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Again, everyone, thanks very much for being with us.

Work continues at the state capitol in these first weeks of the regular legislative session.

And in a moment we will have a review, an Outlook chat with a Republican from Cabot.

Who is the speaker?

First, a different legislative body in a different Capitol and the first days of its new session, which happen to be the first days of a new presidential administration.

Sort of.

And in keeping with the new new positions of authority for the Arkansas congressional delegation, we're joined now by Alex Thomas, Washington correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and host of the newspaper's podcast, Rookies in the Beltway.

Alex, thanks for coming aboard again.

Thank you for having me, Steve.

Well, at the end of of I guess the first full week really wasn't a full week of the of the new presidential administration Arkansas delegation.

Our six delegates find themselves in positions of some significance.

Yes, little old Arkansas may be one of the strongest states up here on Capitol Hill.

Picture this, Steve, A delegation of six members.

Five of those members are committee chairs, the top members of those committees.

And then there's the lowly Steve Womack, who happens to be a house piano.

One of the most senior members of that committee who handles spending for the federal government.

Like I said, Arkansas may have one of the biggest punches when it comes to state delegations here in Washington.

Well, let's start with the middle.

The lonely Mr. Womack, as you put it, quite the institutionalist.

But he is, while he's not a chair of the Appropriations Committee, he sits on the panel where they keep the money.

Right.

And he leads the subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

And if you've been in northwest Arkansas, traveled through that part of the state, you know that roads are a big issue up there.

Trying to mitigate traffic is a reoccurring problem.

And Steve Womack handles the money with that.

One thing we talked about with him back in December is the fact that his subcommittee handles a lot with disaster relief as well, trying to make sure roads and housing can be provided to those affected by natural disasters such as those in North Carolina.

That was in Los Angeles now.

So as we start discussing the response to the L.A. fires, Steve Womack will be somebody to watch as the House figures out the best options to help those people.

Yeah, well, along with Mr.. With Mr. Womack, we can we can touch on the other four members.

Are there the three members anyway of the House delegation.

All are poised to to return some.

I hate to use the word pork, but there they could return some pork.

Well, Brecksville has been opposed to the pork barrel.

What's casualty calls?

But the earmarks process.

But Representative Crawford, Representative Bruce Westerman and Representative Womack have all been supportive of those efforts because in their opinions, if they can get federal money out of the big federal pot and send it to Arkansas, then it's going to benefit everybody.

Well, that in that case, it's not pork.

Right.

So when pork gets talked about, it's often think about special pet projects, things that affect, you know, a number of people.

But when it comes to our delegation, they really emphasize how can we get federal dollars to help feed Arkansans and people visiting Arkansas?

A good example would be work on the Arkansas River and like I mentioned earlier with Representative Womack.

Transportation projects in Northwest Arkansas, Right?

Right.

And it is a bit unusual to see both with Mr. Crawford from the First District and Senator Cotton, both chairing the of the Intelligence Committee of their respective chambers.

That's a bit unusual, is it not, to have it from one state?

Yeah, it is.

And I'll talk about Representative Crawford first, because we didn't see this coming.

He had expressed interest in leading the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

He ended up not getting that job.

And so we thought, okay, he's going to be a subcommittee chair and we'll see what he does in this Congress.

And then House Speaker Mike Johnson removed the former chamber, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Johnson of Ohia, Mike Turner of Ohio.

And in that place, Rick Crawford of Arkansas.

Crawford was a senior member already.

He led the CIA subcommittee.

So he had the bona fides to lead that committee.

We just didn't see it coming.

And like you mentioned, working with a fellow Arkansan, Senator Cotton, they're going to be talking a lot more in the next two years than they ever have in their share of time on Capitol Hill.

Yeah, there is the suspicion that the fine hand of Mr. Trump was at work in these committee selections over on the House side.

Speaker Johnson has denied that.

When it comes to Representative Crawford, I asked him about that last week and he said, Hey, that's a question for Speaker Johnson.

At the same time, though, I'm not green on this committee, I have the experience and I understand what the intelligence community needs to succeed and provide the best intel to lawmakers to make the best decisions to protect the United States and keep our international standard.

What do we see these two committee?

What's what's going to be the top priority for them?

Well, that's the issue, because let's say let's compare it to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

So with the Senate Agriculture Committee, it's going to be the farm bill all year.

Those meetings will be an open session.

They'll talk about what they need to do with nutrition assistance programs, agriculture programs.

But with the intelligence committees, a lot of that work is done behind closed doors.

We don't get to see what the committee does.

But one thing that Senator Cotton has spoken about is getting back to the roots when it comes to intelligence.

They feel like the intelligence community has not done enough to protect the United States.

He pointed out the attack in New Orleans earlier this month and example.

And he really wants the intelligence community to step its game up to do more to protect the United States.

Let's go back to the farm bill for just a second, because that is obviously of enormous significance to.

Well, it really every state, but particularly a farm state like Arkansas.

Are we starting from scratch?

The House the House passed a version or two, I think, last session.

Are we starting from scratch here?

Well, yes and no.

So the Republicans have their frameworks, both the Senate Republicans in the House Republicans and like you mentioned, Steve.

House Republicans did approve a bill last year.

But the good news is Senator Boozman and a lot of Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats have been working on getting feedback over the last two years to try to put together a farm bill.

That feedback just doesn't go away.

Senator Boozman is keeping that information from his national tour with other senators and wants to put together a farm bill as soon as possible.

They postponed a final farm bill twice in the last Congress and they are running out of time.

If we want to help farmers as they are just continuing to face economic pressure.

Yeah, the financial implications of the challenges anyway of the ag community, whether it's ranching or farming events, pretty significant in the in the past 18 months.

Two years.

Right.

High input costs, low consumer prices.

That's not a good recipe for success if you're operating a farm.

And the farmers I've talked to are really stressing to people like Senator Bozeman representing property serves on the House Agriculture Committee.

We need something.

We need something.

Now what I want to.

Chairman Bosma, what is it?

What can we identify?

What his top priority is as chair?

Right.

So the top priority for him is going to be the Farm bill bar None.

There is nothing else that will top getting a farm bill done.

Yeah, I mean, within the farm, but within the farm bill now.

So what does he have to have?

So for him and a lot of congressional Republicans, they want to, as Senator Boozman would describe it, more farm in the farm bill, boost investments in agriculture programs, boost investment in farm programs.

But Senate Democrats and House Democrats are concerned that may come at a cost for nutrition programs, conservation efforts under the Inflation Reduction Act.

And they want to make sure that, yes, they help farmers, but also it doesn't come at a cost to somebody in terms of inflation, obviously was a huge issue for the Trump campaign.

Price of eggs and everything else.

The pressure is going to be on to extend already is there to extend the tax cuts which are due to expire some a major portion of the tax cuts enacted under the Trump administration, previous Trump administration are about to expire.

And you've also got a debt vote coming up up here in D.C. soon.

What are our six going to do?

Right.

So you have to think about the debt ceiling.

You have to think about that.

The government funding runs out in mid-March.

And like you said, Steve, you have to think about the Trump tax cuts from the first presidency.

They know there's a lot of pressure to get something done.

There is something called reconciliation, which could help complicate or help this process.

Representative Westerman, who leads the House Natural Resources Committee, could put projects in that bill to boost the United States receipts on natural resources projects, energy projects that could help things out, but also it could cost them both.

So this is going to be a really tricky early start to the year if Congress wants to avoid defaulting on its obligations and make sure that they can extend those Trump tax cuts that they really do treasure.

And let's touch on those, too.

And that's immigration.

Already the administration is moving, shall we say, on that particular issue, but not always to.

There's a lot of anxiety in the farm community and in the business community as well.

What do you mean by immigration reform?

What kind, where and when?

Right.

And this is something that was brought up yesterday in the Senate Agriculture Committee hearing with Brooke Rollins.

There were efforts in the last Congress to address H-2A, try to help some of the temporary international workers who come to the United States for work.

But that's going to be a big question.

How do we handle border security?

What can we do to help labor here in the United States?

Because if you hurt labor in the United States, especially in the agriculture sector, that's going to hurt not only farmers, but also consumers who may have to pay higher prices.

Analysts do this tick tock where you pick it up from there.

Yeah, yeah.

I have to get to get all my news about tick tock from my dad, which I don't know if that's good news or bad news, but when it comes to the Arkansas delegation, back to sender Crawford or back to Sender Hutton and Representative Crawford, both of those lawmakers have been very vocal about their concerns with Tick Tock, the fact that they have Chinese connections.

That platform subsidiary owner Bytedance.

Now Donald Trump has extended the Tik Tok in the United States for 75 days.

But really, Senator Cotton and Representative, when I talked to them this week, they want to see Tik Tok dissolve its ties with China.

They don't mind Tik Tok in the United States.

They don't like Tik Tok existing in the United States, but they do not want to see Tik Tok here in the country with the ties to China, to yeah, to China.

And there is also this and and that is the matter of the parties.

We have six members who believe in law and order and they're now confronted with a mass j six batch of of of commutation pardons.

Right now when I spoke to my guys this week about it, they all said the same thing.

If even law and order, they thought what happened on January six was disgusting and horrible.

But at the same time, there was this universal mood of they wanted to move forward.

They understand now that they have a very unique opportunity With the second Trump presidency and Republicans controlling Capitol Hill.

And they want to do policy.

They want to get stuff done.

At the same time, though, that January 6th pardon is going to be something that hangs around their neck for the next two months, if not a few years, because like you said, these guys are one or both.

They have supported law enforcement, their statements and their actions.

And this runs a bit counter to.

Got to end it there, Alex, because we're simply out of time.

I suspect it's a little bit warmer down here than it is up there.

It is a little bit.

Just a bit.

All right.

See you next time.

Alex of the Democrat Gazette, Thanks very much for coming aboard.

We'll see you soon.

And we'll be right back.

At the end of week two, the General Assembly can't be said to have reached cruising speed, but it's getting there.

We're joined now by the senior officer of the House speaker, Brian Evans.

Mr. Speaker, thanks very much for coming in.

Steve, Thank you for having me on today.

Early on in the session and I don't see anybody shooting at each other yet anyway, you're looking fairly, fairly calm session.

Yes, sir.

So far.

Really enjoying the energy that we're seeing in the chamber.

We have a great class of new freshmen that have really picked up on the process, early forming relationships.

Our colleagues have really stepped out and helped to mentor them, just seeing a lot of great camaraderie and working together.

Well, of course, you've got your party.

The GOP has as commanding majorities, supermajorities in both chambers, and now you have a newly reelected Republican president.

To what extent has the Trump resurgence shaped any way?

The attitudes and oh, in the floor.

On the floor.

It seems to have spawned a lot of optimism amongst our members.

Being able to work through both revenue and tax type bills, but also as we look into a lot of different policies, a lot of current events, a lot of issues that we know we're facing in the state.

There's just a resurgence of energy, positive energy to tackle some of these big issues.

Well, one of the big issues could be and many people predict that it will be, and that's the Medicaid program, that big changes are at least going to be proposed out of out of the out of Washington.

Are you ready for that, including block grants?

That that's one aspect.

So lots of conversations with DHS over what to expect.

A lot of meetings, a lot of anticipation to see what comes trickling down out of Washington.

But, you know, for months we have been working on a lot of the Medicaid issues in the state.

We've done a lot of studies, a lot of collaboration.

And I expect us to see our body make some positive changes for the betterment of all Arkansans.

What would be a positive change in your estimation?

Well, certainly we're faced with a problem with maternal health, and Medicaid can play a role in that.

Mental health.

I've been part of a working group for almost the past two years of members across the aisle working on some of the mental health issues that we have in the state.

Behavioral health.

Medicaid plays a role in all of that with reimbursements back to those providers that are out on the ground helping take care of our folks.

Sure.

Before we get to those specifics, and I want to do this.

What would a block grant approach do to Medicaid in Arkansas?

The fiscal implications could be substantial.

It could, but I think that's yet to be seen.

I mean, we always want to prepare for the worst, be conservative in our efforts in committing to any type of funding.

But it's a wait and see approach at this moment as we record this broadcast on a Friday.

I believe this is maternal health month we don't have in Arkansas a day.

You know, we don't have a very terrific record at all or standing at all among the states in terms of maternal health.

What improvements do you see being made in this session?

It is a huge focus point for both the House, Senate and most especially for Governor Sanders and her team.

We ranked near the bottom on almost every aspect of maternal health.

One of the most concerning aspects of that to me is, as I see across the state, continual closure of labor and delivery facilities.

We have to do things that bring on a generational change.

And so when you look at the diversity of the terrain of Arkansas and you look especially in the southeast, the southwest portions of the state, eastern Arkansas in the Delta, and where there's nowhere close for an expectant mother to get repeated maternal health care, pre-birth care.

And then most especially, that follow up after labor and delivery.

It just sets us on a negative spiral.

And so we need to be innovative with the things that we're looking at.

I've had a lot of conversations about telemedicine and how we can provide opportunities for expectant mothers to have visits with a provider.

Maybe they don't live close to a facility, but if we can patch them in with with not only just their physicians but also with postpartum care, then we feel like we can help make a generational change.

One of your colleagues, one of your members, Mr. Pilkington, says he will again or and there has, I think, already introduced legislation to expand the Medicaid benefits to postpartum moms.

Ms.. Sanders did not care for that legislation in the previous session.

Does it have a chance this time around?

I think that it I think that it does.

I think the idea of 12 months has gained some popularity.

I think is if we as we have collaborated with members of the Senate as our public health committees have now been formed in those discussions are happening, looking at those various pieces of legislation, especially that Representative Pilkington had filed, I think it does have a chance.

I don't think we're at a point yet to where the governor's ready to give on her stance, but she has been receptive to the conversations.

And we're pleased with with the effort that's being put into that.

You seem optimistic.

I tend to always be optimistic.

We were talking a second ago about the the the shortage of providers for all manner actually of health care.

This goes to in some no small measure to reimburse women rights, which have not been adjusted in in years.

Some of the health care facilities around the state, particularly in the less populated areas, are, I am told, hanging by a thread.

Can reimbursement rates be addressed in this session provider Right.

So very thankful to our leadership.

Secretary Putnam and Deputy Director man who are working right now on a medicaid reimbursement assessment looking at those rates doing rate reviews.

Currently the schedule for I believe this month is looking at dental.

Just had a conversation with a local dentist yesterday who handles a lot of Medicaid patients back in my district and they had not received a increase in reimbursement rates for Medicaid patients since 2003.

And so obviously, we know with everything, the cost is up.

What's concerning about that is, is that the number of dentist in the area and all other stakeholders and providers for the various, you know, medical groups are getting to the point where they just will not take Medicaid patients.

And so it's a serious issue, all aspects of health care.

But I'm thankful that we're doing those rate reviews and hope that we can get some relief to our providers so the economy continues to expand.

Do you see any changes, significant, really significant changes in in tax policy in this regular session anyway?

I think with our conversations with most of it centered around grocery taxes so far, yes, sir.

I think thus far the conversations are centered strictly at the grocery tax.

We want to be conservative, yet proactive.

So what we don't want to do is, is we are in a very strong financial position right now, both with our general revenue but also with our reserves.

And so we want to be very cautious with the continuation of those cuts, but we are committed to continue to cut that income tax.

It's made us as a state, very attractive.

We have people moving here weekly because of that.

We have businesses that are moving here.

But I think for the session, the grocery tax will be the key initiative.

And we'll take a look at the next cut in that income tax, most likely in the fiscal session, which what is your outlook?

What would you predict for the grocery tax in this regular session?

I feel very good at this point.

Members are wanting to be proactive with that.

Not much on it left anyway, and there's not.

But everything that we can put back into the pockets of Arkansans is a benefit to them and give them the opportunity to choose how they're going to spend that at the grocery store.

We've seen over the last couple of years the rising cost just to feed your family.

And so any relief that we can give will be a bonus to Arkansans in terms of the Learns Act, the governor's signature education program.

Is there any concern on your part or the members part that perhaps the day is coming when when the lower general revenue collections may collide with the Lawrence Act and its vouchers?

I don't believe so.

We went from the initial stages of putting the learned act together.

You know, we went way out in our forecasts, putting some barriers on the first two or three years just so we could get an assessment through the implementation stages.

And right now, we're right on track with that.

We feel very good.

Looking ahead all the way through 2027 as to projections and estimate the estimation of what the cost of the phase will be, I think that that's fluid and we can make adjustments if we need to.

But right now I think we're in a great position.

2027 is not that far away in terms of fiscal policy.

You're still comfortable.

I think that's part of the reason also that we want to you know, we want to be conservative with our efforts on what we're going to do with other tax cuts.

There are several tax bills that have already been filed and the revenue and tax chairs are taking a look at those.

But we're going to be good stewards of the taxpayers dollars.

Is it is it sound policy to completely eliminate the income tax?

Once it's gone, it's going to be very difficult to reinstate with a supermajority in chambers.

You've got the muscle, no question about we can do that.

We believe that it is.

We don't believe that it will have any effect or impact whatsoever on all services that we're providing to all Arkansans.

However, it needs to be done in a good conservative and incremental stage, making sure that that our general revenue is following along with those cuts.

And I think that's why we want to take a look and just kind of pump the brakes until the fiscal session in 26 to make the next adjustment.

Can you pump the brakes on that prison project that is now the administration wants to pursue in West Arkansas and Franklin County?

I think that I think the green light is shining bright on that.

You know, Steve, regardless of where the decision had been made to to put that prison, it would have been very unpopular in most any corner of the state.

I we know that the need is there.

We know that there was a substantial amount of planning that went into this.

I think we're waiting cautiously through the implementation stages of that to make sure that every aspect of that long term plan was put in place.

I foresee that that that that prison will be built in Franklin County.

There were some bruised feelings on in both House and Senate a members from that part of the state over the way it was handled.

Would you counsel the governor to do it a little differently next time?

I think the governor is aware that this General Assembly believes strongly in transparency, in collaborative efforts, in making policy for for our constituents.

I don't know that given a redo, that it would have been done any different.

But I think that the message has been clear that going forward on something landmark like this, that that the members of the House and the Senate would like to be more involved in that in that process.

Mr. Speaker, we're happy that you made the time for us.

Thank you for coming in.

Thank you, Steve.

It was an honor to be here with you so well and come back soon.

Yes, sir.

I would love to.

All right.

Good deal.

Yes, sir.

And that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching.

See you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.