BETWEEN THE LINES: Can Ledge Be Done In Three Weeks?

The best news out of Little Rock lately is that state lawmakers may go home by April 19.

That’s their self-imposed deadline to recess and one that could hold, despite the fact that major legislation has yet to be handled.

As yet unresolved as this 12th week of the session began were expansion of Medicaid, financing for a proposed steel mill super project and a package of tax cuts.

Republicans, who hold the majority in both chambers of the Legislature, have championed most of the tax cuts. Gov. Mike Beebe, with support from many Democrats, has pressed for both the steel mill project and for Medicaid.

Lawmakers have been wooling the Medicaid issue around all session long.

With time running out now, what appears to be gelling is an agreement to provide private health insurance to low-income Arkansans (those earning less than $15,415 a year).

The state would use federal dollars made available for Medicaid expansion through the federal Affordable Care Act to buy eligible Arkansans private insurance.

The insurance would be purchased through a state exchange, which many Republicans have resisted creating because it is part of “Obamacare.”

Nevertheless, on Tuesday, Gov. Beebe said the federal Health and Human Services Department has put in writing its “conceptual” support for Arkansas’ innovative plan, which the governor’s oft ce says will insure about 250,000 more Arkansans and save the state $670 million over the next 10 years.

The issue is complicated, as both the governor and legislative leaders acknowledged even before the session started in mid-January. It has only gotten more complicated as the session moved along, largely because whatever plan passes will need a three-fourths majority vote in each chamber of the Legislature.

The governor and the legislative leaders all expected this to be the primary issue for lawmakers this year. It went to the back burner, however, as the newly empowered Republicans pressed a social agenda for weeks on end, passing and then overriding the governor’s vetoes of constitutionally suspect abortion laws.

Even as anti-abortion and gun rights issues dominated, some lawmakers continued to work with the governor to move the Medicaid issue along. Tuesday’s development should speed consideration.

Meanwhile, there is also some movement regarding the steel mill superproject, which Beebe announced in early February.

Key lawmakers - Senate President Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, and House Speaker Davy Carter, R-Cabot - recently said they will support the superproject. Committee debate should begin this week.

The steel mill, expected to create at least 525 high-paying jobs near Osceola, will require $125 million in state financing that the Legislature must approve. Of that sum, $75 million would be an outright grant to Big River Steel LLC. The remaining $50 million would be a loan the company must repay.

The project has drawn vocal opposition from some, including Nucor Steel, which is located in the same county as the site for the new mill. The mills would be producing different products but drawing from the same Delta workforce.

The third issue, a tax-cut package, is tangled up with the other two. And none of this may be completely finalized until the governor and lawmakers can agree on a way to do it all and still balance the state budget.

Obviously, any spending plans affect how much the state can afford to cut taxes.

So somewhere in the state Capitol, a handful of folks are doing the serious number crunching, giving and taking on particulars and looking for the magic combination that both the Legislature and the governor can support.

They can’t leave until they get a budget - with or without agreement on any of the big three issues.

But they clearly want to recess by April 19, as Lamoureux so plainly said last week.

“We need to go home,” the Senate leader said. “People are tired of being here, people are tired of dealing with each other, people are tired of being away from their families and their businesses, and nerves are frayed. It’s time for us to get out of here.”

A lot of Arkansans would agree that lawmakers need to be gone, although for entirely different reasons.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 04/03/2013

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