Our View

Our View

Legislative pre-_ling period a free-for-all for interesting bills

Some people call this political silly season, a time when elected politicians go to Little Rock ahead of the upcoming session of the legislature for the sole purpose of filing all sorts of bills calling for everything from free scholarships to (as usual) tax legislation.

Bear in mind folks, all these bills must survive committee hearings where many of them will simply be set aside for another day or fade away never to be heard from again.

So then, so far we have Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, who wants to, let’s say, spread his love, by creating what he calls the General Assembly Promise Lottery Scholarship Program. What Love is pushing for is to have the state treasurer create an account for every person born in Arkansas on or after Jan. 1, 2018, to be used for college tuition at an Arkansas institution.

Very commendable Rep. Love but we suspect this attempt to further socialize public education at a higher level at the additional expense of the taxpayers just won’t pass muster. This is a political feel-good attempt that is unattainable, unaffordable and unrealistic.

Let’s understand Arkansas has a “free” scholarship program already and we call it the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery. It works fine, meets the need and provides opportunity for those students who really want succeed on the higher education level a realistic chance to obtain a college degree.

Not every individual wants a higher education in the traditional way and let us point out that not every person has the desire or ability to meet the requirements of a traditional four year college education.

We brought up proposed bills on taxes and in what Rep. Tim Lemons, R-Cabot wants is to create an exemption from the state sales tax for the sale of a bus or other vehicles with a seating capacity of at least 15 people that is operated for the purpose of carrying passengers for hire. Now, this exemption would not apply to school buses or buses used for mass transit.

Rep. Mary Bently, R-Perryville wants an exemption for economic incentives that medical school graduates receive for agreeing to practice in rural communities, and Rep. Jan English, R-North Little Rock, wants a tax exemption for military retirement benefits.

Oh, then we have Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, who wants to bar a community from receiving state funds if the community adopts a “sanctuary” policy.

Stubblefield also wants a sentencing enhancement for a person convicted of committing an offense against police officers and first responders.

There are a still a few more bills that have been filed such as one that would give the state’s prescription drug monitoring program access to the names of all Medicaid prescription drug beneficiaries and a bill that would exclude a principal, assistant principal or central office employee in a school district from the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act of 1983, or the bill that would allow the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act to be waived if a school district is in academic, fiscal or facilities distress.

Short of a couple of these proposed bills there isn’t anything that is cause for concern.