04/08/2026
More tax cuts and more funding for private school vouchers that mostly go to middle to upper income households are up for a vote in the legislative session over the next few weeks. This will add to the harm being done to Black and low-income households in the state. See the article below. Call your state representative and senator to tell them: Hell no!!
See the article from the Arkansas Times below.
Arkansas Blog
Tax cuts and state spending not helping the least of these
by Byron Tate April 7, 2026 5:36 pm
Arkansas State Capitol
The fiscal session starts today at the Arkansas State Capitol. Credit: Matt Campbell
It’s one thing to look at cold statistics that say how much younger Black people are than whites when they die. It’s quite another to look those African Americans in the eye.
On a recent assignment, my white privilege hit me in the face. I was interviewing men and women who were taking advantage of a mobile grocery store service being provided in the parking lot of their apartment. One was on a walker. Another was missing a leg and in a wheelchair. One woman could barely talk and seemed to be recovering from a stroke. There were others. All of them were years younger than me, and yet, they seemed in much worse shape.
This is obviously an analysis writ small, but, indeed, Black people in Arkansas die as many as six years younger than whites. Arkansans of any color fare worse than the U.S. population in general.
ADVERTISING
The whys are within easy reach: job and hiring discrimination, disproportionate incarceration, lack of access to education, lack of health (and mental health) care, disparities in housing, overt and covert discrimination in matters small and large and lack of generational wealth due to historic barriers to capital. – with all of these part of the Black experience, though not necessarily part of what whites experience.
In all manners and ways, whites have exerted authority over Blacks, and we’re still at it today, not that we can talk about such things in schools anymore for fear of running afoul of Gov. Sarah Sanders’s admonishment of critical race theory and “indoctrinating” students. As if not learning about these issues will magically erase them from history.
As we head into the fiscal session of the state Legislature to set our budget priorities, we are again reminded that Arkansas has enough wealth to eschew taxes on the one hand but to spend freely on the other, all while the needs of the poor go unmet.
In a sort of perverse hat trick, Arkansas has now laid claim to being the No. 1 state in the country – for three years running – for food insecurity. Just a few years ago some 400,000 Arkansans were on SNAP, the new version of food stamps. Now, it’s a quarter million people, with ever-diminishing benefits that require many recipients to work. Nothing wrong with working, but the documentation required and red tape are enough to sideline many would-be recipients.
The same is true for Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health benefits to the poor. There’s a work requirement coming for that, too, even though research and experience show all it will do is kick people out of the program with no change in their employment status.
Even where folks can navigate the bureaucracy and get Medicaid, their local hospitals might not be there to serve them in another decade. Medicaid reimbursement in Arkansas is low compared to other states, meaning hospitals and health care providers who serve people on Medicaid don’t get paid as much here as they would in other states. Those low reimbursement rates threaten to drive rural hospitals out of business. Bo Ryall, president and CEO of the Arkansas Hospital Association, said the state has much of the authority to increase the reimbursement rates. But when it comes to making that happen, “lawmakers hear us but then say, ‘Well, there’s just not enough money.’”
Adding to that pressure is the reimbursement from private insurance. Ryall said a procedure done in an Oklahoma hospital gets reimbursed at twice the rate as the same procedure done in Arkansas.
“It doesn’t seem right, but that’s the way it’s set up,” he said.
The end result is that 25 to 30 hospitals are at risk of disappearing in the next decade, said Rep. Jeff Wardlaw (R-Hermitage).
“The domino effect has already started,” he said, before reeling off a list of small towns – Dumas, McGehee, Camden, El Dorado, Crossett, to name a few – where hospitals were troubled, if not “hanging on by a thread.” Small towns have a higher percentage of poverty than cities, so who would be impacted the most from closed hospitals? You guessed it.
Does the state care? Well, apparently not enough to back up on cutting taxes or to reduce spending on LEARNS vouchers, the welfare for the rich program that helps pay for private school tuition.
Sanders has cut the income and corporate tax rates to the tune of at least a half-billion dollars, and she wants to get rid of income tax altogether. That will look so good on Fox News.
LEARNS spending is now $309 million, which is $122 million more than last year, with another $70 million in just-in-case-we-need-it funding. Add that all up and the state is getting close to spending $400 million on private school and homeschool costs with no end in sight. Conservative lawmakers and the governor have publicly declared their willingness to fund vouchers for any and all takers, no matter the mounting costs. The side effect, as planned, is to do irreparable damage to the public schools, which is where poor kids will have to go because, even with the LEARNS vouchers, they still won’t be able to afford private school.
So good luck, you of little means. While your needs are ill met and you die before you should, it’s all laughter and high times for the well-to-do. Hey, governor, if you don’t think about it, it’s like it doesn’t exist.
