COMMENTARY

The Coach And Other Well-Timed News

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS STORY FADES QUICKLY; CONGRESS, PRESIDENT PUT OFF THEIR HOMEWORK

Well, played, UA. Well played.

The University of Arkansas’ chief fundraiser overspent his division’s budget by 31 percent, amounting to $3.1 million. This was in the fiscal year that ended three months ago.

Brad Choate, vice chancellor for this division, has been figuring out what happened since about June 30, the university said in an announcement Monday. Monday, by my count, fell three months after the fiscal year ended and about 24 days after Choate and his budget director had been reassigned “on or around” Nov. 9.

Monday also happened to be one day before the university announced that it has hired a new football coach.

The announcement of the overspending, the reassignments and news of how Choate’s contract will not be renewed after the current fiscal year ends June 30, 2013, wasn’t just pushed off the front page.

The story vaporized.

Maybe things just worked out that way. Think so?

Let this serve as just another reminder to those of us in the news business.

Any time we think what we cover is important, just wait until the next announcement about the football program. It never fails to put us in our place.

!!!

Speaking of putting things in their place, I wish Congress would fall off a cliff .

My 15-year-old son asked me what the “fi scal cliff ” was. I replied:

  1. Congress and the president put off every tough decision on the budget until the election ended.

  2. The election ended.

So now they have to make the decisions they should have made months ago.

The lesson here: Don’t put off your homework.

So what happens if they don’t turn in their homework, he asked.

They will, I replied. Their campaign contributors will tell them to, just like your parents do about homework.

Somebody at work asked me about the “cliff ” too.

I said the whole thing reminds me of the scene in “Blazing Saddles” where the new sheriff draws his pistol and takes himself hostage.

Just put any congressman of either party in the role of the sheriff and there you go. !!!

Speaking of homework and federal budgets, I marvel at how many supporters of Medicaid expansion continue to act like the logic of the thing is self-evident.

The federal governmentwill pay 100 percent of the cost for the next three years, and 90 percent after that, we’re promised. All the state Legislature has to do is approve it. Such assurances keep getting repeated. At the exact same time we’re all looking over the “fi scal cliff ” that was created by a dysfunctional Congress that can’t keep promises it has already made.

I’m for expanding Medicaid. I’ve given my reasons in previous columns. However, I don’t believe for one second it’s the wonderful no-brainerwindfall of federal money it’s portrayed to be. We should all admit that in the current political, economic and budgetary climate, a deal this sweet won’t hold together long. The question is, are we going to start fixing our broken system or not? I’m for starting somewhere without believing everything’s going to get solved in one swipe.

The cold political fact is Republican primary voters hate health care reform and the general election voters are not clamoring for it. That won’t change.

Health care reform is the most exhaustively - even interminably - debated public policy of the last four years. It’s been a core issue of two elections since it was passed and has gone all the way through the U.S. Supreme Court.

Everybody’s made up their mind about this and the results are in. The health care issue has cost Arkansas Democrats control of the Legislature for the fi rst time in 138 years. Democrats lost every seat they had in our U.S. House delegation over this, and the one U.S.

Senate seat that came upfor election so far.

Health care reform is the shortest political pier I’ve seen since I started covering politics full-time in 1998. Passing Medicaid reform requires getting half the GOP caucus in the state House to take a long walk. I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but I do say it’s close to that. You can definitely see impossible from here. Just look over the edge of the “cliff” or the end of the pier.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.

Opinion, Pages 12 on 12/09/2012

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