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

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

In only days, 10s of thousands of Arkansans who had enjoyed a break from their student loan payments will once again be confronted with the cost of their education.

In a moment, what that will mean to them, and maybe the larger economy and education news of a different sort.

The imminent arrival of the professional schools that aspiring dentists and vets in Arkansas had to leave the state to obtain.

But first, can the chaos of a federal government shutdown be avoided?

And if not, how much chaos in our state?

We're joined up top tonight by Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas.

Womack of Arkansas, the former chair of the House Budget Committee, now senior member of the Appropriations Committee.

Congressman, thanks very much for being with us in in terms of a government shutdown and for the benefit benefit of our audience.

Just moments ago, the House defeated a rule very much sought by the Speaker that prevented, for the second time, a military spending bill coming up.

This was supposedly in the bag.

Sir, what's going on?

Nothing's in the bag here anymore.

Just when you think you've got agreement, something happens and attitudes change.

And you know, Steve, I likened it earlier today in a media swarm like a soap opera.

And every single day, virtual and sometimes multiple times a day, the episode changes a little bit.

And we're struggling right now.

The House majority, as you know, is about 221 strong.

You got to get 218 for anything so four people can stop things in its tracks here in Washington and often do anymore.

There are some really strong feelings about certain issues and top line spending numbers and on and on and on.

But at the end of the day, the governing majority, as you well know in all of your years covering a politics, majorities have a job to do.

They they have to lead and they have to govern.

And we are struggling to be able to lead and govern right now.

And the end result of it all is, is that our country is kind of stuck right now and we've only got a few days left before the end of the fiscal year.

You know, for people watching, our fiscal year begins on October one.

So on Sunday we'll enter a new fiscal year.

And unless we do something between now and then, things that we've been trying to do, we could have a lapse in appropriations.

Now, that doesn't mean everything shuts down.

It just means that only essential services of our government, things like national security, food safety and air traffic control, those kinds of things, they'll they'll continue.

So we won't, we won't compromise the safety of people, but there are a lot of things that are funded by the government that our people rely on that could indeed be compromised beginning next Sunday, if I can.

Who is in the leadership?

Apparently it's not Mr. McCarthy.

Apparently it's not the speaker.

Yeah, you know, it's a it's a good argument.

It's a good point because what what you expect out of your leadership team is to call the play in the football vernacular, call the play and and get and and then inspire all the members to block their assignments and and get that play accomplished.

But right now the play clock's running a few days left.

We're still kind of scrambling on the sideline trying to call the play.

We don't have any timeouts left and we're behind and and so so that's about the the simplest way I can put it But what you the the I think what you bring up Steve is is a valid point.

Who is running the conference and right now it's about four or five people.

It's about four or five people who have angry intentions and and sometimes nefarious objectives in.

In some cases it's personality driven.

In other cases it's just asking for things that you know you can't get and and really shouldn't get in divided government.

But these four or five people have kind of got things kind of stuck in the mud right now.

Let me offer a quote, Sir, that perhaps you haven't seen.

And apparently this came from Speaker McCarthy.

Just a few moments ago.

He complained of what he called, Sir, a quote.

And I'm quoting a new concept, individuals who just want to burn the whole place down.

You concur with it.

I do, I do.

And that's a good way to put it.

These are individuals that come from Steve, you know this.

They come from Ruby red districts.

In other words, they're going to be reelected.

There's no real challenge politically to them.

They can take this position and they can represent this kind of viewpoint and they can hold the rest of America hostage.

Indeed, right now holding the GOP majority hostage and and not suffer any political consequences.

In fact in many cases they get rewarded for in some cases they even fundraise off of it.

So that's the tragedy of it.

But you know what, I have to respect the will of the voters in those districts.

They sent those members up here.

They have an agenda.

It's just unfortunate that our majority is so thin right now at 221.

You know Chris Stewart went away last week because he retired.

So we're we're down now to a basically a three seat majority and and on any given day you know Steve Scalise has not been here this week because of a medical issue and we've had another member on our side that gave birth to a baby and still another one with a fractured hip.

So you have a tendons problem.

So they I I think the the the confluence of all of these factors has just got everything kind of stymied in Washington and I'm ready for this situation to heal itself so that we can move on and and put America on a different course.

What what does this say about the nature of the GOP today, Sir you're going into an even numbered year and the fact it's presidential election year you know it could it could have political consequences.

We always kind of take the brunt of shutdowns.

I was here in 13 over Obamacare.

I was here in 18 over border wall.

We never people, people that advocate for government shutdowns.

That's not a winning formula.

It it costs money.

I think it was like .4% of real GDP the last time.

That's that's some serious money out of the economy.

It causes agencies to have to do a lot of reprogramming, reshuffling those kinds of things.

That's expensive.

The uncertainty in the markets, you know fetch downgraded us not long ago.

Moody's is still standing there with a AAA rating.

I I worry that the next round of cuts from the rating services is going to be devastating because every time that happens, interest rates go higher and the interest on the national debt goes higher and it's a it's a vicious cycle that continues repeating itself.

What we need is we need to everybody get on the rope, pull in the same direction and begin the process of defeating the real enemy.

Here, the real enemy is the status quo.

We're trying to beat the status quo and every time we do what we did today by defeating the rule on defense approach is a step in the wrong direction.

One final question, Sir, because I know our time here is limited.

Anyway, you are Just a few days ago you announced that you wanted to seek a would seek renomination reelection.

In light of all this second thoughts on your part, you know, maybe I need a sobriety test.

I don't know.

You know, I look, I I feel like this work is far too important.

You know, Steve, you know you you we've known each other a long time.

I I love my country.

I've served my country in uniform.

I serve up here.

There's nothing more important to me than than the health and wellbeing of our country.

And I've got grandchildren and I don't want these grandchildren to inherit a country that they can be proud of.

And so as long as there is work to be done and I feel capable of being able to make a difference, and I'm in a remarkable position to do that as a senior appropriator, then I want to continue that work.

There will be a point in time out there when you're going to have to decide whether or not it's time to turn it over.

But that time is not today.

Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas's Third District.

Thank you very much, Sir, for your time.

All the best to you, as always.

Come back soon.

We'll be right back.

And we are back.

For student debtors, the pandemic brought some breathing room payments for college and universally loans for any kind of postsecondary Ed.

Those payments were postponed, suspended, frozen until October 1st.

So for the almost 10% of our state's population, for the more than 300,000 Arkansans collectively carrying $13 billion in student loans, well, the holiday is just about over.

The impact on them ought to be obvious, but are there some implications for our larger economy?

Here's Dr. Mervin Jabaraj of the business and economic staff at the University of Arkansas joining us now.

Mervin, thanks very much for coming aboard as always.

I mean, this could be a real bite out of a lot of Arkansasans monthly paychecks budget.

Yeah, I mean you've mentioned some statistics there at the top of the question there, about 300, more than about 350,000 Arkansans have student loans.

While there were several forgiveness programs in the works, none of which actually panned out, a significant number of them will qualify for those forgiveness programs, but nonetheless, they're all going to have to pay something starting October 1st.

The impact, we're still waiting to see what will happen.

Obviously, you know, it's about a car payment for each of these families carrying student loans, but there's so many forgiveness programs still available.

There are payment programs still available, all of which these families have to apply for to avail themselves of.

So depending on how many of them qualify and apply for those programs, we'll have to wait and see what the real impact of resuming these payments are.

What about on the larger economy?

Are we talking about debt or monthly liabilities that could have a significant impact on on the larger economy?

Well, so during the pandemic when we pause payments, you know a lot of these households were able to use those payments to put you know, save money to buy a house, put down you know, significant down payment to buy a house that is obviously not the market.

Now with mortgage rates this high, people are not really clamoring to get out there and buy houses.

So it's probably not going to impact that segment that someone has already seen an impact from high interest rates.

So where you going to see the impact is of discretionary spending.

So outside of things like grocery and shelter and gasoline and things like that, we've seen a lot of spending in the last year or two, especially since you know, most pandemic restrictions were lifted on things that people didn't do, go on holidays, go to a lot of concerts.

So you know, we've seen a lot of spending on concerts for, you know, marquee artists, revenge, revenge spending effort and cold exactly.

And so much so that you know, spending on you know going to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts significantly moved GDP figures this year.

So that's where you're going to see a significant downturn in expenditures to be fair.

But those concerts are now over.

So that's probably going to contribute to that as well.

Well I'm, I'm the grandfather of two Swifty, so I, you know, I don't know what their plans are but let's stay with interest rates for a second.

the Fed is now frozen them, no more holding interest rates where they are for right now.

Bank of England did the same thing.

What's likely going to be the impact we are we in just in a holding pattern here?

Are we still fighting, you know the impact of inflation, right?

I think we can all agree that inflation has significantly declined, at least the rate of inflation increases have significantly declined since last year.

So last year was north of 8%, now it's about 3 1/2 percent.

A good portion of the remaining inflation is in shelter prices, which will decline over the rest of this year.

But what we're seeing happen now is that gas prices are starting to go back up and that is likely to stay high through the rest of this year.

So the Federal Reserve has threatened one more rate increase.

If you look at their voting and their minutes, it looks like there are 12 members that are in favor of one more rate increase this year and seven that are in favor of staying where they are.

The Federal Reserve tries to work by unanimous consent.

So we'll see if the seven can be brought along to that rate increase.

I think there seems at least in my personal opinion there seems to be enough momentum and trying to reduce inflation.

Yes, it hasn't come down to 2 1/2% where the Federal Reserve wants it, but I think we're heading in that direction and the rates are actually significantly high.

And probably one more rate increase is just asking for trouble given everything else that is going on.

And as you alluded to a second ago, the, the impact on the how on housing sales, not just forget new construction, but it just on sales of existing housing inventory is pretty tight too.

Yeah, I mean so you're looking at something north of 50% of households that currently have a mortgage have one that has lower than 4%, close to 80% of all outstanding mortgages have an interest rate less than 5%.

So the current mortgage rate being close to 7%, you're pretty much everybody that would move in any normal year just within their city or within their county is very unlikely to do so because in many cases they're able to sell the house for the price that they want.

But if they buy another house in the same area, they're going to be paying a lot higher in monthly payments because of the mortgage rate.

So that's taken a huge chunk of the market out, right.

Thanks so much for being with us.

As always, come back soon.

Thank you, and we'll be right back.

It's a milestone, truly for postgraduate higher education in Arkansas.

For decades since statehood, In fact, Arkansas students wishing to become dentists or orthodontists, dental surgeons had to leave the state for training.

So did Arkansans aiming to become veterinarians.

The expense was formidable.

The Arkansas graduates understood student debt well before it became a national issue.

The breakthrough was announced some 16 months ago.

Lyon College, headquartered at Batesville, would establish schools of dental and veterinary medicine.

Both will be based in Little Rock.

As measured by the shortage in Arkansas of dental and veterinary practitioners.

The need for both is acute.

Both have established partnerships with other Arkansas institutions and organizations, and the Deans of both Lyon schools are with us now.

For an update, Doctor Eleanor Green is the founding Dean of Lyon Colleges School of Veterinary Medicine and Doctor Burke, so founding Dean of Lyons School of Oral Health and Dental Medicine.

Deans, thank you very much for being with us.

When?

When's this ball going to start rolling?

Doctor Green will begin with you.

We are very excited that November 5th through the night is our first accreditor visit right here in Little Rock.

What's really special about today is that yesterday afternoon we submitted our documents for that meeting.

And when that meeting happens, a major hurdle, I take it a major hurdle.

This is Benchmark #1.

So our document is in with the effort of many people and it's a really good document.

And then they will come November 5th through the 9th.

And then if everything goes well or as I should say, when everything goes well, we would take students in the fall of 2025, this, this inspection that you're anticipating.

This is for physical facilities, for curriculum review, that sort of thing.

The American Veterinary Medical Association's Council on Education is the accreditor.

There are 11 standards that we have to meet.

So it's not just physical facilities, It's everything.

It's the organization, that's the physical facilities, it's the curriculum, it's the students, it's the faculty, is how you assess outcomes, many 11 different standards.

So if you're worried, where's the dental school now?

And we're on a similar trajectory.

So first of all, Steve, thanks for having us.

This is, this is truly a pleasure and and an honor to be with you.

The Lions submitted for regional accreditation and received regional accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission in in November of 2022.

Then we submitted dental for dental accreditation in May of this year and that's that's a longer process on average a 12 to 18 month process.

So we're we're in that but we're on track.

We anticipate to begin our our one year admission cycle starting in May of the May of 2024 with an anticipated start in in June of 2025.

So we anticipate starting our first class June of 2025 with an anticipated graduation date of June of 2028.

OK, so both both schools will admit their first classes hopefully in in 2025, correct.

In terms of the facilities development, where does that stand now?

You've got to have space, You got to have offices.

We've been working with a group called One Health and they're helping us with facilities and they have actually purchased the Heifer International campus.

And Heifer International will be in florist three and four, veterinary medicine in floor two and dentistry in floor one, which sets up beautifully for us to collaborate.

Then there will be two educational buildings that are constructed adjacent to that and those designs have been completed and so we're off and running with facilities is this paid for.

So that that's a that is a great question and and we fortunately we have great great partners in one health and and others who are working on all of the financing and and we're hoping to break ground later this fall on on the campus.

All right.

When you start the admissions process, I guess it goes without saying this is this most definitely this is postgraduate education doctor so for dental students, dental health students, right.

So when we when we start the the admissions process we won't be fully accredited.

So enrollment will be contingent upon full accreditation which we anticipate will happen within that year.

And so we're hoping to reach out to all our Kansans to make sure that we can keep our Kansans in the state.

The the the need is particularly well in both disciplines anyway, as we mentioned at the top of the broadcast, there's a shortage in Arkansas.

We don't, we don't stack up very well against other states in terms of both your disciplines.

Arkansas is 49th in the nation in the number of veterinarians per population.

It also is in line with the national shortage which is in crisis proportions for veterinarians nationwide and that certainly is is true in Arkansas as well.

Can I ask is that both small and large animal, it's all if there's a yes, people have cannot find veterinarians to hire today And so it is definitely crisis proportions and we know the crisis that's been occurring in rural communities for many years.

It's hard to get any healthcare professional go to rural communities, but it has now become a crisis for small animal veterinarians as well.

Well, and in rural areas that tends to be where large animal practices I should think are concentrated.

Yes, very much, very much, yes.

So actually the field of veterinary medicine is so broad and and you can have small animals, you can have large animals, you can have zoom edge, you can do Wildlife Conservation, global health.

There are many different disciplines they can go into within this profession.

But what we tend to think of is the veterinarian for our doctor or for our cow or our pet goat per se.

But veterinarians are also so important for the economy of the state because it's a very much livestock oriented state and they have tremendous economic impact on this state.

And those animals have to be healthy to meet the economic need of the state.

Cattlemen's Association I suspect would be the first to concur not so.

So unfortunately Arkansas ranks last in oral health statistically in the United States.

In addition to that Arkansas ranks second to last in dentist per population ratio and in 2019 / 20 counties in Arkansas were were were identified as not having a single dentist that was treating over 1000 patients.

60% of Arkansas kids have experienced dental decay according to to 2019 data and a quarter of Arkansas counties are designated as health profession shortage areas.

So the need is outstand.

It is is is unfortunately huge in the in the state.

What about the demand of in terms of students who are seeking Arkansas students who are seeking either a dental education or a veterinary education is the demand there are.

Do we have Arkansas youngster youngsters, students who want to become vets, who want to become dentists?

Absolutely.

Two years ago 90 Arkansans applied to dental school, 65 were accepted to dental schools outside the state.

So there's a huge demand for for dental professionals or for students seeking to become dental professionals in the state.

With that number be consistent with what you anticipate in terms of an enrollment, what you would hope for in the terms of enroll.

Really good question.

We we want to based on what I just mentioned that Arkansas ranks second to last in in dentist to population ratio.

We want to make sure that we meet that need and we want to make sure that we that we that we keep our Kansans in the state to serve those that need it most.

And enrollment on the, on the veterinary side, Dr. our numbers are very similar to dentistry, but I'd like to back up a little bit and say there are some figures out there and some surveys that show that young people at the age of 12, there are 20 to 30% of them who want to be veterinarians.

And somewhere along the way, they are discouraged and they're told things like it, it's too hard to get into veterinary school or you could make more money doing something else.

And So what we've got to do now is allow our young people to reach their dreams and pursue their dreams and encourage them to do so.

And then they will be able to interveterinary school, stay at home in Arkansas and hopefully come back to Arkansas.

We're planning on taking 120 students, so that will be 120 new veterinarians every year that hopefully will stay in Arkansas.

Well, when the application process itself, when can they apply, when can they get that ball rolling on their end.

So typically you apply the fall before you enter.

So if we're able to hit this mark or should I say when we hit that mark in 2025, they would send their applications in in the fall of 20/24/24 **** May of 2024.

And and that's tricky because in dental education there's a centralized application service, but we cannot be in that centralized application service when we're not accredited.

So the first year and potentially the second year we will have our own application service that that we're we're doing it.

We're we're really trying to get the word out to to prospective dental students that they're they're applying outside of that centralized application service which we anticipate to begin May 2024.

Good luck to both of you.

Doctor Green Dr.

So thanks very much for so much.

Thank you so much and that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching and see you next week, support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.