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Summary: Rolling deflation surprises Arkansas government. (March 2009) The Consumer Price Index, an inflation measure, was zero in 2008, the lowest reading since 1955 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis). Declining asset classes have left unprepared Americans exposed to the economic phenomenon of deflation. “Thinking about deflation,” the Policy Foundation warned […]

The term uninsured, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons notes in a 2006 White Paper on Medical Financing is so widely used it is impossible to avoid. The national organization contends the term “self-paying” or “self-insured” is more accurate: “Many persons have deliberately chosen to risk assets or future earnings rather than buy medical insurance; only a […]

  Free market economists have opposed the taxation of food for more than two centuries. (Policy Foundation, 2002) “The sales tax on groceries should be phased-out over a multi-year period using excess state revenues. The surplus means the grocery tax can be reduced by two cents in 2007. A gradualist approach is preferable to raising […]

Rural Arkansas suffers from a shortage of physicians. One way to address the problem is by exploring alternative systems of delivering medical care. Two alternative systems are advanced nurse practitioners and midwives. Advanced nurse practitioners are “registered nurses who are prepared, through advanced education and clinical training, to provide a wide range of preventive and acute […]

(August 2008) Eighteen K-12 public school districts in Arkansas earned the top grade (A or A-minus) in the Policy Foundation’s third annual School District Rankings study. Fourteen districts received a failing grade of F in the report, which relies on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) to issue a letter grade to every Arkansas […]

  “Define and implement a system of performance-based pay for all Arkansas state employees and public K-12 employees, including teachers.” (Murphy Commission, 1998 stud, “Making Arkansas State Government Performance Driver And Accountable”) (July 2008) Teachers in two Arkansas school districts—Cross County and Lincoln—will participate in merit pay programs in the upcoming 2008-09 school year. The […]

  “In its amicus brief filed with the state Supreme Court in the Lake View case, the Arkansas Policy Foundation points out that, in 1996, the Clinton administration recommended a similar accounting system for the country’s public schools.” Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, Feb. 10, 2002 Arkansas has made significant progress toward academic and fiscal transparency since […]

(June 2008) The National Education Association (NEA), the largest government-sector labor union in the United States, lost members in Arkansas in 2007, records show. There were 16,528 Arkansas NEA members as of Dec. 31, 2007 according to a document posted by the union. The number represents a decline of 221 members, or 1.32 percent. The […]

(June 2008) A long-stated goal of Arkansas state government officials is achieving 100 percent parity with the U.S. average in terms of per capita personal income (Bureau of Economic Analysis). Government economic development officials have led this quest, which at times as appeared similar to the search for the Holy Grail. That is to say, […]

One educational group escaped scrutiny in the consolidation debate that occurred after the Court’s decision in Lake View: Arkansas’ education service co¬operatives. Much of the debate about K-12 consolidation revolved around the student enrollment threshold to be used as criteria for closing districts. Gov. Huckabee proposed a 1,500 threshold and some legislators suggested a lower […]