>> slowly, steadily, the jobless rate falls. arkansas exports: will they steadily, literally go south? rarely out of the news, a major state agency is back in the headlines. and does handing tough equal playing smart? arkansas week, next.
>> "arkansas week" is made possible in part by the "arkansas times" keeping you informed by covering people, events, and politics in arkansas. by fm 89 kuar little rock with in depth news reporting, analysis and discussion each weekday.
>> this is "arkansas week". >> hello again everyone. thanks for joining us for "arkansas week" and "arkansas week" in which the state saw some gratifying numbers about the unemployment rate and that's where we will begin tonight.
jacob kauffman joins us from kuar and wesley brown with talk business & politics and john lyon with the arkansas news bureau based in little rock and thank it is for coming in. the numbers are encouraging and the down tick in the jobless rate. >> yeah we're down since
june 2001. the arkansas unemployment rate is down to 4.8% and puts us down below the national numbers which is 5.5% and of the one we're seeing good growth and the numbers show growth in health care services, health care jobs, professional
and business services and construction are the three top job areas where we're seeing growth. actually this month the manufacturing sector saw a little growth which is unusual for most of the 2015 we have seen those jobs slide, so it's
encouraging numbers but still the question of the missing workers. there are workers missing in the economy, about 60,000 people are giving up looking for jobs so the numbers are good but i guess the question is how much lower can we go? is this the bottom and
looking at the national rate for the last three months it tell us this is the bottom and we're going to see that slowly go back up. >> even as we tape our
broadcast on friday morning there are cautionary notes. >> yeah. gross domestic product numbers are down gdp for the second month and it was three poant 7% and then 2.2% growth and the first reading is 0.7% and that's below 1% so we're
starting to see the u.s. economy hit a wall. will that creep into arkansas numbers? i think it likely will and see the numbers in the jobless rate and other areas of growth so and one of the things that i look for
if we're hitting the downturn go out and look our are stores closing and doing less busy on the weekend and shopping days and you're starting to see that and people are cautious about going into next year.
>> and through it all everyone around the globe even the middle east keeps on pumping. >> opec countries are still -- that is so unusual to see opec as the prizes of crude oil goes below $30 and come together and say we're going to halt
production and force the price to come back up and we still see them pumping and pumping and i think goldman sachss said they believe that the price of crude oil will go down to $20 and below that and if it does it will be painful for the oil
industry. >> but that ripples. >> yeah, and it ripples into transport, just every part of the economy. it ripples. i know some of the i think the construction companies and people in the industrial sector are saying it's affecting them.
nucor steel which say company that has operations in northeast arkansas they're struggling with the commodity prices so it has a broad effect and affects the inflation number. the fed put
the rate at 2%. it's tough to get back up to 2% which is their kind of goal for raising the interest rate again. >> it will be pretty tough over the 2006. some of the oil companies and murphy oil and an off shoot of murphy oil and
said we're writing off 2016 so look for us in 2017. it's going to be tough. >> well, there is plenty of it. >> yeah, yeah. >> and still on the economy there was some -- talking about
step by step incremental steps cuba. >> yeah. what we have seen the president has slowly through the u.s. department of commerce and some of the financial agencies, the fdic has started to open up things like credit
from the financial side and on the other side, the department of commerce is opening small steps in trade and you're starting to see some back and forth between cuba and the united states in trade in ag sector and some of the tourism sector, but still the bottom
line is that congress for the time congress has to pass has to come together and we're going lift the embargo and still we're not seeing that. some of the arkansas congressional officials
individual it's not something we want to do right now and until congress comes together and lift that you're not going to see this total trade come together where the u.s. and states like arkansas are trading with them.
>> seems like a 5-1 split. >> by and large seems that the arkansas officials want to open up the trade because of the rice and agriculture industry and tom cotton is the only one that i'm aware in the delegation that is
opposed to this and boozman and rick crawford said they're champions. >> and governor hutchinson is behind it too. >> he went to cuba. >> yeah, but once it gets to i guess to congress in washington d.c. i think it's going to be a
tough boat because you have some pro-cuba -- i mean people down in miami area and down in the area still opposed to moving that embargo. >> bottom line no pun intended we're some distance away from seeing mammoth shipments of
arkansas rice and beans and rice. >> i don't think it's going to happen during the obama administration. i think it will take another president to come in and there's a bit more agreeable relationship between
the president and congress and i think you will see that change. >> while there is this deadlock now there is still momentum then there has been. >> yeah, the president is doing a lot of executive moves to move the trade and we're
starting to see things happening. people traveling down there and you're starting to see delegations from cuba and the education side, economic development, they're trading ideas so i think we're in the period that we can look forward
to seeing that embargo lifted in the next four, five years. >> well, four in the last four, five months or the previous year and since the embargo was imposed. >> it's encouraging and as
jacob said there are things happening -- >> depending on your policy. >> yeah, i think one of the things that has to happen is some i think the business community has to put pressure on
the congress to make this move and i think you will start seeing that pretty soon after obama leaves office. >> markets, markets. the department of human service rarely out of the news is still in the news jacob. >> yes sylvia burwell
announced she is going to. >> >> cecile blucker and announced she is going to resign and there is information that the foster care system is stressed and cecile blucker it's right. i need more
funding, more staff. the governor was asked about it and praised his work in the past seven years she's had the position and said he was caught by surprise it's happening. >> john. >> dhs has been in the news over a report that rfs released
by disability rights arkansas which is an advocacy group that is allowed to inspect human development centers in arkansas, and it issued its third report about the booneville development center. this focuses on a
death of a resident that occurred in february of last year. the woman had been shortly after she was given a new treatment program was designed for her died and the treatment program called for the staff to ignore
her if she faked a seizure to get attention, and she had a seizure and died. now dhs says all of the presidencies were followed and to revive the woman and there is questions how quickly the steps were taken they pointed out this group
wants the booneville center shut down. actually one of the past reports had in the title the booneville development center should be shut down so they're planning get together, the agency and the group and talk about the report and talk about
what steps could be taken to better protect residents and better investigate deaths that happen at human development centers. >> and disability rights arkansas they are sort of an advocacy group specifically for people with developmental
disabilities but federally funded to do this and they have some weight and backing from federal government and as mentioned in the report they want to close down this human development center and the argument is the building is particularly old to other
centers and in poor condition and the department of human services said in the past yes this building should be in better conditions. we don't have the funds we need but we can make it a comfortable place to live but for the 24 year old woman and the reason she died
and they're victims of excessive use of restraints and why they looked at this in the first place. >> restraints or excessive restraints that go beyond the methods of the protocol and the first time we heard about this.
>> i'm not sure about the specifics of this but disability rights arkansas say that modern techniques don't have the use of force in a way to restrain people having episodes or chemically restrain them and
giving medicine to calm them down. >> and that is a thing of the past and arkansas hasn't caught up with the rest of the nation and moving people with disabilities one into the community, into jobs and other things and a lot of people
including this group believes that some of the methods are backwards. >> and this group has investigated juvenile center similar issues and the facility in alexander has come up in the news. >> and look at the history of
the director resigning in march and these issues have been there during her entire tenure, and the question has to be raised and i think some of the reporters posed that question a matter which she forced out. she says she wasn't but
sometimes in these situations i think change is necessary and i think there was pressure for her to step down and to have a new face there so that these issues that go back to representative harris will -- this agency and they can move forward. i think
it will come up again in the legislative session coming up. >> yeah, i was going to say with representative harris' saga he got a lot of attention he tried to rehome some of the adopted kids and gave to friends
and relatives. with this there are allegations -- none is proven at all and cecile blucker was pressured and over seeing the division and sept kids and never should have been accepted in the home in the first place and they were problematic.
>> right. >> sooner or later it goes back to the -- it's always a question of money. there can be mishandling bundling, whatever you want to call it or honest mistakes but it goes back to money eventually.
>> and in some issues and having enough foster beds and not even just money and are there people to serve the role for society in arkansas. >> and she raised that issue in the res sigination letter talking about the fact she always asked we need more money
for more social workers for more care workers and other issues this sector of the dhs, this high turnover and the need to have a legislator look at the issue and that has been the case especially in social services
and the case of more money, high turnover, low pay. you see that in senior services and the prison and i think this issue, the issue of money what's going to happen in the session they're
going to say we don't have enough money. >> the governor said he left a million dollars for more caseworkers. >> speaking of money to spend it more wisely we go to the matter of criminal sentencing as
it involves non violent drug offenses and i don't know how much momentum is developing but more discussion than ever about the wisdom of mandatory sentencing particularly for non violent crimes is there a better smarter alternative than
locking away non violent drug oo fenders and many are users. >> president obama's final state of the union address that is of the things we could accomplish in the remaining
time in office. he said there is bipartisan support for it and i don't know if paul ryan stood and clapped but it but those in the senate want to have reform on the issue. tom cotton according to politico website wants to sink this bipartisan
initiative and end up letting criminals out on the streets when they should be still incarcerated so i went to the 2016 annual winter meeting of the sheriff's association and conner eldridge and john boozman and facing challengers and i
asked them about the minimum sentencing and conner eldridge said for first time offenders and non violent there maybe room to consider reducing the mandatory sentence and john boozman said there is room to change sentences but not all
deserve a long sentence and conner eldridge came out with proposal of his own and wants light sentences and not sexual predators. everyone wants to be clear they're tough. >> you see this reconsideration and for years
now in arkansas. we have forums and seminars and legislative hearings how expensive it is to lock away and then toughen the sentencing code in some aspect and tell the department of correction to handle it. >> we have task forces and
committees meeting and talking about things to do to deal with the rapidly growing prison population in arkansas and we may see some legislation coming up in 2017 to deal with sentencing. perhaps loosen up some of the tougher sentencing laws but that's an issue that
will always be divisive. there will be people saying we're too soft on crime. >> yeah, i think even when governor hutchinson came into office he actually said that was one of the things he wanted to look at take a look at the
sentencing and also looking at on the other side of prison doing things that prevent -- preventive measures to -- especially on the drug side and prevent people from going into the prison system, and even of the republican lawmakers, i think david sanders proposed
measures to reform some of the issues but as you said there hasn't been any momentum. once you get into the legislative session seems a lot of kick for these types of rehabilitation measures. >> and the pendulum swings on a high profile crime in the
news and a response forcefully on something and always has the outside pressure. >> on another social legal front u.s. district court this past week john, u.s. district judge didn't exactly certify class action but opened the
door on planned parenthood and medicaid reimbursement. >> yeah, planned parent hood filed when the governor said he was stopping funding and by an anti-abortion group -- not in arkansas, providing tissue from abortions to researchers for
compensation and so planned parenthood sued in arkansas and initially they got a temporary ruling that the state must continue providing funding for the services for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, so then the next step was for planned parenthood
to say well we want class action status and get funding for all patients in arkansas. >> three initially. >> three initially and not identified by name but jane doe 1-2-3 in the lawsuit. on the same day that the ruling came
down on class action status the a federal grand jury in houston, texas had been investigating them over the videos. it announced it found no wrong doing by planned parenthood but indicted two people behind the videos and tampering with
government documents and willing to buy human organs. >> you see some of the republican activists -- they're in a tirade over this and -- >> some conservative democrats. >> yeah, and this is wrong. instead of prosecuting the
person who came up with this information they should be prosecuting planned parenthood for this so you see a lot of back and forth and arguments on some of the social conservative websites. you see that debate out there. >> it came after -- i guess
the previous week was a bad week for those that want to repeal apportion access and the six week and 12 week ban. >> and there have been five investigations concluded or still under way in congress about half the 50 states have
now investigated or declined to investigate planned parenthood and thus far including republicans haven't come up anything that is prosecutable which would involve the actual sale -- sale defined for profit of fetal tissue, body parts, fetal body parts is the
language that critics invariably use. >> they say selling parts but they say they're allowed to get compensation for expenses and providing the tissue but it's not the same as selling. >> yeah, and that goes especially in the organ
donation and procurement community that is allowed. that is allowed where tissues can be -- you can be compensated for the harvesting of tissue, not necessarily baby parts but tissue. >> well, in the wake of, the
blow back of that planned parenthood at least no longer accepts even reimbursement for those costs for public relation purposes if nothing else it dropped that. >> in arkansas they don't do the type of abortion that results in the tissue you could
provide to researchers. >> in fact only two states, both on the pacific coast i believe, engaged in tissue transfer or sale or donations however you want to stale it. >> i think this is a issue and it's planned parenthood and this
is one of the latest issues republican activists or activists attack them and soon there will be another issue that comes up and we will have the same debate and should we take funding from planned parenthood or shut down
them and that will be continued well past this issue. >> planned parent hood figureed in the gop debate. practically of the candidates mentioned it at one point or another which brings to mind iowa caucus monday our former governor and former first lady
on the ballot. >> and huckabee on the first debait and jon gilmore and rick santorum were there and mike huckabee was joining donald trump and rick santorum being at a event and donald trump skipped
the main debate and didn't like the moderator choice and the network wouldn't change that. >> with trump and the republicans it's going to be a circus into the iowa caucus and the primary. >> it looked awkward and rick santorum and mike huckabee said
and trump's name behind them got that picture going and huckabee and san torrum and the former iowa winners in the past and they're with trump. >> good for business. got to spend that money. we're out of time. thanks for joining us. thanks guys for coming in and
will see you next week.