Two Senators And A Rival Come To Northwest Arkansas

Both the state's U.S. senators were in Northwest Arkansas on Wednesday, along with the major party candidate running against one of them.

Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., of Rogers met with staff of the Northwest Arkansas Council and with regional planners. U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat, held a campaign stop and news conference at the Fayetteville Senior Activity and Wellness Center.

Pryor's opponent, 4th District Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Dardanelle, was speaker for the 28th Annual Golden Age Games, an event for veterans nationwide that was held in Fayetteville and concluded Wednesday.

Pryor called for keeping the eligibility age for Medicare at 65. Cotton said Medicare's continued survival requires changes, and proposals he supports raise the eligibility age wouldn't apply to anyone older than 55 now.

"That's unfair," Pryor said of allowing some to enter the program at 65 while others had to wait until turning 70. "It changes the entire Medicare program, which was created because private insurance companies don't want to cover people older than 65."

Cotton said Wednesday changes to pay for Obamacare, along with taking money out of the Medicare program to pay for other spending over the years, will leave Medicare unable to meet its expenses in 12 years if some action isn't taken. "I don't think asking people who are 30 years old today or still in their 20s to wait a couple of extra years is too much to ask," Cotton said.

Staff for the Northwest Arkansas Council, a group of business and community leaders, told Boozman a shortage of developed industrial sites is a problem for growth in Northwest Arkansas. Granted, the market wouldn't be tight if the local economy was not going well, but it is a problem, staff said.

Federal restrictions on banking imposed after the market crash in 2008 are also especially onerous on banks, Boozman was told. Smaller banks didn't make the large, risky loans that endangered the economy, staff said.

But now they have to comply with the same very expensive tracking and reporting requirements as larger ones that were reckless.

He knows the regulatory problem is bad, Boozman said, because both banks and credit unions have complained to him. "When the banks and the credit unions agree on something, you know it's a problem."