Act 141: Idea came from listening
The best legislative ideas don’t have to come from a shadowy policy forum, an out-of-state seminar on political trends or from some powerful lobby looking for an edge.
In fact, state Rep. Charlene Fite, R-Van Buren, knows the best ideas about legislation come from listening.
She listened to a military retiree at a meet-andgreet event almost four years ago in her district. This man, long since retired from decades of military service, came back to Arkansas to retire.
His question to Fite was this: “What if the state of Arkansas exempted its state income tax from military retirement pay?”
A follow up was this simple statement: “More military retirees might retire here if they didn’t have to pay state income taxes on a military retirement they earned across the globe defending this nation.”
It was hard to argue with that.
So state Rep. Fite went to work. She found the unconventional, nonhot-button request, at best, stone-walled the first time around.
But anyone who knows this tall and highly intelligent former public school counselor knows this idea wasn’t going away.
She worked hard over the last four years to see that this idea – with a potential economic benefit to the state far above the cost of the tax-exemption – could be worked out.
And she was not afraid to ask for some more legislative muscle in this heavy lifting.
Act 141 was signed into law recently with a Governor’s Conference Room filled with retired military in our state – proud not of just the future tax exemption – but of the state’s efforts to draw in young, retiring military men and women – most all with families – to move to Arkansas, establish new lives outside the military and possibly kickstart a small business.
Others, even with military retirement paychecks, will enter the skilled labor force. Some have highly skilled military training, so it would not be inconceivable to say some future industry might just locate in Arkansas due to the high number of retired military in the state.
Along with Fite’s House bill, there was a companion Senate Bill filed by state Sen. Jim Hendren of Sulphur Springs. So some of the credit for its passage came from Sen. Hendren. Another heavy lifter was Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Two years ago, as Fite struggled to get the bill heard and her idea floated, Hutchinson nixed the bill as his budget could not absorb the $13 million in the potential tax cut off the state income tax rolls if the bill was passed.
Somehow over the last two years, Hutchinson and his nephew, state Sen. Hendren, found a way to make this work.
Several times, over the struggle, it was what other states have been doing in their veteran populations’ boom by passing similar tax exemptions.
Iowa, for example, estimates that it has attracted at least 2,750 former servicemen since it exempted military retirement pay from state income tax in May 2014, according to the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
Arkansas has since set itself up to go from the bottom of a list of military-friendly state to the absolute top of that list by exempting military retirement pay from state income taxes.
The state lost military retirees for the past eight years and was only one of 10 states to do so, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. It was time for Arkansas to make a change.
Arkansas was ranked 48th in attracting and retaining working-age military retirees.
That all changed recently because some constituent spoke to their elected state representative, who instead of just passing off the idea, put in hours of thought, work, research and shares her vision of a group of young families with valuable years of military training moving into Arkansas to retire.
Few in politics, it seems, have the foresight and vision these days for truly subtle and everlasting change.
Count State Rep. Charlene Fite as one brave legislator who asked her colleagues in the State Capitol, “Not how, but when? And not can we, but will we?” Bravo. Bravo.
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