Support for Arkansas week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas times and Kuer FM 89.

Hello again everyone.

Thanks for joining us for two special editions back to back of Arkansas week.

Perhaps you have heard there is a race for Congress in Arkansas's second Congressional District.

Both candidates in alphabetical order and we begin, of course, with State Senator Joyce Elliott, Democrat in Little Rock, the Democratic congressional nominee, senator thanks very much for.

Making yourself available for the broadcast.

Let Steven thanks for having me.

Well, let me start with kind of a breaking story or a story that's in flux.

It involves the institution that you seek to join the US House.

The Speaker is holding out for a larger stimulus package than apparently the Senate is prepared to accept.

Sort of kept influx by that is on additional federal unemployment assistance, aid to cities and some other things.

If you were in the House, would you urge the speaker to take what she can now and come back more for more later?

Well I I'm hesitant, hesitant to have.

It's such an ironclad response because I just am not there.

In all the particulars.

But what I do absolutely no.

They need to figure out a way to come to an agreement.

And I know there are some nuances that have happened in this whole process.

Becausw from months.

There's been something on the table from the house for the Senate to consider.

And just now, I think, about a week ago is descended even beginning to think about that.

So it's been.

There's been, you know, we've been waiting for a long time to get relief for folks who've been hurting out there.

We could have already had negotiated a deal.

You know, in the in the Legislature.

By now.

I think if we if people were working together, but I don't care who it is, if it's if it's Nancy Pelosi or if it's McConnell we need to get something.

Though on the table, that's going to help people now.

But let us not forget help people now and will help them in the long run.

Because if there's not something in that package to help people.

In the long run, or some understanding that there is a long run to this whole situation, folks are going to be in the same or in our worse off, you know, a month or two from now, so we can't keep acting as if the pandemic is going to cooperate with us.

So rather than just saying, You know, we're going to have a response you know for for people who are trying to live from paycheck to paycheck and it's going to be in some, some response is going to be in effect.

Until this date we ought to be thinking about this in terms of targets.

It we're going to have relief for people until the pandemic is in this shape or whatever.

I, I think we really need to think about it in that way rather otherwise.

You know, I think we're just we're just reaching for bright, shiny objects to make people feel better right now?

Well, I think everybody, everybody there I think needs to be more responsible in the way we're thinking about this.

But would you accept half a loaf now?

I think a former Democratic president from Arkansas said never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Is that's what happened.

Is that what is happening on Washington, in your estimation?

Well, it's really easy to accept half a loaf if you know to get relief now, and that's important.

But what I do think we have to be careful about, and this is a hard thing about trying to use a collaborative process to get the best for everybody.

You can accept half a loaf now and get something for people, or you can really sit down and put and put your shoulder to the wheel and get a solution to four problem that's going to be more long-term.

So if I end up an I have no other choice after we've gone through a hard fault collaborative process, which this.

This has not happened.

Yes, you know something is better than nothing, but our people are better than this.

They need more than folks in Washington just selling for it.

Settling for something right now.

'cause you know we're third wheel third and last two relief forward and getting that relief for workers.

And so I really do call on people if it has to be this way that it's going to be something or nothing, but I think that's very that is not the most responsible thing to do.

If that's all we can get.

This all we can get.

But first you need to fight like crazy to make sure we're not pushed into this false choice.

Of getting something now or rather than getting a long term response.

So if I didn't have any other choice, of course we don't want to just leave people hanging, but I don't want to lose this notion that we really are pushing folks into a false choice rather than working for a solution that's more long term moving on, but staying in the fiscal.

Let's assume for a second that you are elected in November, and that Mr Biden is elected in November.

He's proposing a revenue package, a tax package.

That would raise, he says income taxes, martrez marginal rates on those earning 400,000 or better, also making significant changes, raising the corporate tax code, altering the treatment on capital gains.

Is that acceptable?

Is that wise?

Could you support that?

Are they getting something definitely worth it?

What they discussion?

But I I would just have to be there in the totality of this whole package that he's talking about.

But I will remind you that when the when the corporate tax was lowered, even even the folks who were in the corporate world and even the secretary of Commerce, I think at that time it was.

It was saying we don't.

We didn't have to lower the taxes on the corporate side as much as we did, and that it was not even a good idea.

But I do think Steve we need to make sure we remember what this 20 seven 2017 tax break was about.

It was an absolute absolute giveaway to the Ultra Rich.

You know, 1% of the folks guys, 83% of the 83% of the benefits.

So I think what Joe Biden is taking a look at and what I would want to take a look at is if we are going to try to create a more fair tax structure because that's what we need to do.

There was no reason for the 1% to get, you know 83% of the benefits with the tax breaks that we did in 2017.

And the other thing that was really important was there was there was not any kind of that.

There was not any kind of crisis that demanded that we do a tax cut in 2017 is one of the few times in the history of our our country that out of nowhere we just created a tax break that did not benefit most of the people in this country.

But a tax break just to benefit those out of the richest.

And remember when when our president went to Mar a Lago and the first thing he announced to the folks there I just made you all everybody here, a whole lot richer.

There was no crisis.

And then we created this big hole.

You know, we just grew our debt by trillions of dollars, and that is something we need to talk about and use that money for the things that we need to the most.

You know, starting with building back our economy.

An infrastructure after this COVID-19 crisis that we are in, well interest rates are low right now so the Fed can give the federal government can get away with printing a lot of money right now.

Sooner or later there will be an end we assume to the covid crisis.

Now both parties agree that a great deal of stimulus has been necessary, but now there is some resistance to raising the debt and the well the debt which you acknowledge has everyone acknowledges has just skyrocketed in the last.

18 months, what do you see as a long term solution?

Wow, where rates have to go back up?

Sure, yeah.

I absolutely first of all I I think we have to accept the fact that this this bigger hole that we put created with debt with the tax giveaway to the rich is we're going to have to rethink that.

But the major thing, if we rethink that and use those same funds or even more funds to rebuild our infrastructure, something we've been talking about Steve for years, and something that was, you know, like I won't say an absolute wonderful response after the Depression.

But we've been here before.

We had to spend a lot of money to build back, and we're at that point again.

We know how to do it if we rebuild our infrastructure.

That will put millions of people back to work, and if we rebuild our infrastructure now and include the broadband that we need for improving our schools to make it possible for the economy to grow in our rural areas to make it possible for entrepreneurs out in rural areas to be able to have a good living, this is how we can come back.

And when we have jobs when people have great jobs.

They're paying taxes in, but they're not paying an exorbitant amount of their taxes in.

We're not.

We're not still doing a giveaway to the richest people there are.

We can get out of the debt, but we can't if we just keep engaging in foolish policies and keep trying to convince people that tax breaks will lead to job creation.

That's not the case.

I've had at least two people I know who are rich people who got the tax break and who are just.

Godsmack that they got a tax break like this because I'm not creating jobs, I'm just going to invest it or save it.

That's what they're doing.

So getting our policy right, I think, is the best thing we can do because that's sustainable.

Who may get our policy right?

Get people back to work, rebuild our country, and it's a win win situation.

Well, let me, particularly, as it involves the corporate tax rate, senator.

The argument from the opposite side is an from some economists is that you raised the corporate tax rate.

You run the risk of driving some capital overseas investment overseas and that it will inevitably take at least some toll on working class Americans owing to a lack of investment.

Yours, but that's right.

Yeah, that's right, but that is why the corporate tax rate was lowered.

Only problem with it, they they folks who are where the benefit of that tax break said it didn't need to be lowered as much as it was, and I don't know if we're going to do anything else with it now.

I don't.

I don't know if that's going to be the case, because once once you know the giveaway is done is is hard to take it back.

But I remind us that's no longer an issue because when it was lowered as low as it is now, even the people in that even the secretaries in the administration.

Said it didn't need to be lowered that much, even though some of the largest companies in the country said it did not need to be lowered that much.

It needed to be.

I'm glad it was because there's no question that it was having some impact on whether or not people remained here at home or whether not they sought refuge overseas.

It needed to be lowered.

It just didn't have to be as much as it was moving.

Moving on senator the environment and climate.

Mr Biden says the Green Deal the new Green Deal as proposed goes too far a do you agree?

What would be?

What would be an acceptable environmental plan to you in terms of government action and see the phase out of fossil fuels, which has gotten a lot of arkansans raised a lot of eyebrows across the country, especially in farm country where they burn an awful lot of diesel.

What is your thought?

Well, at first I you know I when people talk about the The Green New Deal, that's not something that I, you know, I can say I support because it's more framework than it is anything else.

But I absolutely do have my ideas about what I think should happen because it's what this is a real problem we need to.

There's no question we need to focus on green jobs here.

We are after the with all that's happened.

You know, in the crisis of the pandemic, we're going to have to rebuild our economy.

And so many times out of a crisis, you get an opportunity.

And this is one of them.

So we ought to have a focus on building that with grain jobs.

There are people who have jobs that depended on fossil fuels.

We have to be thoughtful and in pathetic about what happens to them.

Steve, if we cannot just be flippant and just and will save the people, for example, your job is not going to be here anymore.

So just get ready for change.

We have to have a we have to have a transition.

For folks who are in those kind of jobs to make sure they are prepared for an ready for respect, what they need to be able to make that transition so that we don't act as if they don't have families to support.

We don't act as if they don't depend on those jobs.

If we have to have balance in the process, but it is something we absolutely must do to make sure we transfer from the fossil fuel jobs to the green jobs.

'cause that's what's happening.

But don't leave people behind.

You know, I know, people in Southwest Arkansas where I grew up and you know they've depended on these kind of jobs.

This is not something new to me.

There were people all around me when I grew up, and I worked in, you know, in El Dorado for years.

So these are not when we talk about these jobs.

That's just not a foreign thing to me and I know people who had good livings becausw of it.

So I I taught their kids I know their families and I am not flippant about saying This is the way to do it.

But I am clear eyed.

That we have to begin to focus on green jobs in the interest of climate change and in the interests of our kids having a future where you know where they can live and have a healthy life.

Would a carbon tax be one way to achieve that goal?

How would you?

How would you regard a carbon tax?

Well, I think it's something to consider because one of the things I think we tend to do a little bit too much rather than having a comprehensive plan, we should put all of the cards on the table and rather than one thing at a time and not knowing how it is going to affect something else, you put all the cards on the table and all the ideas on the table and not look for silver bullet and decide what's the best comprehensive policy that's going to include all the needs and and look at all the possible benefits from it.

That's what I think that's just one thing on the table that should be a part of the discussion.

A great deal of discussion of late senator about the process involved involved.

As it's unfolded and choosing a new Supreme Court Justice which has given rise to a lot of discussion about expanding the Supreme Court.

Now Mr.

Biden says I think as of today that he's going to appoint a study or he would appoint some sort of study Commission to consider the possibility.

What are your thoughts on that?

Should the court be expanded?

Should that be considered?

Well, my thoughts on this day or that this this is something I know that Republicans brought up as a as a matter of a distraction.

I think it to be Frank about it.

But I will remember.

Lot of discussion on both sides.

There has been and I'm getting to that and I also know that this is something that is that is not brand new, because through history that the court has been expanded and contracted throughout history.

But I just I just have to confess it's just not my big concern right now.

If it comes up and I'm there then I would deal with it.

But I always want to remind us it's it's just not the priority right here.

But if I were going to say you know anything about what's happening now.

The court is virtually being packed with the way the Republicans are handling this process.

So if I'm going to talk about a court packing when you talk about what we're doing right now because we've gone, Republicans laid aside all kind of norms to add one person to the court.

And for years, I guess I don't want to.

I don't want to go too far with this, but for a couple of years at least, the Republicans deny President Obama the opportunity to go to place.

Any judges on the on the courts and the minute President Trump?

Was there the first thing they did was started putting folks on the court and we're going to talk packing that's already happening so.

Question an issue that will linger well after this election, no matter how it goes, is whether the United States should rethink the Electoral College.

Perhaps abolish it, your thoughts.

Would you support that?

Well, I I think it's something I think is something that is worth discussing and I I won't.

I'm not prepared to say right at this point I would just abolish it, but it's something worth discussion.

But discussing the cause.

You know when the country grows and when we have reason to.

It's just we think, the way we have we have conducted on our government processes.

I think we ought to do that, you know, we we need to learn how to handle tough discussions, and I think this is one of them.

I would love for example, for Arkansas to be more of a made more prioritized because folks are gobsmacked all over the world.

They're just so surprised in other parts of the world.

And I will.

I will add right here in the United States that when somebody has not got the majority of the vote, they haven't won the election and the tan pretty much is an anathema to everything we have taught our kids about about how you win an election.

'cause think about it.

In elementary school, for example, we will have an election of four.

I don't know the class president or whatever, and it's just a simple thing of a majority.

And then I get confused as they go through the whole process.

So I think it's OK to have a discussion about it.

Couple of points that that your rival in the race brought up recently.

He said step one for you, if elected, would be to vote for Speaker Reelect Speaker Pelosi.

Assuming the house remains in Democratic hands, one would you?

And B or two.

Do you think she has represented your party well as speaker?

Her values?

Her statements.

Well, I will point out before he as he said that he made sure everybody knew that I had.

As he indicated.

Would be joining the Congressional Black Caucus an I know that was nothing more than a dog whistle?

Perhaps people haven't noticed that that she is black, which I found to be very.

I was very disappointed by that.

'cause you know, that was just really bringing dirty politics from Washington to Arkansas and I am happy to say that now I'm happy about the number of people who have contacted me and just so disappointed in French Hill.

And she's saying This is not the French Hill.

I thought I knew and this is just race fading and so he just went from there to Nancy Pelosi in an effort to just stack all of these things that must be wrong with the Joyce Elliott that people know in this state.

If he can't he can't run on his record so he has just reduced himself to an attack on me and.

Heart attack on on my character.

I have a record of which I can run and for him to be speculating about what I'm going to do when I get there is just it's just one more distraction state and to say things like I'm as dangerous as they come.

This Joyce Elliott is as dangerous as they come.

She will join the Black Caucus.

She will vote for Nancy Pelosi.

I think that is French Hills problem.

He's the one that's letting that live in his head.

It's it's that that's not a problem for me.

Well, a stripping, stripping away all of the rhetoric left or right should you be elected well, does back to the matter of speaker Pelosi.

Does she adequate?

Is she fairly represent your values?

Does she accurately represent your values in terms of policy?

Well, she she probably has some some values that are different from mine, but when it comes to things such as you know whether not people should have health care.

Whether not, we should have a great education, whether not people should have jobs, whether or not people should have an opportunity to be a part of the prosperity in this country.

There are values that we share there, probably some that we don't.

But when I want us to understand is I'm not running to elect Nancy Pelosi, I am running to represent the people of this district.

I will vote for the person with whom I can work the best to get things up.

This district that, and that's all I'm after.

I am not caught up in the person I'm caught up in who can help me help district you from the start of this presidential campaign CR this election cycle.

Senator, there has been.

Obvious pressure from many of the candidates to push your party to the left.

Has a hasn't gone too far to the left?

In your estimation an be if you want to be more of a centrist, how can, if elected, how can you resist the pressure to go along to get along?

Well, one thing about that that the Democratic Party people talk about the left, but I maybe there are some pushing going on but I don't see evidence that the party all of the party itself has gone to the left.

I really people know me right here in Arkansas is somebody who has a bipartisan record.

I've worked with governor Huckabee, Governor Hutchinson, Governor, Beebe these the people who have been the governors in my tenure.

I've worked with Republicans in the House and in the Senate.

And it's not always say and I say this proudly an I know it's the case.

There's not a Republican in this state who would tell you I won't work with him in the Legislature because they know I will.

So wherever the party is an I don't see it.

But you know, we we have a few people who make the news a lot and we're characterizing the whole party by the few people who make the news.

But by and large, if you take a look at the class that was elected in the last in the last class.

You will find some very middle of the road people there.

Far more than the people who are the ones who make the news.

And so I think there's there's room for balance.

And that's the major thing I I want to be at.

That's what I've always looked for.

How do you balance it?

And this shouldn't be all of this.

All of that.

And that's why I think it's important to have two parties.

It shouldn't be one party all the time, and the same thing is true with in a party.

It shouldn't be all of all of anyone type of people or everybody thinking the same way.

Rarely have we seen public opinion senator as divide or the nation as divided as it is the chasm.

It seems.

It is unreachable.

How would you, as a member of Congress, seek to resolve that?

You know, Steve.

This is one of the things I feel so strongly that I have the capability of helping with not just doing because I've practically gonna unity to wear all my my whole life at least from age 15.

When I was integrating the school when at 15 I just saw things that were so horrific in terms of keeping us apart.

And that's when I first began to realize how how it was so built in that was supposed to be apart, and from that that led me to being a school teacher and taken a job.

The very first job I took as a school teacher.

I have lots of choices.

I took a job at a school where there had never been a black teacher because I thought I needed to be there for the black kids and the white kids because I'd live that life of seeing kids being torn apart by adults.

So I've worked all my life with patients with learning about other people trying to be a role model for people.

What it means to appreciate others who are different from you and understand how that's a very good thing to understand it and have friends who are different from you.

And be empathetic and sympathetic about people, but the way I used to talk to my students about it is there's a reason we're called the United States of America.

We need to put more on that United, so I've been able to do this in my life, and I will not pretend it's not been difficult.

It is been very difficult at times, but it's worth it.

So I can't do it in Washington by myself, but I can certainly do the same kind of things I've done here in Arkansas.

Work with folks.

Who are in all of the party work with folks who are in the other party?

This is just doable, you know.

I was able to be apart of 75 bipartisan bills that been signed just by Governor Hutchinson.

I don't buy into.

It's a lost cause in Washington, but the way I do think I can help is to find allies, because I don't think everybody is that people are not happy with us in Washington.

I don't think for the most part, I'm talking about people who are serving their but unwilling to take leadership and saying, look, we've got to do some things away from talking about policy to grow relationships.

Because if we grow relationships outside of, We're trying to put policy in place.

That's how he began to treat people.

Better respect people, respect their opinions, learn to collaborate them, because once you know people.

You work with people differently and you treat them differently and you accept their ideas and they're saying This is, and their difference is a whole lot better.

Senator, I got it.

OK, I've got it into there simply because we're out of time.

Senator, we thank you for yours.

When loser draw, come back soon.

Always a pleasure.

Alright, thank you so much, Steve.

Thank you Ann.

Will be back in a moment.

Our guest will be representative French Hill.

Support for Arkansas week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas times and Kuer FM 89.