The governor takes a stand

— Yes, I’ve been rather hard on my old friend the governor the last couple of weeks.

Mike Beebe’s passive, philosophy-devoid style of governing in the face of a troglodytic overthrow of reason-not to mention his throwing in on a grocery-tax alliance with the chief troglodyte . . . well, people have told me that it was disrespectfully derisive of me the other day to call him “Mikey.”

John Brummett is blogging daily online.

It was just frustration, I think. Anyway, it was better that than his real name, Mickey Dale.

Those real full names will sometimes rise up to bite the genuine Arkansas country boy, said Johnny Ray the columnist.

I do not think it was as bad as referring to Mike Huckabee as “Wide Body” or Bill Clinton as “Slick Willie.”

So, you know . . . get over it.

But one thing I can do is take note when a combative pulse is located at last in the governor, as happened Tuesday, I’m advised.

That was when Mikey spoke at a “Razorback luncheon” to a bevy of University of Arkansas people in connection with “Razorback Day” at the Capitol.

That was when all the politicos got to touch Bret Bielema, the only undefeated football coach in the history of the University of Arkansas.

What the governor indicated to the group is that this Legislature is going to get on the fighting side of him, not on abortion or guns, but when it moves later in the session on state Rep. Charlie Collins’ bill to rearrange the state income tax rates.

Collins, the Republican from Fayetteville, proposes to do so in a way that would (1) make these rates fairer to the middle class, but (2) lower them needlessly on elite income as well, and (3) have the general budgetary effect of reducing the state Treasury.

What always happens when the state general revenues get reduced, Beebe told the group, is that colleges and universities take the hit.

And he said he’s going to fight it.

He won’t even push his own grocery tax draw down unless certain anticipated new revenue flows occur. And while it apparently was out of the question that he might stand up publicly in an anticipatory way to resist this fetus and gun madness, it is entirely appropriate in his mind to stand up publicly in an anticipatory way and warn these yahoos not to send him something untenable on the budget.

His passion politically? Well, there seem to be two. One is that he just loves fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets and avoiding shortfalls. He goes wobbly-kneed over that.

The other is that he didn’t have much chance in life until Arkansas State University educated him and the University of Arkansas Law School made him a lawyer, and he wants to use his governorship to protect and advance higher education as much as he can.

I remember when he was president pro tem of the Senate and he took me into his office to show me how he’d found a little change under the sofa cushions of state government and intended to insist that it all go to colleges and universities.

He wants his signature to be fiscal prudence and improved education toward economic development. On social issues, he mostly seems determined not to be distracted by them.

And he’s right that, if the Republicans reduce income tax revenue into the General Fund, the following will happen: Public schools will get theirs because there is a court ruling. Medicaid will get its because it has an untenable shortfall already. Prison will get theirs because there is an interest in keeping bad people in jail as much as we can afford.

That leaves colleges and universities on the theory that they can raise tuition if it comes to that, even as we reduce scholarships under the struggling lottery.

House Speaker Davy Carter, the GOP leader of sporadic reason, is going to land unreasonably on Collins’ side on this.

Republicans remain addicted to the wholly disproved notion that there is a dynamically expansive revenue effect from cutting income taxes-that these lower rates would fashion what Collins calls a “good jobs magnet” and bring new taxes from new jobs and reduce poverty needs.

Beebe and his economic development people counter that the evidence is plain nationwide that high-quality higher education produces a better state economy and a lesser investment in higher education assures a weaker state economy.

I was told about a study the other day that said a person with a college education will receive, on average, a million dollars more in earnings over his lifetime than a person with only a high school education.

That sounds like a lot until you realize it’s $25,000 a year over a 40-year career.

So if we can ever get past the gun and abortion madness and get down to mathematics, this governor appears ready finally to engage actively in what some people call public policy debate.

I look forward.

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John Brummett’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial, Pages 79 on 02/24/2013

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