Arkansas has a constitution that
required a balanced budget to ensure responsible government spending
and long term financial security and stability for our state.
Unfortunately, that requirement is being completely ignored. Arkansas
currently has an outright debt of about $3billion. If you
include unfunded pension and other retirement debts that jumps to a
whopping $38billion! Now the Governor wants to add another
$87million to our debt as a gift to Lockheed Martin in the hopes that
they might employ a few hundred Arkansans. This is a completely
unnecessary expenditure of corporate welfare. Lockheed Martin has
just as good a chance of winning a taxpayer funded contract to
construct military vehicles here in Arkansas without Arkansas'
$87million dollar gift as they would with it. It is nothing more than
a cash payout to a huge firm that employs an army of lobbyists and
doles out significant campaign contributions - a quid pro quo
arrangement that hurts all Arkansans not in the "political
class." This comes just a short time after our last governor
requested and got $125 million dollars of our hard earned tax dollars
to give to Big River steel so they could open a steel plant to drive
Nucor steel out of business in our state. Mind you, Nucor has been a
responsible tax payer and
employer of Arkansans for decades, and it took no such payouts
from us to bring and keep them here.
Bringing business and industry to
Arkansas is important so that good jobs are available throughout the
state. If spending is needed to improve infrastructure (roads, ports,
training, etc...) for that - go ahead and budget for that in the
regular BALANCED budget. I'm all for it. I'd also love to see a tax
policy that lowers taxes for everyone and creates a climate for job
growth that benefits everyone, not just one or two picked "winners."
Going further into debt just to give a multimillion dollar gift to one
corporation, however, is outrageously irresponsible and reprehensible
and should not even be considered.
