04/08/2020
Please read !!
👋🏼 A warm, socially distant greeting again from Little Rock. This time I’m here for our fiscal session. We are taking our health and our work very seriously. The session is condensed so we can get the budget set and get back home to our families. These are the things I’m keeping my eye on:
📚👩🏽⚕️ Cuts to education and Medicaid. The newly revised budget forecast shows a $205 million reduction in revenue, so cuts are inevitable. Now more than ever, we all understand the need to sacrifice and adapt to less; however, I worry about drastic cuts that will impact our our teachers, our learners, and our most vulnerable.
❌ Delaying the tax cuts for top income earners. Last year, the legislature approved a tax cut that would result in almost $100 million in lost revenue. I voted against it then, and I have cosponsored a bill to delay tax cuts until 2022.
🗳 Vote by mail. We absolutely must put a plan in place to defend our democracy and ensure voters can exercise their right to vote safely and confidently in November. My colleagues and I brought this issue to the governor a few weeks ago, and I’m happy to report that progress has been made. I’ll be voting yes on an amendment to eliminate the required reason for an absentee ballot, allowing any voter to vote via absentee ballot.
As always, I will be fighting for families, for fairness, and for the future. Our state’s budget should reflect these values, too.
