlehem at most would have merited a few lines in the birth announcements at the time.

David Couch, Cindy Gillespie, Tom Cotton, and Christie Erwin – those are my Arkansans of the year. Who would be yours?

Please, Congress, if you cut taxes, cut spending too

Uncle Sam hangs on for webBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Here’s a simple request of our elected officials when they gather in Washington next year with Republicans in charge of everything: If you’re going to cut taxes, please cut spending, too.

I make that request for the future because I am not reassured by the past – not the past year, or the last 35, or the last 200.

Since 1790, the United States has been in a continual state of debt. There was a brief period in the mid-1830s when the debt was very small – it even briefly was paid off in 1835. But it reached $1 billion in 1863 during the Civil War and has never looked back. It has grown smaller at times as a percentage of gross domestic product, but the overall trajectory has been ever higher. In fact, the last time the United States owed less one year than the previous one was 1957, according to the government’s own Treasury Department website.

It took almost 200 years for the national debt to reach $1 trillion – in other words, 1,000 billions. It crossed that point somewhere around late 1981. By 1990, it was $3.2 trillion; by 2000, it was $5.7 trillion; by 2009, $11.9 trillion; and today, it’s $19.9 trillion. That’s more than $61,000 for every American.

So that’s almost 200 years to reach $1 trillion and then 35 years to reach $20 trillion. This is beginning to look like a death spiral.

That’s a discouraging couple of centuries. Then came this year. President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on large tax cuts while barely mentioning spending cuts. He said he wants to spend more on the military, spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, build a wall along the Mexican border, and leave the growing Social Security and Medicare programs alone.

When he comes into office next year, he will be working with a Republican Congress that will want to act quickly to enact some of its long-suppressed priorities while it controls both the executive and legislative branches. They will want to do big things fast while they still can. In 2001, when Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress, they passed a tax cut and then went on an extended spending spree along with their Democratic counterparts. In 2009, Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress, so they quickly passed their big thing, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

If Republicans want to cut taxes, that’s fine, but that big thing also must be accompanied by another big thing, which is cutting spending by at least an equal amount.

History suggests they won’t do that – that they will focus on the tax cuts and spend more on defense without really cutting spending elsewhere, because Americans like tax cuts and more spending, and elected officials’ jobs depend on being liked.

If tax cuts come first without spending cuts, elected officials will justify it by arguing that the tax cuts will spur so much economic growth that they will pay for the same old spending. And it’s true that tax cuts do spur growth, as does deficit spending. When you have more money, your standard of living improves. It makes no difference, for a time, if that money is borrowed from someone else. But someone eventually has to pay the bill.

So I have this simple request of Arkansas’ congressional delegation: Don’t let history repeat itself. Please, Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, and Reps. Rick Crawford, French Hill, Steve Womack and Bruce Westerman – don’t make the assumption that tax cuts will spur so much growth that corresponding spending cuts can be put off for another time. Have the political will to do both at the same time, and if you don’t possess that will, at least do neither. If your tax cuts more than pay for themselves, then apply the new revenues to paying down the debt, which has not been done since the Eisenhower administration. And if they don’t, then you will have cut taxes and cut spending, which is what you’ve said you wanted to accomplish all along, without adding to the debt.

I make this request on behalf of myself, but also because I have two daughters and eventually expect to have grandchildren too. I’d like to give them an inheritance, not hand them a bill.

Castro’s death moves Cuba farther into the market for Arkansas rice, ideas

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

Fidel Castro is dead. How does that affect people in Arkansas? Maybe a lot, especially if they work in the rice industry or are elected to represent people who do.

Cuba’s 11 million people import 400,000 tons of rice each year, mostly from Vietnam, which means the rice arrives after a long boat ride from a country on the other side of the globe. Rep. Rick Crawford’s eastern Arkansas 1st District includes half of America’s rice acreage, so it’s understandable that his reaction to Castro’s death focused on the future, not the past.

“Fidel Castro’s death is an opportunity for America to end its ineffective policies so we can influence the future direction of that nation,” he tweeted, then added, “Through my own visits to Cuba I’ve seen people ready for change. With Fidel dead, America needs to help lead Cuba toward a better future.”

Crawford for some time has been an outspoken supporter of prying open Cuba’s markets, which have been largely closed since Oct. 19, 1960, because of the American trade embargo. He’s pushed legislation to allow Cubans to purchase agricultural products on credit rather than the currently required cash, of which Cubans don’t have much, so they could replace that Vietnamese rice with fresher, cheaper rice grown here.

Two other Arkansas officials who represent those same eastern Arkansas agricultural producers (and voters) took a similar forward-looking approach. Sen. John Boozman tweeted, “I hope the death of Fidel Castro marks a new beginning for an American-Cuban partnership and brings light to democracy in #Cuba.” Speaking to reporters, Gov. Asa Hutchinson called Castro’s death a “moment that I believe needs to be seized.”

President-elect Donald Trump said he would terminate the current opening with Cuba initiated by President Obama unless Cuba makes a better deal for its own people, for Cuban-Americans, and for the United States. That threat may have just been the country’s new dealmaker-in-chief doing what he does, which is start the negotiating process by taking a hard line and then moving away from it.

In response, the governor said Trump’s stance is “understandable,” but while change must be accompanied by enhanced freedom for Cubans, “I hope that we do not go back to the simple, straightforward, rigid embargo that we have tried for 50-plus years.”

Hutchinson and Boozman represent the state while Crawford represents his district, so their remarks were meant for those audiences. Sen. Tom Cotton has an additional audience – a national one. It includes many people who, like him, have argued that this thawing of relations between America and Cuba will only help the Castro regime. Cotton released a two-sentence comment focused on the past, except for one assertion of Castro’s future: “Fidel Castro created hell on earth for the Cuban people. He will now become intimately familiar with what he wrought.”

Count me with Crawford, Boozman and Hutchinson on this one. The American people are supposed to be practical-minded problem-solvers who, when something doesn’t work, try something else. We’re the country where Thomas Edison invented the light bulb through experimentation, failure and more experimentation. And yet when it comes to its Cuba policy, we’ve stubbornly tried the same thing for 56 years that clearly didn’t work. Only old age and death, not the American trade embargo, removed Castro from power. Now his brother, Raul, remains in charge. He’s 85, by the way.

Pry open the doors to Cuba, let in a little freedom, and see what happens. Arkansas rice will be more than just an item on the dinner table. It will be a taste of what a free market economy offers. As Cuba opens itself to visitors from Arkansas and elsewhere, it will not be able to choke off ideas that are contrary to its glorious revolution. Fifty-five years after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, an army of businessmen, tourists and missionaries will descend on an island 90 miles from Florida, accomplishing what the embargo never could.

Somebody’s going to sell rice to the Cubans, and when they do they’ll also export their ideas and way of life. Currently, that exporter is Vietnam, another repressive communist regime. I think Arkansas offers a better deal.

The campaign that wasn’t

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

This year’s U.S. Senate campaign would seem to fit neatly into a junior high textbook description of how the country’s two-plus party system operates. The incumbent, Sen. John Boozman, is a well-liked, mild-mannered Republican. He’s older and wiser and not one to rock the boat, which is a good or bad thing, depending on a voter’s perspective. He’s being challenged by a young, energetic Democrat, Conner Eldridge, who hasn’t previously run for elective office and has things he wants to do. Adding to the interest is the Libertarian candidate, Frank Gilbert, who makes an eloquent case for views not held by the majority of voters.

It’s not hard to imagine how that junior high textbook would describe such a campaign: as a contest of ideas where the candidates discuss the issues and the voters choose the best one.

Instead, it’s been the campaign that wasn’t. Most people’s attention, including mine, has been riveted on The Hillary and Donald Show at the top of the ticket. There have been times when I couldn’t take my eyes off that circus even when I wanted to.

Meanwhile, Arkansas is now such a red state that Boozman has been able to rely on his party label and the advantages of incumbency. Plus, maybe voters just think he has done a good enough job. You may not agree with him, but you can’t help but like him. So it’s no surprise that, in a recent Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College poll, Boozman was leading his two opponents, 52-34-4.

With so much in his favor, Boozman adopted a simple strategy: Ignore Eldridge. Eldridge challenged him to a series of debates, but Boozman refused to take the bait, and, besides, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. They debated once on AETN, and it didn’t fundamentally alter the race. Trying to break through, or at least get under Boozman’s skin, Eldridge drove a truck through the state with two lecterns to illustrate his charge that Boozman was avoiding him and debated Gilbert several times with an extra lectern supposedly meant for Boozman.

In other words, Boozman has behaved as anyone would behave with a big lead: by playing it safe and running out the clock. Eldridge has done what he could to change the game’s direction, but he never could raise the money to mount a challenge or gain momentum or just get some attention. Gilbert has shared his views with whoever would listen.

The campaign never could be about the issues, so then it became about non-issues. Eldridge has tried to make something of Boozman’s international travels, which would seem to be part of the job of being a senator, and has said Boozman hasn’t spent enough time in the district. He criticized Boozman for refusing to disavow Donald Trump, which wasn’t destined to have much success in a state where more Arkansans say they are voting for Trump than for Boozman. Boozman’s campaign, when it hasn’t pretended Eldridge doesn’t exist, ripped page one out of the GOP playbook and tied Eldridge to President Obama, who appointed Eldridge as a U.S. attorney. The issue has not been whether Eldridge had served well but that he had served, period.

Boozman is going to win. Regardless, a U.S. Senate campaign, especially one with three textbook candidates, ought to be a bigger deal to all of us than this, even when The Hillary and Donald Show is on.

A senator is an important official. There are only 100 of them, each state gets only two, they serve six years, and they aren’t term-limited. Sen. Dale Bumpers was in office 24 years – three times longer than any president except President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And senators make important decisions, including ratifying treaties and confirming Supreme Court justices, according to the textbooks. A single senator taking advantage of the rules can just about grind Congress to a halt. But for all the reasons listed above, this year’s race just hasn’t reflected that importance.

The next Senate campaign in Arkansas is scheduled for 2020 – another presidential election year. It’s hard to imagine that one being as crazy as this one, but then, it was hard to imagine this one. Maybe that Senate race will get more attention. Sen. Tom Cotton, who arouses passion on both sides, will be on the ballot then – at least as a Senate candidate, and maybe more.

Related: How Conner Eldridge thinks he can win.
A husband first, and then a candidate.

Spend less to tax less

Lt. Governor Tim Griffin says tightening state government's finances is the necessary first step to cutting taxes.

Lt. Governor Tim Griffin says tightening state government’s finances is the necessary first step to cutting taxes.

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

Lt. Governor Tim Griffin is pushing an idea: Cut spending first and then cut taxes. It’s so crazy it just might work, which is why he wants to try it in Arkansas and why, hopefully, someone will try it in Washington, D.C.

Griffin, who has announced he is running for re-election in 2018, points to the state’s ranking in the high 40s in many areas. Sitting across the table from me in a Little Rock coffee shop, he said the state can’t get to the top by tweaking. “Bold is the only option” he said.

A top priority would be the state’s income tax. It ranks in the middle of the country, according to the Tax Foundation, but the top rate, 6.9 percent, is tied for 14th highest and hits all filers with incomes of $35,099, which is not exactly Walton money.

Arkansas’ top rate is higher than all its surrounding states, including Texas, which has no income tax. Thus the state is at a competitive disadvantage, which is one reason Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to cut income taxes next year, as was done in 2015. Hutchinson probably will propose relatively modest cuts. Griffin wants to go big.

The problem, Griffin says, is that elected officials who talk about tax cuts run into a brick wall erected by those who argue that the state won’t have enough revenues to meet critical needs. To get past that, the state must make reforms to meet those needs with fewer dollars.

The simplest way of looking at how the state spends money is its general revenue budget, which in fiscal year 2017 is $5.3 billion. Griffin says making government 10 percent more efficient, which is really doable, would free up $530 million – enough for a substantial income tax cut along with increased spending in other areas, such as highways.

Griffin is talking about not just cutting waste, fraud and abuse, but instead undertaking systemic reforms of state agencies, many of which he says were designed before the remote control was invented. He says if a boat is designed to require six rowers, it does no good to try to propel it with four. Instead, change the boat so it only needs four.

“Make smart government your focus. … If you just cut, you still have the same inefficient systems in place that require the inefficient resources,” he said.

Last year, Griffin undertook a review of the state’s massive Department of Human Services, which takes care of a lot of the state’s neediest residents and is a mess. Its new director, Cindy Gillespie, now is reorganizing it. Griffin wants to see the same effort undertaken across state government. He started by cutting one position from his three-person office.

Griffin says state government has a moral obligation to spend taxpayer dollars efficiently. He says Arkansas must be competitive with other states. And, it must prepare for the day when the debt-ridden federal government starts sending less money to Arkansas.

And that brings us to Washington, D.C., where Republicans adhere to two entrenched beliefs that are very different from what Griffin, a former Republican congressman, is describing. One, “starve the beast,” says government can be shrunk by depriving it of money through tax cuts. The other belief is that tax cuts generate so much economic growth that spending cuts aren’t really necessary. Donald Trump’s plan reflects that belief – tax cuts without spending cuts – which is why the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says it could add $11.5 trillion to the national debt.

Republicans in Washington over the past few decades have pledged allegiance to those two beliefs, enthusiastically cutting taxes without insisting on cutting government. Democrats shook hands on that bargain because they like to spend without taxing, too. The result has been the national debt ballooning from $1 trillion in 1981 to $19.4 trillion today. Unfortunately, money did not grow on trees, and the beast wasn’t starved because it could reach across the table into the future and steal food from the plates of our children and grandchildren.

All of this should make perfect sense to those of us who live on a budget. If you are struggling to make ends meet, you look for waste and inefficiency in your spending first, and certainly before you switch to a lower-paying job.

It makes sense in government, too, where being smart should be the focus, and where the state of Arkansas is a good place to start.

Related: If Trump or Clinton succeed? More debt.