Ernie Dumas' column for the Times this week ponders Donald Trump's appeal to blue collar white males, particularly after a new speech on his economic plans that forsakes populism in favor of the sorts of tax ideas that overwhelmingly favor the rich, as a good Republican is expected to do.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson invited reporters to his conference room this afternoon to talk about the state budget in general terms. A delay in some scheduled tax breaks and cuts in some agency spending — nothing specified — led the teasers of announcements to come.
Word comes from the Capitol that the Koch-financed political operators are pushing hard for the legislature to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of non-germane legislation to provide a $5 milllion tax break for suppliers of fracking sand and other similar material used to prop open fissures in rock to drill for gas and oil. Simple question: Why do these professed constitutionalists hate the Arkansas Constitution?
Gov. Mike Beebe has signed all the legislation from the fiscal session except HB 1048, which contains the almost certainly unconstitutional tax break for fracking sand added to the bill by fracking industry ally Sen. Jonathan Dismang. Could that mean a line-item veto is possible? Will the special interests stand for it?
The careful review of a major taxpayer investment in the proposed Big River steel mill is nothing but a good thing and there's no debate we can thank the new Republican legislative majority for the oversight.
John Brummett gets into the fine print of legislation speeding to approval that boils down to a multi-million-dollar subsidy for AT&T, not to mention some potential work for the utility contractor/citizen legislator who's sponsoring it.
Stephens Media has a few more details today on the item I reported yesterday — the effort by a group of House Republicans to block spending bills that contain spending increases.