Author: Talk Business

by Talk Business - August 15, 2011 7:00 pm

Arkansas Avoids Federal Grant For Health Care Exchanges

In case you missed it, those opposed to the early implementation of ObamaCare in Arkansas had a victory last week when we turned down federal grant money to begin implementing the health care exchanges. (Quick side note here – President Obama said yesterday that he was fine with the term ObamaCare, so I now feel free to use this term to refer to the Federal Health Care Bill.)

Arkansas joins other conservative state such as Kansas, Oklahoma, and Florida in turning down these grants, which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent out to 13 states.

There is one key difference here in Arkansas compared to these states and that is who is responsible.  These other states rejected the grants based on the leadership of their conservative governors – Gov. Sam Brownback in Kansas, Gov. Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, and Gov. Rick Scott in Florida.  However, in Arkansas, the credit goes to the conservative Republicans and a handful of conservative Democrats in the Arkansas House that stood up to the pressure from the Democratic majority and the Governor’s office by blocking the legislation that would have enabled the Arkansas Insurance Department to accept these funds.

It was with this backdrop that I notice the interesting spin that Gov. Beebe’s spokesman put on this in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week.

“As far as any other federal grants to help the state set up their own health-insurance exchanges, the Legislature made it clear that they wanted the federal government and not the state government to control the establishment of our health-care exchange. The governor has said before that he will not act unilaterally against those wishes, and he does not plan to change that stance,” Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said.

Nice try, but not quite right.  The state legislators opposed to accepting this grant did so as they did not want to spend millions of dollars implementing ObamaCare in Arkansas when the constitutionality of the law is still being challenged in federal court.  Just last Friday, we saw that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled portions of ObamaCare unconstitutional.  Obviously, this will eventually make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.  If it is upheld, there will be plenty of time to decide how to proceed.  Until then, it is a needless waste to spend millions setting up these exchanges.

Noted – A colleague of mine takes a slight issue with my wording saying that in reality the state chose not to apply for the grant last fall as the infrastructure was not yet in place. Then, after the state legislature chose not to set up the infrastructure, they never applied for the grants in the first place. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say they "rejected" the grant. 

Fair enough. Hopefully, I have explained it with more clarity now. Either way, you can still credit the Republicans in the House for saving the taxpayers million of dollars by not setting up an exchange that may never go into place. Yeah, I know it’s federal dollars not state dollars, but it is still taxpayer funds.

by Talk Business - August 15, 2011 7:00 pm

More Party Switches From Arkansas History

Here is the video below from my appearance on Talk Business this past Sunday.  Since it aired,  I learned a couple of interesting clarifications to the statement I made regarding Rep. Linda Collins-Smith’s party switch.  I said on the show that this was the first Arkansas legislator to switch from the Democratic to Republican Party, but it has been pointed out to me there are actual two interesting other occurences back in the 90’s.

As best I can tell (and I am sure someone will correct if I am wrong), Phil Wyrick of Little Rock was the first Democratic to Republican party switcher in the state legislature. In 1996, then-State Sen. Vic Snyder was elected to his first term in Congress creating an opening for his seat.  Democratic Rep. Phil Wyrick had seen the handwriting on the wall and planned to seek the senate seat in a special election, even seeking an AG opinion before the November election on if and how he could do this as an incumbent State Representative.  Campaigning for the special election was going to take place over the Christmas holidays and the political parties opted for a convention process versus special primaries to select nominees. Wyrick assessed he wouldn’t get the Democratic nod in the convention process, and the next day, he flipped his party allegiance to the Republicans who adopted him as their nominee. Who did Wyrick assume he’d lose to in the Democratic convention? Interestingly enough, it was Talk Business editor-in-chief Roby Brock, then an upstart Young Democrat.

The only other switch I have been able to track down was Lu Hardin, who never exactly ran as a Republican, but nonetheless did make a high-profile party switch.  Hardin served 14 years in the State Senate as a Democrat.  In 1996, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary against Attorney General Winston Bryant who went on to lose in the general election against Republican Tim Hutchinson.  In that race, Hardin was criticized for being too conservative, particularly on the right-to-life issue. With Sen. Dale Bumpers’ retirement in 1998 creating another open race for the U.S. Senate that Hardin was rumored to be considering, he switched to the Republican Party.  Ultimately, he did not run but instead was appointed as Director of the Department of Higher Education by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee.  Of course, all of this was before his infamous days as President of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

There is also of course several other examples from the 1990’s outside the state legislature, as well as former Congressman Tommy Robinson, former Democratic Prosecuting Attorney Betty Dickey who ran as a Republican for Attorney General against Mark Pryor, and former Democratic state auditor Julia Hughes Jones who ran as a Republican for Secretary of State in 1994 against Sharon Priest. Any others I am missing? Let me know.

by Talk Business - August 12, 2011 7:00 pm

Bachmann Wins Iowa Straw Poll – Paul A Close Second – Perry Announces

It was an eventful day in Republican Presidential politics that for the most part went exactly as most expected.

by Talk Business - August 11, 2011 7:00 pm

Dems Super Pac Plans Ad Attacking Griffin (updated)

Last week, I reported on the targeting of Congressman Tim Griffin by the DCCC, including an ad buy and a website focused on turning out protesters to his town halls.  Turns out the ad buy was around $750 of radio, and so far, the protesters have not shown up at his town halls.  Frustrated by this, the liberal blogs instead have tried to make a story about handouts that Griffin distributed at his town halls regarding protesters. 

It’s funny really.  First, they accused him of keeping the town halls secret. When that turned out not to be the case, they accused him of keeping them civil.

Anyway, according to a press release this morning, the Democratic Super PAC – House Majority PAC – is planning a large ad buy on Griffin.  I have not seen the ad yet, but it will likely be posted to their YouTube channel here eventually.  Roll Call has an article on the PAC here. The PAC was formed largely to combat the ads from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, which ran ads targeting Congressman Mike Ross the week before he announced he was not running for re-election.

They claim the ad buy is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but this raises the question:  Do the Democrats even have an opponent to run against Griffin yet?  If they are spending this much money, perhaps Halter has given them a reason to believe he might run after all.

Griffin’s campaign already responded, posting on thier official twitter account – "Help Tim fight the attack from @NancyPelosi’s Dem Super PAC friends! Please give at http://bit.ly/giveTG."

UPDATE – Sources familar with the ad buy tell me the placement is around $36k of cable only, no broadcast.  Contrast this to the $128k spent by Crossroads on both broadcast and cable and this is a much smaller buy.  It appears most of the ad buy will be focused on Rep. Scott Tipton of Colorado.

Here is the ad below. It is a cookie cuter ad. Nothing new. Hits him for voting for Cut, Cap, and Balance, the Ryan Plan, and a measure to reduce spending to 2008 levels.  The votes referrenced were supported by almost every House Republican.