News this morning that legislators are proudly touting a new law that will take away college lottery scholarship funding from students who don’t take the Smart Core curriculum is coincidentally with this report from Stephens Media:

In it, legislators (particularly the Republicans) say there’ll be no change in coming tax reductions approved in 2013 even if the private option Medicaid expansion falters in the 2014 session. Without it, Arkansas will take a debilitating financial blow in loss of federal money and increased state responsibility for providing health care for kids and working poor.

It is, as Gov. Mike Beebe often said, simple arithmetic. They are linked. Not so say those whose job it is to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.

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In the Arkansas legislature of 2014, arithmetic loses every time to faith-based trickle-upon economics. From the article:

Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, who as sponsor of tax cut legislation also voted for the private option, said he will not support any proposal to repeal the reductions.

“In terms of increasing taxes, which is what reversing tax cuts means to me, I see virtually zero probability that will happen,” said Collins, whose tax cut bill reduced the state income tax in all tax brackets by one-tenth percent.

Collins, you may recall, is running for lieutenant governor. He, along with the rest of the Republican Party, has been deadly silent on expense account cheating by current lieutenant governor Mark Darr, who tapped taxpayers and his campaign account for financial support, most likely because of the persistent financial shorts he’s endured. Arithmetic? Who needs arithmetic? You can always stick poor people to pay for the whopping tax cuts for millionaires.

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