Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and K KUARFM, 89.

And hello again everyone, and thanks very much for being with us as state of the Union speech by a Democratic president from Delaware, a Republican response from the new Governor of Arkansas in a moment.

More on that and the congressional outlook from a Republican member of Congress from Arkansas, but first.

Piece by piece, the education program to be offered by Governor Huckabee Sanders is coming into focus.

The governor and her education secretary, Jacob Alieva, added a bit of detail in a midweek press conference at the Capitol.

We will show that Arkansas values our teachers by giving every teacher a minimum salary of $50,000.

We will offer complete student loan forgiveness for new teachers willing to commit to teach in Arkansas in the areas of highest need and up to $10,000 more in bonuses to our best educators who are making meaningful gains in the improvement of student outcomes.

This is everybody coming together to put forth the vision if there's one thing that we know.

And education is that A1 size approach doesn't meet the need of all of our students in this comprehensive package.

When you look at implementing that learns initiative that focus on literacy, the focus on empowerment, accountability, readiness, networking and school safety provides pathways for students.

It provides policy to support good teachers and recognizes recruits and helps retain them.

It supports administrators, it supports districts, it supports students and families.

This one size approach.

To fixing education is gonna end today because we're going to be able to create different pathways that are tailored to the individual students and the families needs so that we can be successful.

So I'm excited to stand here today and say to Governor Sanders that everybody throughout this process, the legislators, the stakeholders on school districts, the department have all worked together to put pen to paper to make sure that we're putting together policy that we know when it's fully implemented and executed will make a difference.

And I'm excited to announce today that we are ready to get to work.

A lot of details still to come, perhaps in the coming week, but the outline is enough to begin the conversation, which we do now with Representative Denise Garner, Democrat of Fayetteville, who is a member of the House Education Committee and the Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Republican Jane English of Sherwood.

Ladies, thank you very much for coming in.

A lot in the program, something for everybody to like, but not everybody likes everything in the program.

Senator English.

Why the omnibus approach is that wise?

Well, I think if you think about this, we're really talking about pre-K.

Through.

High school in almost everything we're doing and it's a more of a systematic approach to how do we get through this, this whole education issue.

And I think from my standpoint it's we've always done little pieces of this, little pieces of that over the years.

But we have never had anything that is kind of look at the big picture and decide what we want to do and put it all into one package, all right.

Miss garner?

Yes, absolutely.

I disagree.

You know, I think that I I think that that is too much like a DC approach.

We agree on so many things.

Let's get those things done.

Let's leave the things that we don't agree on to argue with to, to, to strategize and to work together and the things that we do agree on.

Let's get those done.

And certainly that's teacher salary.

There's so much in the bill that we do agree on.

So I do, or at least in what I've heard.

About the bill now that's that's been one of of the observations or criticisms if you will Senator and that's that this is less about education than political tactics a strategy the onimous approach rather than.

So I don't look at it that way I I really like it better that we're we're rather than trying to do little pieces here and little pieces there we are looking at a strategic way to get where we want to go.

I'm so excited that we're spending additional resources and focus on.

Pre-K and kindergarten through third grade, that's got to be probably the most important area of all of education.

If we don't help those kids to be able to leave the 3rd grade, knowing how to read the rest of their future is untenable.

And I think we've never done that before.

We've never really focused on how how we help make sure those little people when they come into school and leave the 3rd grade or have the preparation to be able to move forward.

In their lives at.

I'm sorry.

So they have decades that they have to go through and and right now we have a number of young people and 8th and 10th grades.

They can't really can't read and they can't participate as they should in their future.

At this point Miss Garner the the governor and her advocates would seem if you look at it purely on a partisan basis they would seem to have the numbers anyway.

How can you shape the legislation.

Well you know I I agree that we need a strategy.

You know in everyday lives we get all the.

Mike holders together and we work out a plan, we figure out the gaps and we strategize together for a strategic effort.

And that hasn't happened as far as I know.

I mean I've got a lot of teachers that have said they haven't been asked.

The superintendents are are saying that they haven't been asked.

I'm one of two Democrats on the education committee.

I haven't seen anything from the bill.

So right now all we have is a poster and some conservative rhetoric and.

Just some leaked talking points, and that's all I really know about the bill except for what she said.

So, you know, I, I learned my first term that you don't sign on to a bill until you've been able to study it.

And my attorney husband has always said, you know, the Devils in the details.

And so until we see the bill and until we know those details, it's hard to even discuss it.

I I love the ideas, some of the ideas that she's talked about, but, you know, my.

Idea is that our silver bullet in education is taking care of 0 to 585% of your brain is developed by the time you're three years old, 95 by the time you're five years old.

So pre K4 and five year olds is too late.

We need to be working on maternal, infant and prenatal care and infant and toddlers as well.

So I keep hearing that she's talking about pre-K, but I don't know what those details are yet.

Well, we know it conceptually anyway.

We know one thing for sure and that's that there's a voucher component.

And there's not a hotter hot button anywhere in the legislation that I can spot anyway.

Your thoughts on that and it's gone.

Well I've yet to see any data that shows that vouchers work.

You know the the the only data that's been presented has been from the Heritage Foundation and you know the data from the University of Kentucky and from Michigan and from Notre Dame about Indiana and Louisiana, Ohio, some of the states, Washington DC, the city.

That data has also shown that it doesn't help the folks that we really need to be helping and that in fact there's not an increase in educational growth and in most places there's a decrease.

So I haven't seen any data that show that vouchers work.

So, you know, my biggest issue with vouchers is the accountability piece, the accountability and transparency until, you know, we can be accountable to the taxpayers.

To know that their public funds are making certain that kids are being educated until we can be accountable to the students.

To know that they're getting everything they need out of a public education or out of education wherever they are, whatever academic entity.

And and we've got to be, I think accountable to the communities that depend on their community churches.

I mean their community of schools to survive.

And most of these voucher programs have ended up not helping the private schools that are already good.

That people really want to go to.

They don't take the vouchers because they don't.

They don't need to.

Then they're the public, then the private schools that.

I think are struggling.

They will take them.

But what happens is mostly they're given to parochial schools.

And you know, she's talked so much.

Governor Sanders has talked so much about indoctrination with CRT, which isn't even taught in Arkansas in K12 or anywhere in K12.

And yet she hasn't talked at all about the indoctrination that would happen with vouchers in our parochial schools.

Let me, let me say with the finance aspect of it for one second with the Senator, the traditionally small.

Well, public school administrators have looked at vouchers with.

Frankly, horror at times because they're just taking money out of the public school diverting foundation aid.

Respond, have you heard from the, the small school people, the rural school people or the public school people?

Not yet.

I I think we have.

You will?

Well, I'm sure we will.

I but yeah, you know, people make it sound like 100% of every single school is going to opt for vouchers and they're all going to go to a private school.

And that's not the case.

And in this legislation, basically talking about that, the very first people we keep talking about those folks who are in DNF schools.

And had who are maybe have some special needs things like that.

And I think the very first group, because this is not something that's going to be universal right off the bat, it will be phased in.

But the very first people that would be able to apply at all, our folks who are in D or F schools, who have special needs, who are foster children, who are military children.

So it's not that you're looking at the the people who make 150.

$1000 a year applying for this year.

We're really trying to look at how do we help those folks who need to be in a different location a different school a different setting or a different program to be able to start off and and eventually overtime that will increase and that that composition of the group that's able to apply will change from a church state constitutional standpoint does the idea of parade to parochial schools.

Concern you at the federal government level.

They said that's fine, you can use federal dollars.

Yeah.

Miss Garner, I'm a separation of church and state that I think that's why we were founded.

And I don't think we need to be using public funds for indoctrination and private schools.

One other aspect that I would like to address, the two of you to address and that's something was garner, Senator brought up a second ago either.

And this is happening in many states either through executive action.

Executive orders from a governor or legislator, setting policy, the political establishment, executive legislative branch is shaping curriculum in public schools.

Much discussion, of course, of critical race theory and other aspects of it.

Black is 1619 project.

Should is the legislative branch is the executive.

Are they overstepping their bounds in shaping public school curriculum?

I don't think so, and I haven't seen that yet.

I think there will be.

There's going to be a lot of.

A lot of changes, but we have to have those things in place already where where folks are taking a look at curriculum and maybe giving parents the opportunity, which is something they never had a chance to do before.

In many cases, most of us don't have.

I don't have the background to decide whether curriculum is good or bad.

That's that's not something that I would be able to do.

But there are folks out there who who are in the general public who actually do and do have an opinion.

I think Senator English just actually proved my point and that that is we are not education experts.

Sometimes the legislature tends to practice medicine and law and all of these things that we shouldn't be doing.

And so no, I don't think the legislature is the one to be determining what the curriculum is.

We need experts who do this all of the time.

We need folks that are experts in curriculum, experts in education, progress and the data.

Showing that vouchers do not help that and so and and some of the things that Senator English was talking about.

We already have these succeed scholarships.

We already have scholarships for those who need special, special opportunities.

And what we're finding is that there are a lot of students that still, even with extra can't help, can't can't afford to get to private school or they can't get into private school.

So a lot of those, those kinds of things are not helping the kids that we need, really need to help.

I hope you two will come back, because we're simply out of time.

Great.

Conversation, OK.

Please.

Thank you.

Thank you right back in a moment.

We are back.

And as noted a bit earlier in the broadcast, the Republican response to President Biden state of the Union address was delivered this year by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Tart, tough language, hers tailored to her party's base.

At 40, I'm the youngest governor in the country, and at 80, he's the oldest president in American history.

I'm the first woman to lead my state, and he's the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is.

Can you tell us what a woman is?

Representative French hill.

Thanks for coming in.

Well, I think there's a definite genetic definition there, and that's the one we ought to stick with.

Well, let's go to the state of the Union message Miss Sanders had her take.

What's yours?

Look, I think President Biden's message was started off good.

He talked about what could he do to work with Republicans on some bipartisan initiatives.

But then he went off on a partisan attack on Social Security and Medicare, which most Republicans in the House and Senate thought was very disingenuous.

He knows that's not accurate, and so he got off on the wrong foot there.

And then Stevie talked more about junk baggage fees and overdraft fees.

Then he talked about.

The border China or the deficit and debt and we found that a distraction as well.

Well, let's, let's stick for a second with entitlement.

Well, first of all, in your estimation, Sir, are Social Security, Medicare, are they in fact entitlements or?

The leadership has disavowed it, but one member on the at least one member on the other side has said they should be sensitive every five years or so.

We're talking about Mr.

Scott, are they entitlements or should they be re examined?

Well, they're actually called mandatory spending programs because they're tied to the demographics of our country.

If you meet an age or income test, you're eligible for those programs.

House Republicans want them financially sound and we want those benefits to continue for our citizens, not only now but in the future.

And so I think those programs could be strengthened, but they can only be strengthened.

If they are bipartisan agreement and that's certainly not in the cards right now.

Well, I mean there's there would according to the leadership or tell us if we're wrong here, if I'm wrong here, but apparently the, the leadership has put them essentially off limits, at least in terms of the debt ceiling vote which is coming up.

Is that your understanding?

Well, they're off limits for being cut, but they could certainly be part of a bipartisan agreement to strengthen those programs in the out years.

But yeah, as leader McCarthy said and I think President Biden agrees.

We're not proposing changes to those benefits and Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid for that matter, you know, as a part of the debt ceiling negotiation.

So in in terms of that pending vote.

They're not up for this.

They're off limits as far as you're concerned.

That's what that's what the leaders have said should they be?

Yeah, the debt ceiling is about raising the debt ceiling.

And the debt ceiling has been increased $10 trillion in the last two years due to mistaken spending priorities for President Biden.

President Biden needs to negotiate with House Republicans on how to get back to pre pandemic spending spending priorities.

And I want to go back to the days where Democrats and Republicans both thought the best deficit was zero and that we had a lower approach to deficits and we thought about that instead.

What President Biden's own budget projections show is 1 1/2 trillion dollar deficits per year for the next 10 years.

House Republicans are simply saying that's not sustainable.

What was it out of line for him, though, to note as he did the increase in the debt that occurred during the previous four years before he took office?

Well, we've had debt, tremendous debt increases for decades, but in and around debt ceiling negotiations is where we've had a a chance on a bipartisan basis to negotiate a slowing the rate of growth.

There we're up over 120% of GDP and that is a result of spending, bipartisan spending during the pandemic.

But as I say, just in the last 10 years, 10 trillion, I mean the last two years, $10 trillion of additional spending on top of what we spend every year.

And that's what is concerning.

Well, definitions can differ on what it means to strengthen entitlement.

In your own estimation, are they entitlement?

But we told mandatory programs, but are they entitlement?

Should they be regarded as entitled?

I I don't.

I don't really know what the point of that discussion is.

They're mandatory spending programs.

They're in the mandatory part of the budget.

If you are over 65 or if you're poor or have another demographic definition, you're entitled to receive that money.

So some people call it an entitlement program.

What difference does it make?

It's a mandatory spending program.

Definitions of how to strengthen those two programs.

Social Security and Medicare can differ sharply.

How would you strengthen them?

Well, I think you on a bipartisan basis you'd look at how to reduce healthcare expenses and increase competition in Medicare.

Probably you'd probably see how to make that program stronger.

And then in the Social Security, last time we did that was a mixture of changes back in 1983 was the last time any substantive change has been made to Social Security.

And as I say, I think that would have to be a bipartisan conversation, raise the eligibility age.

That's Social Security, that's what we've been doing.

That's been on the schedule from those 1983 changes that were done by Tip, O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, the Greenspan Commission.

So I assume that's a possibility.

But again, that's something that's not on the table and something that has to be talked about on a bipartisan basis.

The administration's posture toward China and for that matter of the congressional estimation or posture on China, you found it wanting.

I thought the president didn't address it during his state of the Union, and I thought that was a mistake House Republicans have talked about for several years.

We think the debt and deficit, the Chinese Communist parties, malign activities toward the US and around the world, those are two of the major challenges facing the United States right now.

I think both of those should have been addressed head on by the President, and he didn't do that.

Well, what would you have had him say?

Well, we've set up a China.

Select Committee, we've got a strong bipartisan support for that.

Well over 100 Democrats voted with us.

Our position in the in the Congress is a bipartisan one that the Chinese Communist Party is a threat to the US diplomacy, our military, our economic standing in the world and they're exporting those malign activities around the world.

So I think he should have said Chinese Communist Party is challenging the US and those ways and I look forward to working with the.

Members and the Select Committee on what the best ways to counter those Chinese activities are the majority with which the majority is working.

The speaker has, what, four votes now?

That's a pretty narrow path that he has to.

Walk.

And it obviously makes makes his job more difficult holding a coalition together.

Can he do it without chaos?

Yeah, I think again, speaker Pelosi had the exact same margin that we have in this Congress.

She had about a 10 vote margin.

We have a 10 vote margin in this Congress.

Oh, it takes 218 votes to pass a bill.

She won her speakership by one vote.

Last stop.

Kevin McCarthy won his speakership through 15 ballots before he was elected.

So both these leaders.

We've had narrow majorities and split conferences, and speaker Pelosi demonstrated that she could do that over her term in office.

And I think Kevin, Kevin McCarthy will do the same thing as our speaker.

Well, we're told he has four votes, though he's got a 10 vote margin over the Democrats.

He has four votes over 218 to win.

That implies that we don't have democratic support for the efforts that we have and every bill that we've had of any significance in the last three weeks has had substantial democratic support.

So it that depends on the topic.

Well, can't.

He'll hold the coalition there together and there are some fractures there.

I mean, he, he barely got it took, as you note, 15 ballots.

Yeah, it was.

And you've got a coalition in the house that said, you know, no compromises without cuts to.

Well, we have we have challenges inside the House Republican Conference to keep our coalition together.

And as I argue, just as.

Speaker Pelosi did.

She had the squad that gave her grief.

She couldn't even fund a defense partnership with Israel without a two day wait to try to drum up the votes to get that done because of the progressive left and the Democratic Conference.

Bottom line is that takes leadership.

I think Kevin McCarthy came out stronger after that fifteen votes in that first week because of the intimate conversations that we had with every Member in the conference working together to get him elected.

The.

Temperature of the house, and particularly in in the Republican caucus the conference anyway.

Kind of.

It leaned to the caustic, did it not at times pretty fractious does that.

What does that say about the temperature of the overall character anyway, of the Republican majority in the House?

Well, I think there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that are very vocal social media members of Congress.

I see that in my Democratic colleagues as well.

So they're outspoken just like our societies become a little more outspoken on social media.

There's no doubt about that.

I see that reflected in the in the House, but I see it on both sides of the aisle.

Well, I mean the IT can't be anything, can't it?

Except deleterious.

Now the speaker of the other day called it, I think they were spirited or they were passionate in any way about the yeah, well, look, I think I've always believed in civility in parliamentary bodies, even when you watch the House of Commons in in England is a much more spirited body than perhaps ours on any typical day.

But I believe in civility because, as John Kennedy told us, civility is not a sign of weakness and that we should be arguing our case passionately.

With the facts and trying to win based on those facts.

And that's how I've always tried to conduct myself.

But that doesn't mean everybody has the same style.

I just would argue I see it on both sides of the aisle and it can be deleterious, as you say, to civility in the house.

But the bottom line is the leader has a mission to keep our commitment to America and our priorities.

And we're going about doing that.

OK.

You you're deeply involved in financial issues and the chairman, Mr.

Powell.

Held it to 1/4 point this last time, but says more are coming.

What as you see it is likely to be the can that work?

Can we get inflation?

Trending down more, I think we can.

We've seen that potentially peak, but in 2023, I do believe the Fed will continue to raise rates.

I saw where Secretary Yellen said earlier this week that she thought rates would go down to something more normal.

Well, I would argue after being in this business for 40 years, rates are now up to where they have been normal if you look at that over the history of the country.

So I expect Chairman Powell to continue to be very hawkish about inflation.

His number one goal was price stability.

I think that should be the only focus of the Fed.

And I think he will work with his colleagues to defeat inflation over the next few months and hopefully you'll have that victory in 2023.

Congressman French Hill, thanks for coming in.

As always, great to be with you.

Come back soon.

Thank you for joining us as always, and see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.