Sanders on Beebe---For Once, I Have to Disagree

David Sanders' latest column leads me to disagree with him for the first time in a while.

Entitled "Beebe Shootin' Straight", it covers 3 issues on which David contends Beebe hasn't tried to ride the fence. The problem isn't that Beebe rides the fence on all issues, just on the controversial issues.

The 3 issues David covers are the grocery tax, the severance tax, and illegal immigration. What he says is that on these issues Beebe took or has taken clear positions. I'll take them one at a time. In all of the issues, he takes a position which is easy to take, because his position is either popular or not as controversial or his position doesn't really affect policy.

The grocery tax: it's true that he took a clear position on it, but his position was a gimme because cutting the grocery tax is something everyone could get behind. We had a surplus, so it wasn't like libs in the Ledge could trot in poor, single mothers whose program would be cut. On the contrary, it helped poor, single mothers and rich, married mothers, pretty much everybody who buys groceries, which is pretty much everybody. It's the first tax cut in history where I didn't have to argue with the readers of the Arkansas Times blog. That should tell you something.

The severance tax: I have spoken with many friend about this lately who think this is an easy position for Beebe, too, because how many of you own or know somebody who owns a shale oil lease or mineral rights on land with natural gas? Probably not many of you. One of my friends called it the divide and conquer method of taxation. They come for us one at a time. Notice that when a tax is cut it affects us all, which maximizes the political gain for Beebe, but when one is raised it, quite by design, affects a small, "wealthy" group that almost nobody knows, which minimizes the political loss for Beebe. And it's a group with no lobby, or at least a very limited lobby, at the Capitol, since shale oil and natural gas have only recently become profitable enough ventures in Arkansas. This is a highly sophisticated issue where the only people other than the land owners and the drillers who oppose it will be fiscal conservatives who are paying attention, like me, and that's not very many people.

Illegal immigration: If you read what Beebe said, he actually didn't say anything that will affect a change in policy. In fact, he said the opposite. So, on one hand, Beebe gave lip service to what the average Arkansan thinks, while, on the other, he stated that he's not going to do anything about it. The governor was pretty clever with this one. He said, "what are we doing on the state level? Absolutely nothing, because it would violate federal law, or at least it would open the state up to paying monies that we could never afford with regard to illegal immigrants." Then he threw us some red meat by saying, "if it is illegal, it means it's illegal." He essentially advocates the same fallacious legal argument that the "Arkansas Friendship Coalition" propogates.

In all three cases, the positions he has taken were pretty easy. His risk profile is very low on all three. The grocery tax was something everybody benefits from, while the severance tax increase is something that only affects some obscure group of greedy oil barons (In actuality, it mostly affects people who have owned relatively valueless land for generations, but most people don't own more than a quarter acre with no mineral rights, so who cares, right?) . His position on illegal aliens is perhaps his most tortured, but it doesn't affect existing policy while telling us what we want to hear. Of all the issues the immigration issue will prove the hardest position to maintain, but it's his best possible position because he gets to look like he cares while telling us that he can't do anything about it. I wouldn't be surprised if the "Arkansas Friendship Coalition" wasn't organized for that exact purpose, to give cover for politicians who don't have the guts to take a position one way or another. Blame it on their stupid, fallacious legal argument that, 'hey, I'd like to do something, but I just can't, legally."

Watch and see.

On all of these issues, Governor Beebe has calculated for himself the best possible position, with the least downside. So, as much as I hate to disagree with you, David, he has actually proven himself to be more risk-averse and not less. Please keep in mind that David Sanders is probably the best political columnist in the state. I just happen to disagree with him, today.

Here's the link to Sanders' column.