Page 2 - Michael Wickline News Today

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has recommended using state surplus money to expand the prison in Calico Rock by another 498 beds. His side of the story, as he told lawmakers at his speech:

The General Assembly is back home again, having done its business in only a few days last week. So no per diem and mileage for lawmakers this week. We think.

Cronyism doing well

The lowest scoring but most expensive company bidding to devise a statewide broadband deployment strategy was selected in a process one competitor thinks was tailor-made for the politically connected vendor.

What a fine journalistic presentation that was on this newspaper's front page last Sunday.

Two identical bills aimed at exempting employees from federal or employer covid-19 vaccination mandates cleared the Arkansas Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday, sending them to the governor for consideration.

Legislature plans deck-chair shift on state employee and teacher health insurance April 19, 20218:46 am The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Michael Wickline reports on another legislative power grab, this one to shift control of state and school employee health insurance from a board mostly appointed to the governor to the state Board of Finance, with four of 10 members appointed by legislative leaders. Will changing the deck chairs have an appreciable impact on the core problem? The problem was ...

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem took some justifiable heat recently when she suddenly withdrew her support for state legislation that would have banned biological males from competing against girls in school sports. It seemed to us a clear case of caving to the Rainbow Mafia and its looming threat of business hardship rather than putting down a clear marker for conservative American principles. This week, another Republican governor finds himself in the hot seat, although the issue confrontin...

The soft drink industry is close to achieving a 30-year goal -- killing the soft drink tax. Its arguments are calorie-free.

  Advertisement “transformation” of state government and its supposed streamlining of 42 agencies into 15 departments. The audit casts doubt on a claimed $57 million in cost savings. Not surprising,  particularly given the fattened salaries that went to people at the top of the state food chain. Have we really eliminated any agency? Or just rolled them into a larger agency with more assistant chiefs, a la university bureaucracies? Advertisement Some personnel reductions are claimed, but s...