HB1339 and HB1204

The print media continues to misrepresent HB1204, the tax increase on tobacco products. The DemGaz this morning claimed that monies raised by the measure will go for "rural health centers", an expansion of ARKids first, a trauma system, and maybe even do your dishes and eliminate halitosis.

I say the truth is that as the bill is actually written, it won't do anymore to fund any of that stuff than any other tax dollar committed to general revenues. So who is telling it to you straight, this little ole' blog or the mighty DemGazette? Please read the text of the bill yourself and see what they have put in writing. Then use what you discover to make a rational decision about who is a more credible source for information for you.

I suspect that Beebe wanted to use almost all of the revenue raised by HB1204 that is not going to the trauma system (in other words about 3/4ths of the loot) for matching funds from Medicaid. So what sort of expansion of Medicaid was in the works from the Obama administration? "Family planning", which has always meant contraceptives and abortion. Planned Parenthood, the nation's #1 abortion provider/referrer, has been the organization which has benefited most from Medicaid's "family planning" "services".

To be commended are Representatives Pam Adcock and Stephanie Flowers, the two Democrats who broke with Beebe to vote against this bill. If they realized that it was a taxpayer funding for abortion/contraceptives bill more than it was a trauma center bill, then they are the sharpest crayons in the Democratic box. I got inside word that at least one of those two DID realize the future abortion/contraceptive implications for the bill. Good for them. As for the rest of the "pro-life" Democrats, their walk did not match their talk. Meanwhile on the Republican side, Rep. Roy Ragland may have made a quick end to his rumored campaign for Lt. Governor by not only voting for a tax increase in a time of government budgetary surplus, but doing it on a vote that also steps on Pro-lifer's toes. Ouch.

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HB 1339, the political hack employment act, would lock Arkansas' electors into voting for President whoever won the national popular vote, regardless of the vote in this state. Word is that legislators are getting wined and dined on this one by national interests like never before. Why? I suspect it is because the way Presidential elections are done now means that most of the money is spent in maybe ten key swing states. TV and radio stations in non-swing states want a piece of that action. Political hacks who get hired to run political campaigns (yeah, three fingers pointing back at me on that one) around the nation want in on the action too. A popular vote win would spread campaign dollars out. I believe that is the real reason for the push behind this bill.

Advocates say that polls favor it, but that is only because the people are being misinformed about it by the same big media that stands to benefit from the measure. I say again something you know in your heart but is hard to keep in one's head just because they are out there so much- you simply cannot trust the mainstream media to tell you the truth. It is irrational to listen to what they have to say as if it were true because there are too many known instances where they slant it.

One man, one vote still applies the way we do it now, it just applies on a state by state basis. In order to make it apply uniformly, you would not only need to adopt this bill, you would also need to dissolve the US Senate where each state gets two senators regardless of size. I remind you that these two measures- the selection of the President and the selection of Senators, were tilted to slightly favor smaller states because it was a pre-condition for them to join into a United States in the first place. This bill is tantamount to changing the agreement by which they consented to form the U.S. without their consent. Smaller states, of which we are one, will get steam-rolled.

Under this bill, a candidate who won overwhelmingly in California and New York but lost narrowly in 48 other states including this one would get all of Arkansas' electoral votes. Even if one of their campaign promises was to use Arkansas as the radioactive waste dump for the whole nation. Even if they promised to use Arkansans as a food source for California and New York they would get all of Arkansas' electoral votes. The UNITED STATES is just that, a collection of states who ceded some authority to a central government by mutual consent. Change the weighted influence of the smaller states, and you change the agreement by which the UNITED STATES was formed.