Only in the Land of OZ, or Beebe’s Arkansas

Arkansas Legislators Plunder the Arkansas Retirement system

            It comes as a complete shock to learn that as this year’s Arkansas Legislative session crawls to a close, the penurious legislators, wishing to provide for their old age, have added this plum. For each year worked, please don’t laugh, it’s a technical/legal term, not a descriptor of activity, the legislator will receive credit for 2 years in the state retirement system. So if we are stuck with the greedy cuss for 10 years, he/she (we’re bisexual, not wait that’s not the right word, unisex, no wait, oh well you know what I mean) can retire with 20 years of service.

            Just like that, with a stroke of their own pen they voted themselves that perk at our expense. Is it any wonder that the TEA PARTY has such a broad based appeal?

            I know there was heart felt justification for this plum offered up by state representative Randy Stewart, “It’s a fairness issue,” he explains, not just another grab. Legislators “are getting no more or no less than any other state employee”.

            So now every mouth feeding at the Arkansas public trough of taxpayer dollars can get double credit in the state retirement system for just showing up for work. One might ask why this twofer is even in the retirement system for anyone?

Ancient Life signs found at Park

            We apologize. At first we thought that this article was alleging that signs of ancient life had been found at the Arkansas State Legislature’s site, but that is in error. There were no signs of ancient life found there.

Rogers School District researching how much it will cost to replace employees who took buyouts.

            No, we’re not kidding. The Rogers School District offered 180 employees up to $40,000.00 each to leave and 89 apparently took the offer. Now the district is having Educators Preferred Corp., the company who administered the buyout program, “collect information about how much it will cost to replace the employees who took buyouts”.

            One might ask that if you really needed the folks, why did you pay them to leave?

But the folks who dreamed this up are elected politicians so that may help your understanding.

            Oh, one reason given as to why all 180 eligible employees didn’t take the $40K and go is that if you have worked at least 14 years and have 28 years in the retirement system, (remember you get 2 for 1 down here), you can work for another 10 years and receive your salary plus some of your retirement benefits in an interest bearing account.

Little Rock City plans to reduce obesity

            This laudable goal is to be partially targeted by having a selected group pf students plant tomatoes (yes with an ’e’), zucchini, and strawberries.

            Principal Tyrone Harris said, “the program will eventually lead to community cooking classes at the school. Neighbors will be encouraged to help tend the plots, and children can take the vegetables home come harvest time. I would suggest to the students to be the early bird or you may have to eat the zucchini.

            As a non-involved reader of this bit of exciting news, I formed an opinion or two. Wouldn’t it help with the student obesity problem if the student tended the garden rather than a neighbor? Is the promise of cooking classes at the school a recognition that we can no longer educate students in reading, writing, and arithmetic and by teaching them cooking they will learn a trade to make them employable at a burger biggie outlet?

            The final sentence in the article, “Too many kids are going to the hospital because they don’t get enough exercise,” (said Brandon Shavers, a fourth-grader at the school). I remember in old times the PE teacher made us run around the school for exercise; but heck, that’s probably child abuse, let them eat zucchini.

State to Risk of Idling State Insurance Agency

Per the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, “The budget committee chairman and Governor Beebe refused to budge in their standoff over a stalled Insurance Department appropriation, an impasse that could shut the agency down. The state House of Representatives twice defeated the bill over some lawmaker’s concerns that $1 million of the $72.6 million appropriation will be used to create a health-insurance exchange (read that as an Obamacare requirement).

“The House Republican Leader, John Burris, tired unsuccessfully to remove the money for the insurance exchange from the bill before the house voted.”

If lawmakers do not approve the bill, the department will receive no funding and, well the sky will fall!

Governor Beebe called the House actions ”Tragic” and “pretty catastrophic”.

As a non-House member reading of all this, a thought comes to mind. Why not separate out the $71.6 million to run the agency and then try to address the $1 million Obamacare item separately? Well of course we know the answer, the Obamacare piece, a child of Governor Beebe’s, would die aborning if pulled out to stand on its own merits. So the Gov and his lead henchmen in the House risk shutting down the agency, and the whole world if their claims are to be believed, to attempt to force the nay votes to capitulate. Seems that some TEA PARTIERS were elected this past November and are sticking to their guns. We’ll see if they hold true, or crumble to politics as usual

Are WE Feeling Better, Economically Speaking?

             Just in case you weren’t listening to El Presidente or other elected leaders, here are a few of this week’s headlines, Economically speaking.

            First President Obama urges 1/3^rd reduction in oil imports. He is calling for a broad front of initiatives to accomplish this:

1.      “Wider use of natural gas, including incentives (read that as new spending or tax give a-ways which just might add to the deficit) to use it for fuel fleet vehicles such as city buses”. Don’t know about yours, but our city leaders would love to have more money fall from the skies to do this. By the way, if ALL the City Buses in the U.S. were converted to natural gas, what percent of our petroleum usages is that? 1%?

2.      “He backed greater production of biofuels and vowed to establish at least 4 commercial-scale refineries producing cellulosic ethanol or advanced biofuels within the next two years”. Do you think that he will pay for this personally or again spend money he don’t have and add to the deficit? Can you really build a refinery from scratch in just two years?

3.      Now here are the easy ways to reduce oil usage; it is called ‘by the stroke of a pen, good fairy intervention’. “He also pledged to establish higher fuel-efficiency standards for heavy trucks, just as he did for passenger vehicles early in his administration.” Isn’t it great having our best and brightest working on these solutions? If they made the standards REAL high could they overcome our entire oil import problem?

4.      “Obama also urged oil companies to make greater use of the federal leases both onshore and offshore to prop up domestic oil output.” Excuse me, isn’t this the same guy that declared a moratorium last year of indefinite duration on off shore drilling? Was I asleep when he had his epiphany on offshore drilling?

Next poor Portugal has had its credit downgraded to just one notch above ‘junk’ status. No wonder their government quit. But Brazil is thinking of helping to bail them out. One wonders if the Brazilians will buy Portugal bonds, can we ask them to buy some of ours too? Without, or even with, a bailout, a few pundits are forecasting a double dip recession for the poor Portuguese. The good news for the rest of us is that their plight follows Greece and Ireland and since we all know that bad luck comes in threes, the sooner they dive into it, the safer the rest of us will be.

Venezuelan state oil workers pension fund has invested some funds in a Ponzi Scheme and fears to lose millions. It was unclear if those funds were invested in U.S. Social Security Treasury IOUs or not. If not, there may be some recover of funds per the article.

Back to Washington, your Congress and Senate are both stating that they fear a government shutdown will be caused by the other body unless the other body caves soon. Seems that our elected leaders are unable to find 30 to 50 billion dollars of stuff to stop spending money on in a 1.4 trillion dollar budget. That’s about 2.4% or less. Whatever is proposed by one body seems to be shown by the other to take the food right out of the mouths of starving children, most of whom may not be here ‘officially’, but who cares when one is espousing a good cause for spending other peoples’ money.

Oh, and speaking of Washington, you longsuffering Social Security blood suckers (I’m told by Mr. Obama, Ms. Pelosi, and Mr. Reid that you are the major problem our nation faces in the current debt crisis), will not be receiving an income bump for the 3^rd year running. Not quite accurate, you will get a bump, but it will be consumed by an increase in your Medicare premium you double-dipping bloodsuckers, as this is the second biggest problem we face in our debt crisis per my same source. But here is the good news, since the two biggest problems we face to overcome our fiscal problems are centered on a bunch of old bloodsuckers, let’s just wait until they all die, and then we won’t have the problem anymore. At least that seems to be how your Congress and Senate have chosen to view this two issues over the last decade or three. Well, that’s not quite true either, Mr. Obama and his team have passed a new health care bill that will take 500 million dollars away from Medicare to give health care to 30 million new folks who don’t have health insurance, or a green card, which will treat you double bloodsucking old timers as you deserve.

“What Shirley?” “Well, yes I do use both of those programs, but I’m not a bloodsucker, I paid my share all those years I worked!”

Little Rock Mayor Stodola Wants to Raise Taxes, Surprise, Surprise.

             Mark Stodola, The Mayor, says “city can no longer take a ‘Band-Aid’ approach to providing services and needs residents to approve a higher sales tax”.

            When the current ½ % sales tax was first implemented in 1995 it was a $12 million addition to the budget; it now produces $22.5 million; not a bad little increase. Probably better than some of us have received over the same time span, at least my income and my 401K looks at that 87.5% increase enviably.

            Seems that part of the Mayor’s problem is jealousy. It appears that several “smaller” cities in the state have a higher sales tax percentage and income. Fort Smith has a 2% sales tax that rakes in $37 million annually versus the Capital City’s meagerly $22.5 million.

            And yes, he threw the ‘usual list’ of threatened services under the bus: resurfacing the cities streets doesn’t even have a budget line item, can’t maintain the cities parks, much less mow their grass, and the police have three year old cars and it’s time to buy new ones.

            Other cost cutting measures over the last two years has the city short 200 positions that apparently were authorized in prior, plushier times.

            What was missing in the “Politicians Plea for Further Tax Increases” was any supporting information.

            For example, it was reported that the sales tax revenue has increase 87.5% since 1995, but not how much percentage growth in the city’s budget or manpower over the same period.

            It would also be enlightening to understand the city's population growth from 1995 to 2010 both on an absolute and percentage increase.

The city has 200 open positions today, but what was the total number of employees in 1995 versus 2010? What is the percentage growth in the number of employees?

The city has a budget of $134 million; where do they spend it?

Are the City Directors giving automatic salary increases to employees even while cutting services like repaving roads and maintaining city parks?

As for three years old police cars, does that mean that the cars are worn out, high mileage, broken down, unsafe for the officers or citizens, or just time to join the State of Arkansas in buying some more cars? I want the police to have cars that run, are safe to drive, and have the equipment needed for their safety and ours. But the fact that they are driving 3 year old cars doesn’t “resonate” with me and my 15 year-old van. Of course I’m not going to be chasing the extra 6,880 “non-violent” criminals that Governor Beebe proposes to unleash on us over the next 10 years. So maybe the police do need more cars, not just newer models because “it hasn’t purchased new police cars in three years”.

For reasons not yet understood the citizens voted two years ago to actually pay The Mayor Stodola $35,000 a year. What do we get for that? Higher taxes.

The local paper noted “City directors didn’t know what to expect from Stodola until the noon speech…”.  Many of us who may have voted for him now share that same concern: we don’t know what to expect from Stodola in the future, but obviously higher taxes is one of them.

But rest easy taxpayer, he threw in a comment that he hoped the citizens would also approve an additional “temporary tax for capital projects”. Makes one wonder if the 1995 sales tax was sold to the citizens as a “temporary tax”.

It is refreshing to learn that politicians just don’t change. They always want more money and offer to be prudent with the new funds if approved and to cut vital services if not approved.

           I suggest that we start with the Mayor’s salary as a new source of city funds. It would make me feel better when one of the new capital projects results in the newly constructed but over budget “Stodola Center for Something or Other” opens.

Mark Martin, Where Have all the Good Men Gone?

           Just when we think that we have turned the spotlight on government spending abuse, we elect Mark Martin as Secretary of State. In even less time than it took our newly elected Associate Supreme Court Justice to file for divorce, find a boyfriend and take 9 trips with, and fully paid for by him, which many of us thought was a whirlwind record for poor judgment, Mr. Martin goes out and buys a new $27,000.00 car for his office.

            The state has over 8,000 cars and can’t even keep track of those. The Secretary of State has 23 on hand and in less that 70 days in office goes and buys another one, and he’s a Republican! Based on this initial display of his judgment of the taxpayer’s mind frame, he should be a “One Termer.” Oh sure, I know that he can fully justify the need; the other 23 cars in his department are already needed for daily commutes by current staff and he has a new person coming on board that just can’t abide using a “pool” car.

And speaking of all the cars literally running around in the state’s employees’ hands, we were due a report from the Director of Finance and Administration last week as to where the 8,000+ other cars are and what official need, if any, justifies their existence. Have we seen it yet? No. Will we ever see it? Don’t bet your house on it.

           I guess there is some good news in all of this; the new car was a hybrid. I hope that this at least promises that the taxpayer will have to spend less money for the gas that this new employee will use driving this new $27,000.00 car, totaling 24 now in the Secretary of State’s Office, around the highways and byways of the state as he/she heads to and from work.

When Is Arkansas Going to Elect a Governor That Can Drive a Car?

         The Governor Beebe has the State Police drive him around like some Middle Eastern Potentate. This really confuses me. I view the State Police as a highly trained, capable, professional organization with more important duties than to drive the Governor around. If he can’t drive a car, he should hire a chauffer or ask his wife to drop him off at work. Maybe the downtown trolley could make a special run for the tourists to see the “Mansion” and the State Capital and pick up the “Gov” on the way.

I can understand why Bill Clinton needed the State Police to drive him around: to protect him from irate boyfriends and fathers. But I’m not aware that more recent governors such as Governors Huckabee and Beebe have that proclivity and special protection need.

Wait, I’ve just had a brainstorm! Governor Beebe is going to release 6,880 “Non-violent” criminals onto the highways and byways of the state rather than incarcerate them. Why not hire one of these on sort of a work release program? Pay a much lower salary than the State Police Officer commands and allows the Police to return to protecting ordinary citizens. Since the Governor’s Mansion is state property, Governor Beebe could even house the “Non-violent” felon right there, available 24/7.

A beautiful solution! Saves the state money, allows Beebe to put example where his mouth has gone before him, frees his wife from having to drop him off at work, and removes the necessity of the Governor having to learn how to drive a car! Plus the Governor shows by example how safe it is with all these extra “non-violent” criminals roaming around.

           Shirley, it’s just amazing how we can resolve these nitty little problems when we put our best and brightest on them!

Never Under Estimate a Bunch Of Politicians

             The State of Arkansas owes the Federal government over $330 million loaned to the State for Unemployment Benefits during this last Great Recession, which many believe was in a major part caused right there in the U. S. Congress. There has been great and thoughtful debate in the hallowed halls of our state legislature on how to handle this “load of loans”. Think new taxes as the usual remedy, but of course paid by the businesses, that will probably pass it on to their customers, who are the taxpayers. But what the heck, pass a tax through two or three sub layers and the stupid taxpayers will never see it. (Ref: page 2 of Legislative Digest Guidelines to Assure Re-election).

            Just today it was reported that the State Senate is going to ‘earmark’ $700,000 of “SURPLUS” funds for special projects in their districts, etc. This is after Governor Beebe groaned and moaned about the State not being able to afford any tax cuts not his own idea (think take credit for personally) without reducing police, teachers, Medicaid, and the usual suspects threatened to be thrown under the bus to put the taxpayer back into submission.

            Out here in Center Field, where the water is clean and the heart is pure, a question springs to mind. How can you have “Surplus” funds when you owe $330 million? And if there are “Surplus” funds, why not pass the surplus back to the folks that paid the taxes if you aren’t going to apply the “Surplus” to your debt?

            To give some credit to our elected Representatives, the HOUSE did in fact decline to use any “Surplus” funds for pet projects. Hooray for the House!!! Shame on the Senate!!! Vote the Spenders out!!!

Coincidence Is Not A Kosher Word

          Is it a coincidence that less than a week after the Arkansas Senate approved Governor Beebe’s new prison reform bill to potentially release “non-violent” criminals from prison and to not incarcerate them in the future, that the Little Rock Police Department is authorizing their patrol officers to be equipped with semi-automatic weapons?

            In truth the article does point out that other state and local law enforcement officers have had these weapons for years and that the Little Rock SWAT team has them. Perhaps it’s just the Little Rock Force catching up with the need of the time. Or perhaps it’s the Little Rock Force looking ahead to the time when Governor Beebe will dump an additional 6,880 (per The Pew Study) “non-violent” criminals onto the streets and byways of Arkansas over the next ten years.

            IF an officer wishes to carry such a weapon in his patrol car, he must do the following. First take some type of unspecified training “to qualify to wield them”. Now that makes perfectly sound logical sense to me.

But then it takes a perverse twist, “would have to radio in for authorization to use them. (Police spokesman) Hastings said”. Assuming that the officer is receiving fire from some miscreant using an AK-47, he’s to find his radio, call in and hopefully locate someone with the authority to authorize the weapon’s use? Can the dispatcher authorize it? What if the Captain or Lieutenant is on the potty, what does the dispatcher do, burst in and seek permission in the Men’s Room? Who better than the poor cop on the ground taking fire to determine IF he should use it? But wait; is the logic of this restriction that a cop is more dangerous firing a rifle than a 40 mm Glock? Quite frankly, I personally can hit a target at greater distance and with more accuracy with a rifle then a handgun; would bet that the typical patrol car officer can too. Wait, I’ve just had a great idea. Why not include marksmanship as part of the training “to qualify to wield them!”

But then the strangest perversion is that the police officer desiring to carry one in his patrol car must purchase it with his own funds at $900.00 a copy. With all the money we waste in the Convention Bureau, you would think that someone could find forty or fifty grand to arm our officers. Heck, I’d be willing to donate some bucks myself to help insure that the cop can match firepower with the miscreant when and if a patrol officer ever has to respond to a call at my house.

“Coincidence is not a Kosher word; it removes the hand of God.”

                                    Rabbinical Saying.