Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:
Jonesboro Sun. Dec. 4, 2017.
Kudos to U.S. District Judge James M. Moody for throwing out the frivolous lawsuit filed by The Justice Network against two Craighead County district judges.
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It was a waste of the court’s time and The Justice Network’s money.
Moody recently dismissed all claims against judges Tommy Fowler and David Boling. On June 30, The Justice Network, a private for-profit probation company, sued the judges, the county and all cities that have law enforcement agencies, accusing them of interfering with contracts the company had with people who had been placed on probation by previous judges.
What a crock.
The Justice Network didn’t even have a contract to operate in Craighead County, much less with the people placed on probation, who became ensnared in the company’s traps that put profits ahead of human decency.
Moody ruled that the judges are “entitled to absolute judicial immunity.” He also dismissed the claims against the county and cities because they have no control over the judges’ policies. The judges are state employees.
Moody cited a 1997 ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that all courts in Arkansas have the authority to suspend the imposition of sentences and fines in all criminal cases unless specifically prohibited by law.
You’d think The Justice Network’s attorneys would have considered that before spending their client’s money.
For decades, The Justice Network had a measure of control over local judges, who, with their help, trapped poor people in a revolving door of fines and community service that many simply couldn’t escape. Cases of $200 fines growing to thousands of dollars were common, with probationers often being jailed for long periods because they couldn’t pay.
During their 2016 campaigns, Fowler and Boling promised they would not use a private probation company, and they held true to that promise once elected.
They held special amnesty sessions in which the judges met with probation offenders who had outstanding fines to discuss payment options. They allowed offenders to reset their payment plan, entered new orders of probation, deleting The Justice Network from the order, forgave court costs, probation fees and allowed costs and fees to be forgiven in lieu of time served in jail.
Boling and Fowler have literally changed the face of an unfair justice system in Craighead County whose scales of justice had been unbalanced with a thumb against the poor.
We applaud Boling and Fowler for their actions in bringing blind justice back to Craighead County - justice that takes into consideration the ability of poor people to pay for the mistakes they’ve made.
The company claimed the judges violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which requires compensation be paid if private property is taken for public use.
According to The Justice Network, when the judges granted amnesty to defendants, the judges cost them an undisclosed amount of revenue, and about a dozen people lost their jobs. The Justice Network provided probation services to Craighead County District Court for 20 years collecting roughly $500,000 per year on average for a wide range of services.
A new division of the Jonesboro Police Department began providing probation services on July 31. The city’s proposed 2018 budget includes $143,647 for the three-person unit.
From an estimated 5,000 people on probation, the numbers under the new system had dropped to 323 as of Oct. 31.
Now that’s progress.
John Miles, senior pastor at First United Methodist Church and an outspoken critic of The Justice Network, probably said it best.
“We basically had a debtor’s prison with people owing thousands of dollars for traffic incidents that started out being a couple of hundred dollar fines,” Miles said, “and we were using the police to enforce The Justice Network’s dirty work.
“I can’t really articulate how upset The Justice Network made me, and the idea they are going to sue us because we won’t let them drive people further and further into debt. The nerve of it was breathtaking.”
We say good riddance to The Justice Network.
Maybe other counties who use their services will take a closer look at how they operate and the impacts the company has on their communities.
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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Dec. 5, 2017.
In order to simplify this country’s tax structure, it may take a lot of complex legislation. Five hundred pages of it at last and still continuing count. Legislation, like life, is just full of paradoxes.
The ultimate aim is to enable Mr./ Ms. American Taxpayer to file a federal tax return no bigger than a postcard. But to boil down the voluminous tax laws of the federal government to so simple and welcome a form is proving a complex undertaking. Yet Republicans set out to do just that - and at press time, glory be, they were succeeding.
Maybe, just maybe, these Republicans can govern the country after all, even if not one Democrat in either the House nor Senate would help. Who says Congress can’t give the country a tax system both fair and understandable? At least when the majority party is determined, and only loses a few holdouts among its own.
The loyal opposition is betting against it all. Jon Tester, who is Montana’s Democratic gift to the U.S. Senate, made a video in which he displayed just one page full of handwritten scrawls in the margins. His object: to show what a mess these danged Republicans are making of tax reform. “This is unbelievable,” he declared, for “we’re doing a massive tax reform on an absolutely incredible timeline. This is going to affect everybody in the country.” And about time, too.
Claire McCaskill, the Democratic senator from Missouri, sounded shocked - shocked! - that Republicans had not let her in on the last-minute changes they were making to the first comprehensive tax reform since Ronald Reagan’s time, which set the stage for years of prosperity. Sen. McCaskill took loud umbrage over her having to find out about all these proposed changes not from the Republican opposition but assorted lobbyists. So what? Did Macy’s tell Gimbels what it was up to?
What the country is witnessing here is but politics as usual, as lawmakers take advantage of this opportunity to serve their constituents’ interests before it’s too late. And reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, among other things, which would make the United States more competitive with other countries, and hopefully encourage more American companies to keep their operations here, instead of offshore. Which would also mean more people would be employed in the United States. Workers - and owners - unite! And watch as lower tax rates for most Americans provide the tide that lifts all boats.
Here’s hoping the country has had its fill of nostrums, slogans, and all the rest of such modtalk and will finally get down to business. And the business of the country remains business (Coolidge, C.).
Let it be noted that Sen. McCaskill also took exception to a proposed exemption for university endowments that she claimed was included in the bill only to benefit Hillsdale College, the liberal arts college that has steadfastly refused to accept federal money. Among the school’s more prominent backers is the secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, and Pennsylvania’s GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. In his response to the lady’s accusation, Sen. Toomey noted that any school that rejected federal funds the way Hillsdale has done would be just as eligible for the tax exemption. Case closed, or should have been. The last thing we saw in the papers, the exemption was taken out of the bill.
All this partisan byplay aside, the essence of the Republican tax reform remains a provision to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent and lower tax rates both for families and individuals until 2025. Yes, the bill as written and rewritten would subject fewer Americans to the death tax, aka the estate tax, that is assessed against sizable inheritances. Once again, the politics of practical compromise has taken precedent over the latest shibboleths - an overdue step back from the politics of ideology.
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Texarkana Gazette. Dec. 5, 2017.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have a lot of time for backbiting, bickering and bluster.
But do they have time for kids?
The Children’s Health Insurance Program is a partnership between the states and the federal government that covers children and pregnant women from households that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to pay for private health insurance.
That’s a big group of folks. In Arkansas, it’s about 48,000 children and pregnant women. In Texas the number is around 400,000. Across the nation, the program covers about 9 million kids and 370,000 women. Some of those people live right here in Texarkana. Some live in our area. Some may even be your family members, friends, neighbors or co-workers.
Since created in 1997, it’s been a popular program in Congress, though some lawmakers have challenged CHIP as an unwarranted federal intrusion into health care and some aren’t happy with the cost. Some don’t like that legal - but not illegal - immigrants can qualify. Still, it enjoys a lot of support from both sides of the aisle.
CHIP expired the last day of September and it looks like it’s been overlooked in the mess that has overtaken Capitol Hill. States still have funds to keep it operating for a few months. But they will run out unless Congress gets its act together and reauthorizes CHIP.
Right now, pregnant women and families with qualifying children are in limbo. They have no idea what the future holds for their health care. Both Republicans and Democrats say they are committed to helping children. And the sanctity of unborn life is an important GOP talking point.
The question is whether they will do more than talk. CHIP needs to be a priority, not an afterthought. For those who oppose the program we can only ask what they are going to do about the millions who depend upon it? If there is a better, cheaper way to serve the health care needs of children and pregnant women, then by all means tell us about it. Or come up with something and get it passed. We have no problem with that. But first reauthorize CHIP and then work on something better to replace it.
Don’t leave these folks hanging. This is their health, their very lives, you are playing with up in Washington.
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