What led Rhoda to make his ‘Hillary comment’?

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications

If you care way too much about Arkansas politics, then you may know that a Republican official said something he shouldn’t have said the other day.

The party’s 2nd Congressional District chairman, Johnny Rhoda, was quoted by U.S. News & World Report saying that if Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016, “She’d probably get shot at the state line.” He went on to say, “Nobody has any affection for her. The majority don’t.”

The timing was especially bad, considering Clinton was scheduled to visit Little Rock Friday. A minor political firestorm erupted, and Rhoda resigned.

Rhoda is not an elected official, but he’s long been involved in Republican Party politics. The obvious question is, knowing what he knows, how could he have made such a comment to a national reporter?

And I suspect the answer is this: If he’s like a lot of us, he probably has said something like that before, or at least heard it in private.

Maybe not. It’s possible that Rhoda just made an unfortunate offhand comment out of the blue. Certainly, he did not mean to threaten or wish harm upon Clinton.

Let’s still use this episode to launch into a discussion of the bigger issue, which is that it’s becoming common for this kind of thing to be said in everyday and public conversation – more common than it used to be, it seems, but maybe I’m just imagining that. As memory serves, President Reagan used to fire off some real zingers at Democrats, but he described them as merely wrong, not evil. He reserved the truly tough rhetoric for the actual enemies who had missiles pointed at us and guns pointed at their own citizens.

Here’s how we live these days: in houses very similar to the ones around ours; in communities where most believe much the same way; in churches where most members are of the same background; in congressional districts drawn to ensure the like-minded vote together; in states that, with few exceptions, are either red or blue. We safely can consume only news media sources that assure us we must be correct because the other side is so very ill-intentioned. Even the ads on the websites we frequent are microtargeted to our likely political beliefs.

We have self-segregated in just about every way possible. Of course we believe “nobody has any affection” for politicians we don’t like. Nobody we discuss politics with ever does.

The result is that it becomes easy to turn human beings like Hillary Clinton into one-dimensional movie characters – heroes or villains.

Human beings are not movie characters. If Clinton were to visit most Republicans’ living rooms, I suspect everyone would soon find they had a lot more in common than they might have expected. She’s a lifelong Methodist, a daughter, a wife, a mother, and an expectant grandmother. Given her experiences, she’s probably an interesting conversationalist. The same would be true if President George W. Bush visited a family of Democrats, even though 35 percent of them once told a pollster that he had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks.

I don’t know that publicly making light of shooting people makes it more likely that anyone actually will get shot. Political assassination attempts in America are rare and often motivated by insanity more than belief.

But while we’re not killing people, we are dehumanizing them, and that’s bad for many reasons. On a national political level, it makes it more difficult for our representative democracy to function. On a personal level, it makes us less happy people. If we spend three hours listening to a radio talk show host tell us how much he dislikes certain people, pretty soon we’ll dislike them, too. And then we’ll say as much, even to a member of the national media.

So the bigger issue is not what one party official said to a journalist. The bigger issue is that we’re not relating to each other as well as we might, and the way our society is structured, it’s becoming easier not to try.

On the bright side, we’re not shooting each other at the state line. We didn’t relate too well with each other in the mid-1800s or during the civil rights struggle, either.

But a little more affection for each other would make this a more perfect union. Or at least, a less imperfect one.

Following in the footsteps of the Greatest Generation

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications

“Where are the men like that today?”

My wife, Melissa, asked me that question during a phone conversation June 17. I did not take offense because I knew to which man she referred. She had been reading the obituary of Ed Penick, 92, husband, father, grandfather, CEO of Worthen Bank, community leader, and World War II photoreconnaissance pilot.

I became acquainted with Ed about 12 years ago when Melissa and I were hired to write his and wife Evelyn’s joint biography. His life was marked by integrity, loyalty, and love for his family and friends. By the time we became acquainted, the years and 10 grandchildren had softened his heart, but not his character. His voice often would catch as he recounted his memories, but only very briefly. A man like that maintains control.

His devotion to his grandchildren was almost comical. He would take the whole clan to the lakehouse and make them spend the morning doing chores, always exhorting them to “Be happy in your work!” He led them in fun activities and taught them patriotic songs. At his funeral, granddaughter Evelyn Wade spoke of family members discovering a lockbox that they assumed would be filled with his important documents. Indeed, important items were inside – letters and report cards from his grandkids. “We were his prized possessions,” she said.

Ed was one of many members of his generation whom I’ve gotten to know as biography subjects, friends and family members. Cletis Overton of Malvern survived the Bataan Death March and years of brutal imprisonment, escaped from a sinking ship, and built a life for himself and his family. His story of courage, humility and faith inspired many people. Wallace Eldridge of Wynne crossed the English Channel three days after D-Day and fought his way across Europe. Many years later, he became my tennis partner, and still is a friend. My grandfather, George Brawner, served on a Navy troop transport, fought in the Battle of Okinawa, and with wife Dorothy raised four kids. His service in the Navy was appropriate, because he was an anchor for the family.

Most of the men and women of that era have left us, and the rest will be leaving us soon. According to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, the 16 million Americans who served in uniform in that conflict have dwindled to a little more than a million. The youngest of them are in their late 80s now, and they are dying at a rate of 555 each day. After this year, there will be no World War II veterans left in Congress. The Axis Powers couldn’t stop them, but no one defeats Father Time.

What an amazing people they have been, and what lives they have led. They conquered the Great Depression, won a World War, and handed the rest of us a free and prosperous country. Certainly, that generation had its shortcomings – racial equality being perhaps the most obvious one. But we succeeding generations have our own deeds left undone. No one ever said our grandparents were the Perfect Generation. Just the Greatest one.

Following in their footsteps will not be easy. The rest of us have been disadvantaged by our advantageous upbringings. Unlike our elders, we have never saved the world once, much less several times. We’ve experienced a few recessions, but not a character-shaping depression.

But we have been given this gift: We can learn from our elders’ examples. The quality that most defined men like Ed Penick wasn’t their occasional heroism but their lifelong faithfulness. By learning that quality, the rest of us can become men like that today.

In fact, we must. We don’t have to equal the Greatest Generation, but, lest we dishonor its memory, we have to be good enough.

Shrink government by actually paying for it

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications

Do you want to reduce the size of government? I mean, really reduce it, instead of just talking about it? There’s one surefire way. Pay for the government we’re buying. If that means raising taxes, so be it.

It’s simple economics. To reduce consumption of a product, raise the price.

I’ll explain. For decades, Americans have been buying big government at what has felt like a steep discount. Since 2001, we’ve fought wars, deposed dictators, and created huge government programs under Presidents Bush and Obama. Meanwhile, thanks to the Bush tax cuts, Americans have been paying historically low taxes.

In the meantime, the national debt has increased $11 trillion just since Sept. 30, 2000 – equal to more than $35,000 for every American currently living, or $140,000 for a family of four.

None of this is a coincidence. When something is cheap, people consume more of it, and that includes government. During the past 14 years, we’ve gotten $11 trillion of government for which we did not pay. Naturally, we’ve done what consumers always do when given free stuff: Accept it, and expect more. That will continue as long as we keep using this national credit card that never seems to come due. But come due it will.

The only way we’ll ever shrink government, and the only way we’ll stop increasing the debt, is if Americans finally understand the true costs of these national policies. That will only happen when they pay for them. Imagine if the average family of four had been required to pay $140,000 more in taxes these past 14 years. Don’t you think there would have been a much more vigorous debate about whether the United States could afford these military actions and big government programs?

In 2004, the late William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute, made the same argument. The Cato Institute is not a left-wing outfit; instead, it supports greatly reducing government. Niskanen studied the growth of government from 1981 to 2000. He found that federal spending increased by half a percent of the nation’s gross domestic product for each one percentage point decrease in tax revenues. In other words, as taxes were reduced, government grew. We were running deficits almost every year then, too.

Unfortunately, while both Republicans and Democrats like increasing the size of government, they don’t like making Americans pay for it. The latter is especially true among Republicans. Years ago, the conservative movement adopted a theory known as “starve the beast.” The thinking was by reducing the tax revenues sent to Washington, government naturally would shrink.

Conservatives weren’t thinking like economists. Government did not shrink. Why would it? We weren’t paying for it.

Even though it hasn’t worked, “starve the best” remains the dominant strategy among conservatives. Many Republicans at the federal and state levels have signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” stating they will resist efforts to raise taxes. Every current Republican member of Arkansas’ congressional delegation has signed the pledge, as have the two Republicans challenging for seats in Congress: French Hill in the 2nd District and state Rep. Bruce Westerman in the Fourth.

The pledge been an effective tool for keeping Republicans in line on tax increases. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been an equally effective “No spend pledge” where elected officials promise not to spend money the government doesn’t have.

Don’t you see the problem with that? Members of Congress can cut taxes but spend all they want because those most affected, the upcoming generations, don’t vote yet.

I don’t want to pay higher taxes any more than you do. But taxes aren’t the real problem. Big government is. If it grows like it’s projected to grow, eventually taxes must be raised, regardless of who has signed what pledge.

Let’s close by proposing two principles. First, if taxes are cut, spending should be cut at least that same amount. And second, except in extraordinary circumstances, Americans must pay the full price for the government we are buying. It’s the only way we’ll make wise decisions about how much of it we want.

Don’t write private option’s obituary

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications

In 1837, during a debate about a bill regarding paying bounties for wolf scalps, Arkansas Speaker of the House John Wilson left his chair and stabbed to death Rep. Joseph J. Anthony with a bowie knife. He didn’t like something Wilson had said about him.

Please keep that story in mind as Arkansas continues to debate the so-called private option. It will be one of the most contentious debates in memory, but no one will be stabbed on the House floor.

The debate over the private option, however, will dominate next year’s legislative session, just as it’s the most important issue in this year’s campaign.

As you may know, the private option uses Obamacare dollars to purchase insurance for more than 172,000 low-income Arkansans. Many Republican-leaning states have turned down that money, which was intended to enroll people in Medicaid, a government program. In Arkansas, Republican lawmakers and Gov. Mike Beebe’s administration instead worked out a deal where those dollars are used to buy private insurance.

Legislators are divided into three camps. Republican opponents say it’s Obamacare, and that it adds to the national debt, and that soon Arkansas will pay more and more for a program it can’t afford. Sen. Bryan King, R-Berryville, described it in an interview as “running up a credit card.” Republican supporters say it’s making lemonade out of lemons, that Arkansas and its struggling hospitals would be foolish to turn down the money, and that the private option’s reforms are being considered by other states and might make the entire health care system better. Democrats are just glad to get those dollars however they can.

The money must be appropriated by a 75 percent majority of both houses of the Legislature every year. This year, it passed with zero votes to spare in the Senate and one in the House. Two of the yes votes in the Senate have already been replaced by candidates who campaigned saying they would vote no. In one case, the losing candidate was one of the private option’s architects, Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison.

So it’s time to write the private option’s obituary, right? Well, no. Regardless of what happens in the next election, considerably more legislators will be for it than against it. Asked if House Democrats would consider shutting down the entire Medicaid budget rather than let the private option die, Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, the minority leader, told me, “I wouldn’t want to commit it to that at this point, but I don’t think anything is off the table, including that.” Among the two major party candidates for governor. Democrat Mike Ross has made it clear he supports it. Republican Asa Hutchinson has not said he’s against it, which means he isn’t.

Even among private option opponents, there are “no” and “heck, no” factions. According to Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, one of the private option’s architects, a number of “no votes” are waiting to have their questions answered, including how many carriers are offering insurance and what the rates are.

Regardless of what they think about the private option in principle, a lot of legislators will have a tough time simply taking insurance away from 172,000 people. King, a consistent opponent, told me that, while he wouldn’t rule it out, “Realistically, I don’t see how a defund, total defund could happen.” Instead of repealing the private option, the Legislature may reform it – maybe significantly. As Sanders described it, “With regard to the policy, we’re not pouring concrete. We’re modeling clay, and we’re shaping the policy as we go.”

So maybe the private option survives close to the way it is, or maybe it’s changed a little, or maybe it’s changed a lot. But simply grabbing a knife and stabbing it to death? That doesn’t happen very often at the Capitol – at least not since 1837.

Health care’s PROBLEM: Americans’ health

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications

Arkansas legislators are preparing to meet in special session for the second time in less than a year to discuss rising school employee health insurance rates. It’s a difficult issue, but it’s a “lowercase p problem.” The “capital P Problems” are beyond what state legislators can address by themselves.

Let’s start with the “lowercase p problem.” The cost of health insurance for school employees is rising faster than the system or many employees can afford.

In a special session last October, legislators poured $43 million in one-time money into the system and added another $36 million annually from other sources as a quick fix. They also appointed a task force chaired by Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, to craft long-term solutions.

That task force has proposed two bills for legislators to discuss for now, with more on the way sometime in the future. One would, among other changes, exclude spouses of school and state employees from coverage if they can obtain it elsewhere, as is common in the private sector. The other would exclude part-time school and state employees who work less than 30 hours. That would involve a lot of school bus drivers and cafeteria workers, and it’s more controversial, even though the practice of excluding part-timers is also common in the private sector.

Legislators will be called into special session in the next few weeks if they can arrive at consensus on at least one of the bills beforehand. Other important changes can be made administratively, such as changing the way the school employees’ super-cheap bronze plan and expensive-but-generous gold plan are structured.

Health care has become the dominant issue in the state Legislature, just as it is the most contentious one in Washington. The past two legislative sessions have centered around the debate over the state’s “private option,” which uses Obamacare dollars to buy private insurance for 150,000 Arkansans who beforehand were not quite poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. As a result of this year’s primary and runoff elections, there will be two less senators supporting it. During this past fiscal session, it passed with no Senate votes to spare.

What to do about the private option is a big concern, but it’s not one of the “capital P Problems.”

One of those is the health care system itself, over which state legislators can have only limited influence. America’s health care system, pre- and post-Obamacare, is far too expensive and doesn’t allocate its resources effectively. In many cases, it doesn’t make us healthier, and in quite a few cases, it actively makes us sicker and even kills us.

That’s a Problem. But there’s a bigger one – one that deserves not only a capital P but instead all-caps. The PROBLEM is this: America is not a healthy place, and Americans are not healthy people. Sixty-nine percent of us age 20 and above are overweight, and 35.1 percent are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Eighteen percent of children ages 6-11 are obese. More than 18 percent of adults smoke cigarettes despite all the efforts that have been made to encourage them never to start. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 9.2 percent of Americans age 12 and above in 2012 had used an illegal drug (including marijuana) or abused a psychotherapeutic medication during the past month.

The health care system does little to discourage these realities, but it is not the principal cause. Unhealthy daily habits and lifestyle choices are woven into the fabric of American life, and it’s not just what we eat, drink and smoke. Our lifestyles are both sedentary and stressful. We’re rushed much of the time, but from a seated position. Our lives are marked by excess in many areas and deficiencies in others, such as sleep, joyful time with family, and meaningful community activities. Most of us know we’re not living right just by looking in the mirror.

Health care systems can be engineered to encourage healthier behavior, but no system can free us from the consequences of our own choices. Our health care is unaffordable because our health is unaffordable. Ultimately, we are the problem with health care, and the solution must begin with us.