Feeding frenzier
The snorting at the trough for the $843 million surplus is getting louder. They're coming up on the deadline for filing appropriatons bills. So legislators want to know what they kinds of bills they can file for the General Improvement Fund and meet constitutional muster, meaning for capital projects of statewide, not solely local, purpose. Meantime, uncertainty abounds over this commission the Brotherhood wants to create to launder — I mean funnel — local projects. It'll probably come up in the Senate this afternoon, and we'll see if the Brotherhood wants to pass it without changing it, though the attorney general advises changing it. If they want to get it and their volunteer fire departments thrown out by the court, that's up to them. This morning they chewed on a little of all this at the Joint Budget Committee meeting. Rep. Betty Pickett wanted someone to provide a list of project categories suitably legal for their own separate GIF bills. Co-chairman Chris Thyer said no one outside the Supreme Court could do that and that there was a part of him that couldn't see the difference between money for the Alltel Arena and money for Bigelow streets. Well, Alltel is a big thing that serves people coming from all around, and the local taxpayers anted up a tax increase for a generous match, and a local company chipped in some funds for naming rights. There are three differences right there. Someone asked if maybe the boys from Finance and Administration would provide some advice. Richard Weiss said oh, no, I'm not gonna touch it. Fort Smith people have asked for $25 million for this new U. S. marshal's museum that was supposed to be a good thing when Fort Smith won it from the federal government. You have your unfunded mandates. Now you have your unfunded federal tourist stops. I'm told the Fort Smith people would settle for $10 million. Fort Smith people tell me the whole thing was sold as not costing taxpayer money. The state surplus is taxpayer money. A local hotel and restaurant tax, which Fort Smith probably ought to do before it seeks state largesse, would be taxpayer money.