Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

And hello again, everyone, and thanks very much for being with us.

In a moment, an appraisal of the life and career of the late governor Jim Guy Tucker, whose death last week signaled the end of an era in Arkansas politics.

First, with all manner of policy changes and questions confronting our state and nation.

We're joined by the new chair of the House Committee on Financial Services.

That would be representative French Hill of Arkansas, second Congressional District.

Welcome back, Mr. Chairman.

You bet.

Great to be with you, Steve.

Let's begin with a subject that is of interest not only to Arkansans, but it's, in fact, global.

And that is what appears to many of our allies to be a great retreat from the world, from the postwar western order.

Now, you have argued often that it would be a mistake to abandon Ukraine, but is that not, in fact, what the administration is proposing to do?

Well, I think what President Trump wants to do is find a way to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

That's something that he campaigned on.

Obviously, I think that's a worthy objective.

But you've got to have some first some stipulations.

One.

This war was started by Vladimir Putin.

This war was kicked off in 2014 with an incursion into the Dunbar, the border region between Russia and Ukraine due to lack of a forceful pushback by President Obama and European leaders at that time.

And so I think that it's perfectly fine to think about peace, But how do you do that with Ukrainian sovereign integrity and Ukraine at the table and Russia being taught a lesson, not only in Ukraine, but also of the retreat that Russia has faced along with Iran and Syria.

And so I think both those things, in my view, are leaked, linked and that Russia has to pay a price for it.

The administration is saying in exactly those words that it was Mr. Zelensky, that Ukraine started the war.

That can't be particularly helpful.

No, and I don't I don't I don't know if that was a mis statement by President Trump in his impromptu answer to that question.

But the point is that this is a war of choice by Russia and the United States and Europe and the Ukrainians have pushed back against that and peace should be obtained.

But I would say Ukraine has to be at the table.

Ukraine's sovereignty has to be considered.

Access to the Black Sea ports by all ports of call, not just Ukrainian shipping, but American shipping and access to the Black Sea, I think is an important component.

So we'll see what happens.

But I think the meeting in Saudi Arabia that we've witnessed this week is just the opening touch point of what will be a protracted discussion.

Well, the criteria that you've laid out and the stipulations that you're you're suggesting be made here would seem to put you on an opposite course from the administration.

Well, this is my advice to the administration also would tighten down sanctions right now on Russia, something that Europe blocked.

Tighter sanctions on Russia.

I think now with the Trump administration, I've advised that we fully take all of the Russian assets that we have frozen and tell Putin that without an acceptable peace arrangement to Ukraine, that those are those funds are are taken and spent on the behalf of Ukraine for reconstruction purposes.

And this goes way beyond the central bank assets.

I think there's many, many billions of dollars that Congress has authorized the administration to take from Russia and with American leadership.

I think that could happen in Europe as well.

Europe is feeling pretty bruised between Mr. Trump's statements and the vice president's statements.

Are you concerned?

Obviously, Arkansas has a huge stake with the average Arkansan realizes that or not in trade and with the tariff question up in the air, with American commitments to the Atlantic alliance seemingly up in the air.

How concerned are you?

Well, I think trade is an important issue.

I think trade with Canada and Mexico is much more important strategically to Arkansas.

Agriculture and Arkansas industries.

Well, they're feeling pretty bruised as well.

They are, but I think Europe's important as well.

The Europeans have a lot of non-tariff barriers on American products, and I would hope that President Trump would turn his attention to breaking those barriers down so that our services and agricultural products can flow into Europe.

And already you've seen the European Union make concessions, really before President Trump came into office saying that they would lower their auto tariff back to two and a half percent on American exports to Europe instead of the 10% tariff that they have on on American automotive parts and cars.

If you go to Mart, for example, or Target or any other big box store to buy practically anything, you're there's a fair chance you're buying China.

Now, is this a gift to China or the Chinese emboldened by all of this.

I think certainly China is emboldened by Joe Biden's failed exit from Afghanistan.

And if President Trump makes a mistake that empowers Russia in this Ukraine peace negotiation, that could be in building to China.

But the Chinese have many tariffs, barriers on U.S. products and non-tariff barriers, and they've not lived up to the Trump agricultural deal at the end of the previous Trump administration.

That was not enforced by Joe Biden.

And at the time Trump left office, about 40% of agricultural imports to China were from the United States.

Now it's down to about 10%.

So I think both on economic policy, trade policy and military policy, the US has a lot to talk to China about.

Well, are we at a trade war and not just with China, but with European countries for that matter, in this hemisphere?

Well, I mean, these are the kind of questions that were asked about the Reagan administration on Japanese policy in the late 1980s when we prohibited Japanese automobile automobiles from coming into the US and Japanese semiconductors coming into the United States, we use Section section 301 sanctions, then tariffs on those products.

But it produced a trade arrangement that for the past 40 years has been a huge success between Japan and the United States.

So I don't think it's wrong to talk tough to use tariffs as a leverage barrier to get reciprocal treatment for American goods and services.

I think we should be doing that.

I don't think we've done a been have been doing a good job of that over the last, say, two and a half decades.

But with that said, across the board, tariffs like on steel and aluminum, I've opposed that in 2018 and I oppose it again now because I don't think that produces that kind of two way street on reciprocity.

So President Trump has a lot of trade ideas, reciprocity, which I think is smart.

I think it could produce results for American producers and American exporters using trade tariffs as a sanction to compel behavior in a different way, whether it's border security or, in the case of Colombia, their repatriation of their citizens issue.

Those can be very effective by an American president.

But across the board, tariffs, I don't think, always produce the results that maybe he's being told they do.

The administration, Mr. Trump himself has said there may be some short term pain here for Arkansans, as they would.

Oh, well, I mean, for Americans, Arkansans included, plainly in the scenario that we're discussing here, there very well could be there to be consumer prices.

Right?

Well, I think that's if they if you under certain circumstances, tariffs can be inflationary depending on how they're imposed.

And that's why traditionally I don't support and I haven't supported in 2018, I don't support now across the board steel and aluminum tariffs, because those have the potential of raising domestic prices for manufacturers here and consumers without a measurable material change, introduction of new sources of steel and aluminum here.

In other words, I see that you get a you might get a modest employment change, but you get a significant price change.

You don't get a big output change from those across the board type tariffs.

But this is all, as you can tell, early days in the administration and the Trump administration I've seen in this past four year iteration was rather flexible on things like this.

You got a budget vote coming up.

Yeah.

And it would seem to be that you and the House and the Senate anyway are somewhat at odds.

And the administration's position he wants.

I think, one big bill, one big beautiful bill as well.

Can he get to that?

Yeah.

Well, Figure Johnson, as we taped the show is is telling House members that will vote likely next week on a reconciliation bill that would be under the rubric of one big beautiful bill which means it has tax reaffirmed the tax extensions in it, it puts more funding for border security and strategic investments and the Pentagon in it reduces spending elsewhere.

That's in one bill in the House.

Over in the Senate, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has pitched a two bill approach where they do funding for the border, funding for the Pentagon, some offsetting spending cuts, and they hold taxes for later.

It's Speaker Johnson's view.

I share it.

That was a narrow House majority.

I think the one bill approach is better in the House.

We'll see if we can deliver if we have those votes and deliver, I think the Senate will take that bill.

Arkansas Medicaid providers are particularly concerned about the near-term outlook, as well as the long term outlook for that program.

Given the administration's or the party, your party's concern for cutting spending.

What can you tell them?

Well, I think that Medicaid reforms and spending more flexibility and block granting some of that funding to the states, which was considered back in 2017 under some circumstances, is on the table under consideration in the House reconciliation bill.

I think all the challenges that they saw back in 2017 when that was considered, they've taken those into account and tried to modify that with inflation adjustment and some flexibility for the states.

But I do believe that's under discussion to block grant a great deal of the Medicaid program to the state for state administration to try to create more competition in particularly how they manage chronic chronic illness and Medicaid.

But let's see, there's no final proposal yet, but that's definitely been under discussion.

Yeah.

Would you would you go for BLOCK Grant?

Well, I'd want to see it.

I mean, we haven't seen the details of what will be in the reconciliation bill.

Well, we're going to vote on next week is not the legislative language, but the goal setting.

We want to cut this much from the budget.

We want to allocate this much money to defense and to homeland.

And we want to extend the personal tax cuts.

So that'll come later in the next two months.

No, as Mr. Chairman, crypto.

Yeah.

Is there is there going to be movement on that?

Yes, I do believe that we have a good situation in the House on and the Senate on a back camera basis with some bipartisan support to do a regulatory framework for digital assets, which includes things like cryptocurrency that create transparency for consumers.

How do you protect consumers from some of the fraud we've seen in crypto, some of the misleading promises in it?

But at the same time recognize that blockchain operating systems are going to be good for business in America and good for consumers because they're going to allow us to have more efficient financial services, for example, at a lower cost, less fraud, a better identity of who's doing the services on a blockchain.

But it needs regulatory framework and we don't have that.

We passed that bill in the last Congress in the House.

The bill that I wrote that had 71 Democrats supported it.

So I think it will be bipartisan.

But our country needs technology.

FinTech, innovation needs to be able to use blockchains, but we need to have a regulatory framework that insists that investment protects innovation, but also protects consumers.

I would like to discuss this further.

So when you come back soon, we'd love it.

All right.

Thanks, Dave.

Good to be Will.

Thanks very much.

And we'll be right back.

And we are back.

A memorial service will be held Monday at Little Rock for Jim Guy Tucker, who died last week at age 81.

He began his three decades in public office as a district prosecutor.

From there to attorney general to Congress, Lieutenant governor and then governor.

In between offices, there was his substantial career in the private sector, though it was his business success.

Fairly or no.

That set the stage for his conviction in the Whitewater episode and his subsequent resignation as governor.

Some thoughts now on his life and that period in Arkansas from Hal Bass, emeritus professor of political science at Washington Baptist University.

And from veteran journalist Ernie Dumas, who helped chronicle those years.

But before we get to our conversation, during his time as governor, several times a year, he would stop off at the studios to take questions from viewers.

Here's a clip from 1995 from Montgomery County, sir.

When are you going to fix Arkansas highways?

Well, I hope we'll have an opportunity on January the ninth to make a major improvement in Arkansas highways.

There won't be any free lunch on this.

We can't fix the roads with our existing revenue stream unless you want to wait 25 to 30 years.

We can't fix the roads on the old pay as you go basis.

But I have proposed a bond issue for the people of Arkansas to vote on and the tax revenue to pay for that bond issue for you to vote on.

Can't happen unless you approve them.

But if you do approve it, we will totally finish the 1991 program.

In the next 4 to 6 years, for virtually all of the roads in that program instead of 11 years.

That footage 30 years ago or digitized thanks to a grant from the State Natural and Cultural Resources Council.

Hal Bass, Ernie Dumas, I'll start with you.

How do we fit?

Where do we fit?

Jim Guy Tucker Emblem.

Well, he was certainly part of that revitalization.

The Democratic Party's fortunes after the Faubus downturn and the Rockefeller interlude, and part of that very talented cohort of rising Democratic politicians that held the party in power for another 20 years, when everywhere else the Republicans were on the on the advance.

Yeah, Ernie.

Well, first, let me point out for the viewers from that video we saw, Jim Guy Tucker, one of things you have to notice about is the deepest dimples in Christendom.

Now, you had all these other rising stars at the time, Bill Clinton, they all bumpers, David Pryor, Sheffield, Nelson, all those stars of that era that will talk about.

But Jim guy's the only one that had those dimples.

Kirk Douglas I mean, yeah, they were.

And here the cheeks as well.

So you always saw that.

So that was one of his strength.

I don't I don't credit that with his success, but it was a part of it, I think.

But I think one of the things I think that you have to compare, Jim, with all those other stars, they were all competitors.

Sometimes competitors, sometimes allies.

Tucker, Clinton, David Pryor, Jim Guy lost to David Pryor and also laughed at Bill Clinton.

But he also beat all of the others in that era.

The one thing I think you can say about him that you can't really say about the others, it he was not wishy washy.

No, he was not wishy washy.

And and the others may not have been at heart, but they were very careful.

Politicians that included Dale Bumpers.

Sometimes he wouldn't take a stand all the way.

You knew where he was, what he was going to do, but he was very hesitant.

They are not Jim Guy Tucker.

He made decisions immediately and they might he may come later regret those decisions.

But he was not wishy washy.

He decided immediately what he was going to do as governor.

He decided, I'm going to raise taxes and he announced, I'm going to raise I'm going to have the biggest bond issue in history.

I'm going to raise taxes more than in for the highways.

And he did it.

And of course, he it were the voters rejected it, of course.

But that time he was under indictment in the Whitewater investigation.

But he wasn't wishy washy.

And so and I think he would measure, I think, up pretty well against all of those people with what he did.

You can evaluate a politician, particularly governor, on what he tried to do, and then course, you can measure them by what they did and what he tried to do and what he did.

He was successful in what he did.

Of maybe not ultimately successful, the voters would turn down his his constitutional is constitution and also his bond issue.

But he tried to do them.

Yeah, he had he had he had a gift for business, obviously.

I mean he made millions as in in the private sector.

And I thought it was the business made it was the man.

And Jim came in.

Here's a problem.

Let's address it.

Let's fix it.

And even when he had advisors who were saying, wait a minute, slow down, tone it down, scale it back.

No.

There's no doubt his he was he was a risk taker to build on on earnings point.

I think if you look at the Arkansas governor's of the last 50 years, you look them not in everything they have to do just in their chief executive role.

I think Tucker stands as at the top of that that list.

And it goes back to his business background and his willingness to look a problem square in the face and come up with a responsible solution for addressing it.

Well, and I thought the clip that we played there and Ernie talked about, he wasn't wishy washy there.

He said, saying, I'm going to raise this is going to cost money.

There's no free lunch.

You want roads, We got to pay for them.

You want Medicaid, We got to pay for that.

He did.

That's the first thing he did was raise raised the levy a tax on soda pop.

Very controversial thing to do.

But that's his first action as governor.

So did Bill Clinton.

Resigned to to go to Washington to be to be sworn in.

First thing he did is call on the legislature in special session and pass a soda pop tax to finance Medicare Medicaid expansion.

So that's what he did.

He didn't hesitate to do anything.

And the Constitutional Convention, he said we need a new constitution.

And he called them together.

Of course, the voters rejected that constitution.

But he was decisive.

And I think he passed more progressive legislation than just about any other governor, particularly somebody who served only three and a half years.

Again, you can measure, Governor, to what they proposed to do in case we went to the Rockefeller.

Nobody, no governor in Arkansas history tried to do more than they went to when he tried to raise the income tax to 12%, which would be the second highest in America.

I try to raise all kind of the soft dream, other kind of taxes as well.

Sales taxes, tobacco taxes.

You try to do all of those things.

But he didn't succeed.

And so but but he largely succeeded in most of his endeavors as Jim Guy in the three and a half years that he was governor.

Yeah.

Thoughts?

How?

It's a it's a remarkable story it in in whole here it it has parallels in Greek mythology it has parallels a Shakespearean tragedy has parallels in Machiavelli's advice to the prince.

I think he was a victor, what Machiavelli would call Fortuna fortune he had for all his talents.

And they were enormous for his accomplishments, and they were formidable.

He suffered great, great defeats electorally and in the judicial system, and I think it's attributable in large measure to this, you know, capricious and malicious character of fortune here.

They I'd one another warily.

Bill Clinton and Guy Tucker, they grinned and they shook hands and then they went to opposite corners.

More often than not.

And ironically, it was Mr. Clinton's ascension.

I think everybody understands that it was his ascension to the White House that triggered the downfall of Jim Guy.

Right.

And and really in the in the broadest sense.

Governor Tucker was the victim of a of a process that had been developing for about 20 years, really going back to his own entry into politics in the seventies.

And that's what what some of call politics.

But other means moving away from looking to elections to essentially put people in office and then give voters a chance to evaluate him after two or four years and spending the time people are in office pursuing them with revelations, with the situations, with prosecutions.

And Tucker just got caught up in the 1990s iteration of that ongoing process that continues to this day.

Yeah, well that the there's now all this debate about political prosecutions with the White House, with Donald Trump and all the prosecutions of him and all of the all the people who stormed the Capitol back on January six.

And so that's all the controversy now.

But here was a real political prosecution back in that time because Kenneth Starr lost his job as the in the in the Justice Department when Bill Clinton became president, when these two federal judges appointed Kenneth Starr to be the Whitewater prosecutor.

Then he went after Bill Clinton.

That was a political prosecution.

And he couldn't get Bill Clinton.

So he tried to get Jim Guy Tucker, friends, political enemies or whatever in Arkansas to give them something they could prosecute Clinton.

So that's how Jim got Tucker got caught up in it.

So that was a real political prosecution and collateral damage.

It is.

Yeah.

We are going to conclude this portion of our broadcast hour over the air edition, but we're going to continue our conversation on the Web.

So with that, thank you for joining us and come around to join us on the Internet for more of our conversation.

As always, thanks for watching.

See you next week.

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