Policies

Legislative Agenda 2025

Tax Reform

Arkansas can practice fiscal responsibility by focusing funding on the government’s core responsibilities, protecting taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars from unnecessary spending, and keeping on a path to continued income tax reduction. Arkansas is on a path to a zero rate for income tax, and allowing citizens to keep more of their hard-earned money will be a benefit to their families and the Arkansas economy.

Budget Reform

A unified budget that brings together all spending and all revenue in the same annual budget bill. This would empower Arkansas to manage the entire state budget comprehensively, encourage policymakers to engage in serious legislative spending deliberations, and would allow us to set and achieve spending targets. Currently, the Arkansas budget process requires over 100 bills to be filed to create the fiscal budget.

Portable Benefits

Portable benefits are work-related benefits that are not tied to a specific job or employer, allowing independent workers, like freelancers and gig workers, to maintain their nontraditional work arrangements while still accessing important benefits such as health insurance and retirement savings. This approach provides more flexibility and choice for workers in the evolving economy.

Regulatory Sandboxes

Regulatory sandboxes provide a space for entrepreneurs and innovators, from small start-ups and large corporations, to try new ways of doing things without excessive, outdated regulation. Arkansans can be a pro-economic growth state where can innovate while earning a living and provide for their families.

Benefits Cliff Reform

When low-income people start making more money, they can also become ineligible for certain state, and federal benefits. This can create a disincentive to financial independence because they are not making enough additional money in wages to cover the resources that they lose due to their increased earnings. Many will simply not take that tradeoff and will reduce their hours, not accept earning increases, or turn down promotions so the do not lose the benefit. This cycle of poverty can be broken if the benefits are reduced, but not immediately eliminated, as the individual increases their income over time. This can be the difference between someone being on benefits for a short time versus a lifetime.

Affordable Housing

Permit Accessory Dwelling Units – Several states have passed laws permitting homeowners to build ADUs, which can take the form of backyard cottages, basement apartments, or garage conversions. This allows for more housing units, at a lower cost, and can create additional income for homeowners. Cap Minimum-Lot-Size Requirements – Minimum-lot-size requirements are one of the key regulations that prevent entry-level housing construction because they require each new house to sit on a large piece of land. State policymakers can put a cap on local minimum lot sizes where sewer and water infrastructure are available.

Certificate of Need Repeal

To increase health care access, Arkansas should remove limits to lifesaving health services and encourage innovation in service delivery by repealing Certificate of Need (CON) laws for home health, hospice, nursing homes, and psychiatric service facilities. Through certificate-of-need (CON) laws, the state bars health care providers from building new facilities or expanding existing ones without getting the approval of state regulators who often include competitors of the providers seeking to expand.

CON is said to control health care cost, but data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that Arkansas’ health care expenditures per capita have increased year over year and outpaces Texas, where CON has already been repealed.

Out-of-state License Recognition for Medical Professionals

According to the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics, fifty-nine counties are medically underserved and another 15 are partially underserved. A way to expand the number of providers would be to create universal license recognition for medical professionals, a step 18 states have taken over the past decade to boost employment and speed access across a number of medical professions.

Competency-based Education

Remove arbitrary seat-time rules and focus on content mastery. Most education systems are organized around specific requirements related to the number of hours (or even minutes) of instruction a student receives in a day, week, and school year. Instead, they should focus on mastering concepts and skills, regardless of time, place, and pace. We should free teachers to individualize learning, so that students stay interested and passionate about their education.

Learn Everywhere

Provide an education credit for learning, wherever it occurs. Children learn through a va Provide an education credit for learning, wherever it occurs. Children learn through a variety of approaches and experiences: this includes learning in a traditional classroom and experiences far beyond the walls of a traditional school. Learn Everywhere policies create a path for students to earn course credits for these out-of-classroom learning opportunities.

Driver’s License Revocation Fee Repeal

Over 32,000 Arkansans have their driver’s license suspended for failure to appear and/or failure to pay fines. Driver’s licenses should only be suspended for driving violations and serious infractions of the law, not used to make life harder for those trying to make a living and pay their fines, fees, and restitutions. Repealing driver’s license renovation fees would be a small cost to the state but big investment in helping Arkansas families and supporting our economy