Conservative critics are howling at Gov. Asa Hutchinson's proposed $5.63 Billion Spending Plan -- better known as the state Budget for Arkansas for the next 24 months.
The fiscal year (24 months) is how Arkansas's lawmakers enact the state budget.
Can you stop and make out your household budget for the next two years? Well, some might be able to do that, but not all of the three million Arkansans can do that. Or, would even try to do such a Herculean task.
But yet, the Governor and the state Legislature must do this every two years -- and make the budget balance. (That is something they do not do in Washington, D.C.)
Most Arkansas taxpayers have a 30-year mortgage; a four-to-five year automobile note (if you drive new cars) and most of the monthly expenses and income that is pretty stable.
Local taxes can go up, or down, mostly up. Usually the expenses, rather than the family's income go up.
But if the state can do it, well, most people can as well.
The only "rub" is that critics of the Governor and the Legislature can always snipe at the budget figures -- because the numbers are there for them to see.
Critics will ordinarily say they "could do better than this amount spent for this or that."
But can those critics really do better?
I doubt it.
For instance in the proposed State Spending Plan, the increase over the previous two year's budget (which ends June 30, 2018) will be for Medicaid.
That simply said, means more and more people -- poor people, aging adults and sick people need more and more for their medical care.
Now the state has asked the federal government -- where most of the Medicaid funds come from -- for permission to ask those who can work -- to work for continued Medicaid Coverage.
While that may be another whole ball of wax to consider -- the central need for the state to match or cover the Medicaid funding mandated by services and needs from the federal government is still there -- all $173 million more than in the past two years.
What else can the state do but cover the projected needs to remain solvent and a zero deficit budget.
The real critic of the Hutchinson budget (and all previous state budgets from previous administrations) is that Arkansans don't want to pay for "big government."
If you are dependent upon a Medicaid supplement payment to your local hospital where you have been treated for an acute life-threatening illness and cannot pay the bill with personal funds, private health insurance or some sort of local "forgiveness" program -- your family cannot cover the cost!
Oh, the health care portion of the Arkansas State Budget is not sexy, nor is it something citizens can ignore.
And then there are such items in the budget for more dollars to lock up and watch over the growing population of the state prison and parole systems.
The men and women in that population, by the laws of the state, and upon the recommendations of the courts and local jurors, have sentenced these individuals to be in the state's care -- housed, fed and watched over apart from the general population of Arkansas for their indiscretions. They are in prison from petty theft to rather violent acts -- including murder.
We can't just NOT fund the state prison system and open the doors for these people to be let out?
Nor can we expect to feed them less, watch over them less, and make no effort to rehabilitate them, before their time is up to come out of prison.
There is also the cost of financing the public schools, setting aside money for economic development and a myriad of other costs in the state budget.
Yes, it is easy to look at a completed budget and say what one would cut, trim or reduce it by millions.
Few offer any new ideas of their own. They just snipe at what has been prepared by those elected.
The bi-annual fiscal session starts in February, ask your state Representative or state Senator what will they do on the state budget?
MAYLON RICE IS A FORMER JOURNALIST WHO WORKED FOR SEVERAL NORTHWEST ARKANSAS PUBLICATIONS. HE CAN BE REACHED VIA EMAIL AT [email protected]. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR.
Editorial on 01/24/2018