Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Arkansas Politics And if Republicans control the Arkansas legislature ....?
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:21 AM
Ernie Dumas this week considers the possibility of a legislative majority for the Republican Party.
It's a recipe for disaster, if you think 400,000 people losing coverage for medical expenses is a bad thing. Or if you think slashing the income tax — and government services with it — is a bad thing.
Recommended reading, particularly if you haven't voted yet (warning, Dumas will burden you with facts about the budget, not faith in platitudes):
By Ernest Dumas
A few people in the government and even a few elements of their constituencies have started to contemplate two unnerving questions.
Will Republicans take over the Arkansas legislature after the election next month, and, if they do, will they actually do what they say they will do? They say they will repeal or cut state income taxes and perhaps other taxes and curtail government medical help for the poor and disabled, those programs created in Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and expanded ever since, not just by Barack Obama but even the occasional Republican—e.g., Mike Huckabee.
The first is more than a distinct possibility; Republicans say it is a cinch. The second, that they will whack taxes and public charity, defies logic but you have to take them at their word. This is not your father’s Republican Party or, for that matter, even the Republican Party of Mike Huckabee. The ranks have been cleansed of moderates and pragmatists or else they have by necessity become true believers.
Especially in the medical field, people are exploring scenarios for preserving assistance for the poor, aged, disabled and mentally ill if the Republicans gain a majority in even one house, which will give them effective control of the state budget. There are no reliable good scenarios.
Taxes are off the table. Governor Beebe has the veto, but in Arkansas it is trumped by a simple majority vote in the Senate and House.
Ironically, the voters who will put them in power are the consumers of all those services that are jeopardized. They like the talk of lower taxes and smaller government. The freeloaders, Mitt Romney’s 47 percent, are always
someone else, although their parents and loved ones are in nursing homes or institutions and community programs for the mentally and physically disabled, the groups that consume the largest shares of Medicaid, or else Medicaid insures their children for hospital and doctor care.
Medicaid, which serves 800,000 Arkansans and affects that many more family members, faces two big questions when the legislature gathers:
(1) Can the state make up a $350 million to $400 million shortfall in state Medicaid match?
(2) What will happen when Republicans block the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which carries some relief for the state’s Medicaid crisis as well as insurance for the largest share of the state’s uninsured?
Because the state has fared a little better than much of the country since 2006, lowering its poverty rate against the country as a whole, its matching share for Medicaid has risen from 25 to about 30 percent, but only theoretically. President Obama’s stimulus act pumped $750 million into the state’s coffers for Medicaid from 2009 through 2011, reducing the state’s match to 20 percent. It produced state budget surpluses and let the state’s Medicaid trust fund grow for two years. Now the trust fund is vanishing and the state will enter the 2013 fiscal year next July needing an extra $350 million or more to maintain nursing home care, the institutions and community services for disabled children and adults and hospital and physician care for low-income children.
To tea-party Republicans, like many Republicans of old, Medicaid is socialism at its worst, the giveaway established in the Medicare act of 1965 that created the “culture of dependency.” Because they don’t want to be seen as kicking grandma out of the nursing home, there are Republicans who defend Medicaid. Even Mitt Romney seemed to praise it in Monday night’s debate although he wants to dump it on the states. But not one Republican will vote next year to levy a tax to maintain medical services, as Huckabee did 10 years when Medicaid faced a similar crisis. They will say take the money from somewhere else; the only prospect is education, and college presidents are contemplating that scenario.
The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, will supply the state another $65 million a year to cover part of the shortfall, but the Republican legislators and candidates have for the most part said they would block the Medicaid option in Obamacare. Mainly, that will prevent medical insurance—fully paid for by the federal government until 2018—for some 400,000 able-bodied adults who earn too little (up to $30,000 for a family of four) to afford even a fraction of insurance premiums. Blocking the Medicaid expansion would be an economic disaster, keeping hundreds of millions of job-creating dollars out of the state—the equivalent of halting 500 Keystone XL pipelines, a favorite trope of the Republicans.
Then consider the repeal of the income tax, although some Republicans would be satisfied with a gesture—cutting the taxes of higher- income people. A Republican champion of eliminating the tax said last week that it would require a little belt tightening here and there, eliminating the waste and fraud, you see. Some would replace the income tax with a higher sales tax, but no Republican will be caught voting for any tax next year.
The sales tax has been riddled with so many exemptions, the latest being Governor Beebe’s groceries exemption, that the income tax now accounts for more than half the state’s general fund, which pays for public education (including charter schools), colleges and universities, prisons, law enforcement and all the human services the state provides for the needy and the unlucky.
The good news: I am assured that there will be a half-dozen levelheaded Republicans in the new majority, enough to thwart the outright repeal of the income tax.
So never fear.
Speaking of...
-
Guns and fetuses: A legislative review
May 16, 2013Crazy Davy Carter, the House speaker who is a potential Republican candidate for governor, won headlines all over today for remarks at a legislative conference in Hot Springs that Republicans need to move beyond guns and abortion to focus on issues more important to average Arkies. /more/
-
State gets $5.1 million for Medicaid in settlement over adulterated drugs
May 14, 2013Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has announced that Arkansas will get $5.1 million, including federal matching funds, for its Medicaid program as part of the $500 million settlement of a lawsuit against Ranbaxy, a drug manufacturer in India that provided subpar generic drugs. /more/
-
Flash: Texas grows enlightened on women's issues
May 7, 2013Interesting story from Texas on the Texas legislature. Republicans, who control nearly everything in Texas, apparently suffered huge blowback from their war on women in the last legislative session that cut health care to women in the battle to destroy Planned Parenthood. /more/
-
Head Start budget cuts announced
April 27, 2013A roundup to start this rainy Saturday morning:'* BECAUSE NO CONGRESSMAN USES A HEAD START CENTER: Administrators of Head Start agencies received word yesterday that budgets for the remainder of this fiscal year would be reduced 5.27 percent and that agencies could expect a similar cut in the 2014 budget barring action by Congress. /more/
-
Dumas: Obamacare covered a sorry legislative record
April 23, 2013Ernie Dumas writes this week that the 2013 legislature's approval of Obamacare, against long odds, made up for a multitude of sins. /more/
-
Guns, fetuses, God and Obamacare: The legislature wraps it up
April 23, 2013At 9:17 a.m., the House adjourned until a formal close May 17. The Senate should follow in short order, if it hasn't already. /more/
-
Managing Medicaid: A cautionary tale
April 23, 2013It's an appealing notion, managing government-financed health care programs like Medicaid to encourage less expensive types of care and turning it over to the ever-so-efficient private sector to get the job done. /more/
-
Now the legislature cuts up the swag
April 22, 2013If no detours develop, the Arkansas legislature should finish tomorrow and go home. Today and tomorrow will be primarily devoted to passage of the revenue stabilization act, which guides overall state spending, and — much more important to individual members — approval of expenditures from the General Improvement Fund, a surprlus account. /more/
-
What, me worry? Beebe to sign tax cuts
April 19, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe said today that he'd sign a raft of tax cut bills — heavily tilted toward the wealthy — that could reduce state income by $140 million or more in three years. /more/
-
Morning report: Won't you go home Arkansas legislature?
April 19, 2013The Friday morning warmup: * THE RUSH TO ADJOURN: "Deliberative" is not a word that applies to the death rattle of the Arkansas legislature — not when the Senate rushes out, with virtually no debate, $150 million or so in tax cuts on everything from baling wire purchases to multi-million-dollar windfalls on unearned income for corporate capitalists. /more/
- More »
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
More by Max Brantley
-
Legislature today: Abortion; school elections
From the legislature this afternoon: * FETUS FRENZY: By a 19-11 vote, the Senate today approved a bill aimed at stopping state funding to Planned Parenthood.
- Apr 9, 2013
-
Time to support KUAR
The semi-annual fund drive for KUAR/KLRE, Little Rock's public radio stations is underway. Advance begging alert: Rosi Smith of Arkansas Children's Hospital and I will be asking for money THURSDAY morning, from 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., rather than in our normal Friday morning time slot.
- Apr 23, 2013
- More »
Event Calendar
-
Re: Rep. Broadaway won't make race for attorney general
All good names... What about UA Political Science professor Nate Looney?
-
on May 21, 2013
-
Re: Shoffner watch: She won't be in today
Thanks for info on her salary, Max. No wonder she had to search for under…
- on May 21, 2013
-
Re: Conservationists call for Buffalo protection on river, hog farm tour
As with gun control, health care and tornado shelters in elementary schools, the decision of…
- on May 21, 2013
Top Commenters
Blogroll
Slideshows
-
May 16, 2013
Site Index
News
Cover Story / Arkansas Reporter / The Week That Was / Smart Talk / The Insider / The Observer / Editorial / Max Brantley / Ernest Dumas / Gene Lyons / Bob Lancaster / Words / Guest Writer / Letters
Entertainment
A&E Feature / To-Do List / In Brief / Movie Reviews / Music Reviews / Theater Reviews / A&E News / Art Notes / Graham Gordy / Books / Media / Dining Reviews / Dining Guide / What's Cookin' / Calendar / The Televisionist / Movie Listings / Gallery Listings
This Week's Cover
Quick Links
Special Publications
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
