Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman launched his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination Thursday, saying his priorities include cutting taxes, limitingthe size of state government and allowing private schools to receive public funds.
He said he opposes Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe’s proposals to expand the state’s Medicaid program by 250,000 and to authorize a $125 million bond issue for the proposed Big River Steel plant near Osceola.
Coleman is the second Republican to enter the 2014 race. He is a former chief executive officer of Safe Foods Corp. of North Little Rockand a former Baptist minister, who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination in 2010.
Last month, former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Rogers said he plans to run for his party’s gubernatorial nomination.
Former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter of North Little Rock is the only announced Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
State Highway Commissioner John Burkhalter of Lit-tle Rock and state Sen. Keith Ingram of West Memphis are considering running for governor as Democrats, and Sen. Johnny Key of Mountain Home and former Game and Fish Commissioner Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock are weighing GOP bids for governor.
Beebe, who is completing his second term, is barred by the state’s term-limits amendment from seeking re-election.
Accompanied by his wife, Kathryn, Coleman told more than 100 supporters in the state Capitol’s Old Supreme Court Room that he decided to run for governor partly because “it’s time to let Arkansas prosper.
“The simple fact is that Arkansans have every right, every reason and every resource to be one of the most successful states and to be populated by some of the most prosperous people in the nation,” he said.
“Like many Arkansans, I am sick and tired of our state’s political leaders excusing their poor performance on the hollow pretext that Arkansas is just a poor state,” Coleman said. “We don’t need another professional politician at the helm.”
Coleman said the state should reduce and simplify the state income taxes, eliminate taxes on businesses’ investments, and ax state income taxes on pensions for military retirees.
Coleman said he wants to transfer economic development responsibilities from state government to cities and counties.
Instead of state government “trying to draw one big new industry per decade into the state, we will be much more effective and much more successful if we start 100 new small businesses in 100 new communities every year,” he said.
Coleman said he aims to dramatically improve education in Arkansas, increase high school graduation rates and“restore” the rights of parents to choose where their children attend school and what their children are taught.
He said he wants to allow parents to use tax dollars to underwrite the cost of their children’s private-school tuition.
“We may move eventually to a full voucher program,” he said.
Coleman called for “a smaller, smarter and more efficient government.”
“Letting Arkansas prosper requires getting government out of our faces, off of our backs and out of our pocketbooks,” Coleman said. “From Obamacare to the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], the federal government is increasingly encroaching on our fundamental rights to property and privacy.”
“And if necessary, I will stand on the borders of our state and I will say, “No, not in Arkansas,’ to a federal government that would attempt to infringe on those fundamental rights guaranteed to us by our creator, including and especially the right to keep and bear arms,” Coleman said.
He said he opposes expanding the state’s Medicaid program by 250,000 people.
“I think it is a mistake to expand Medicaid because instead of expanding the number of people who are on Medicaid, we need to be shrinking the number of people who need Medicaid, and we do that by creating more and better-paying jobs,” Coleman said.
The federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion until 2017. At that point, the state’s share will gradually increase to 10 percent by 2020.
Hutchinson declined to say whether he opposes Medicaid expansion, saying “I am opposed to the state incurring an uncertain liability in the future.
“The long-term costs to the taxpayers could be devastating. I applaud the General Assembly in pushing for more specifics on the costs and for looking for alternatives to President Obama’s proposal,” he said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/22/2013