ARKANSAS — I don’t think Arkansans elected a record number of Republican state legislators so that they could propose increasing taxes on workers in order to pay back the least popular entity in America - the federal government. Still, I am not a legislator and Denny Altes is. Altes, a Republican representative from Fort Smith, is proposing an increase in taxes on wages so the state can repay the 300 million dollars we owe the feds for what amount to loans to our state unemployment insurance fund.
How can I count the ways that this tone deaf proposal is out of line? First of all, the Constitution of this state prohibits state government from putting the people into debt without a vote of the people. I don’t remember voting to let the state government borrow $300 million from the feds, do you?
Nope. So by what authority did the state enter into this apparently illegal agreement? Another question: If our state government has breached the state constitution with a violation of this magnitude, what is to bedone about it?
Unfortunately, the people have a choice of two teams, neither of which seems to want to take seriously things like oaths and constitutions. Most people don’t seem the least bit interested in forming a team of their own to really take back their state government. So I expect that, yes it was an egregious violation of the state constitution, and no, nobody up there will do a thing about it except raise your taxes. And until people get fed up enough about it to ignore the ire of the establishment media and form their own team they will continue to get this kind of government.
We should not be in this debt in the first place, but that’s spilt milk. Now that we are in debt, who should shoulder the burden to pay it off?
working men and women of this state. Not from a tax increase. Rather it should come from existing government spending, specifically from the budget of the person most responsible for getting us into this possibly illegal debt. The money should come from first of all Gov. Mike Beebe’s “quick action closing fund.” This is a pool of money he can use to lure business to the state, and pay off supporters doing the same, at his sole discretion. He gets to pick winners and losers instead of letting the market do it. Over four years, we could get about $200 million from this source.
What about the other $100 million? How about the General Improvement Fund money? That comes from interest earned on state accounts. Historically, it was divvied up among the legislators for local improvement projects and widely regarded as “pork.” Once the old line liberal Democrats lost control of the distribution of this money, they had people sue to curtail the legislature’s role in doling it out. Gov. MikeBeebe now mostly controls this money, too, and gives it to legislators who play ball with him. To be fair, that’s how almost anyone on the other team would handle it, too. Still, this money could be used to pay down the debt to the feds, assuming we want to pay them back after what they have done to the country.
My solution is to take the money out of existing spending rather than raise taxes. Specifically, the money should come from the budgets that are dearest to the man most responsible for letting this situation get out of hand - Gov.
Mike Beebe.
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Editor’s note: Mark Moore is the lead writer for an Internet blog on matters pertaining to Arkansas culture and government, Arkansas Watch, and on Tuesday nights is the host of an Internet-based radio program, Patriots on Watch. He can be reached through The Times at [email protected].
The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The TIMES.
Opinion, Pages 4 on 12/22/2010