Governor Beebe, Man Up and Make a Difference in Arkansas's Spending!

             Arkansas's Governor Beebe insists that the 3 proposed tax cuts currently being debated by the Arkansas House of Representatives would cripple funding for education, prisons, law enforcement; you know all the usual sacrificial offerings threatened to be thrown under the bus to scare the taxpayer into fiscal servitude and higher taxes.

Governor Beebe here’s an idea.

            The State of Arkansas has over 8,000 vehicles. [Yes, Shirley I know that the State of Arkansas doesn’t have a clue as to where they all are, or who is driving them, and for what they are used. But be optimistic, we have our best man (Director Weiss) working on those very issues]. Assume an average cost of $30,000.00 and an average life cycle of four years per vehicle. (After all the head of a Commission wouldn’t dream of driving a five year old car or one that costs less than $30,000.00). That totals over $240 MILLION in car purchases every four years or about $60 Million annually.

            Governor Beebe do this: Cut out all state cars not required by police, public safety officers, and Game Wardens. If the employee has a job that requires a public vehicle on 24/7 EMERGENCY call out basis and the facts support at least 25 such occurrences a year, they can keep it too. Leave all the dump trucks, graders, police cars, etc. exempt from this reduction. Also there may be a small number required to actually conduct some State business.

            If you achieve a reduction of 25% of State vehicles you save $15 Million annually. A reduction of 50% would eliminate over 4,000 vehicles for an ANNUAL SAVINGS of $30 MILLION; that’s year after year after year. Pretty soon it adds up to real money and covers a lot of tax reductions.

            Of course it would require Arkansas's Governor Beebe to assume a role of real leadership to ask his cronies and constituents to give up a taxpayer funded perk. Or better yet, lead the Legislature to enact a law that forces this rather than just asking your friends to voluntarily turn in their State purchased "Escalade".

            Governor Beebe, MAN UP for the TAXPAYER!