• This week I would like to tell you about two bills that were heard in House Appropriations Committee last week.  Both of them were requests for some of that "extra money" that appeared this year from the unclaimed property funds from the big banks.  The first one was for building the new Veterans Home in Hot Springs.  It will cost about $41 million, with more than half of the cost covered by a large federal grant.  However, it will also take another  $16.3 million state general funds.  At first we were going to finance it with bonds, but now the administration wants to use some of the "extra" money to pay for the building all at once. The building will provide a revenue stream of Medicaid funds that could be used to make payments on the bonds.
• The second bill was a request for $2 million toward a new $5.5 swine research