By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

This is the part of the calendar when columnists sometimes make predictions for the new year. Let’s be up front about one thing: I can’t predict the future.

That said, here are 11 expectations for 2019.

– Tax cuts. They’re happening in Arkansas. Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to cut the top rate from 6.9 percent to 5.9 percent. He sees it as a competitiveness issue with other states. On Dec. 7, he told the Arkansas School Boards Association that the governor of Massachusetts “gasped” when Hutchinson told him how high our state’s rate is.

– Health care. The big controversy in Arkansas is over the requirement that some recipients of the Arkansas Works health insurance program must report they are working or engaging in other productive activities. That controversy will end early next year when a federal judge rules against that requirement. He’s already ruled against a similar one in Kentucky. If that happens while the Legislature is debating funding the division that runs the program, opponents will use it as ammunition to try to kill it, as they have in the past. But ultimately, Arkansas Works will be funded.

– Highways. The Legislature will refer to voters a ballot initiative for 2020 that primarily relies on raising diesel taxes and extending the half-cent sales tax funding the Connecting Arkansas Program.

– Medical marijuana. It’s been more than two years since Arkansas voters approved it. In 2019, the product will become available.

– Legal problems for legislators. We know five ex-legislators have been convicted recently for fraudulent activities, while another has been indicted. We know only two are in prison. We know the investigations by the feds and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge are ongoing. We can surmise that some of those still-free ex-legislators are giving information to investigators, and it must be valuable. So we can expect more elected officials, current or ex-, to be charged with something.

– Legislative fireworks. If history repeats itself, a hot-button issue related to guns, transgender bathrooms, etc., will generate more interest outside the Capitol than the preceding five bullet points combined.

– Partisan gridlock in Washington. I’m going out on a limb on this one, aren’t I? Democrats who control certain House committees will use that power to investigate President Trump. The Robert Mueller investigation will produce information that will increase calls for impeachment. But Democratic leaders will know their party and their country are both better served if voters are the ones who decide if Trump should be given four more years.

– A very frustrating year for Arkansas’ Republican U.S. House members. They’re accustomed to being in the majority, where they could at least move legislation through their chamber before it stalled in the Senate. Now, they’ll be in the minority and unable to accomplish even that much. Meanwhile, Trump will continue to do things they don’t like, and they won’t be able to say much about it.

– Red ink. The federal budget deficit will approach or reach $1 trillion, as it did in President Obama’s first term, when the country was in or recovering from the Great Recession. This time, it’s happening when the economy is strong. That’s really bad.

– A lot of Democrats running for president. In the last election cycle, Democrats with presidential ambitions sat out the race knowing Hillary Clinton was the chosen one. This time, 15-20 candidates, including at least one billionaire businessperson, will decide they are the one to save the world from Trump. Will Clinton and Joe Biden be two of them? She’s 71 and he’s 76, but they both want to be president. I expect at least one will accept that they won’t be.

– Primary challenge? Several Republicans will consider running against Trump. Whether or not they do depends on Trump’s actions, the economy, the Mueller investigation, and, most important by far, Trump’s popularity among Republican voters.

Currently, that popularity remains high. If it stays that way, I don’t think any Republican will challenge him. But again, this column is about expectations, not predictions.