Legislation – Page 66 – Family Council

Committee Passes Bill to Reduce Tax on Used Cars

Mar 19, 2019Jerry CoxLegislationArkansas Legislature, Legislation, Used Car Tax

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Little Rock – On Tuesday the Arkansas House Revenue and Tax Committee passed H.B. 1342, sponsored by Rep. John Payton (R – Wilburn), amending state law concerning sales tax on used cars and trailers.

Family Council President Jerry Cox released a statement saying, “This is a good bill. It changes state law so that people won’t have to pay sales tax if they spend less than $7,500 on a used car. That’s going to help a lot of families get a reliable vehicle without breaking the bank.”

Cox said Family Council has supported efforts to change the state’s law taxing used cars for years. “We’ve worked on this issue for over a decade. The used car tax hurts Arkansas’ poor and middle class families. A lot of folks can barely scrape together a few thousand dollars to buy a used car as it is. They can’t afford to pay the state on top of that. Single moms who need a reliable vehicle to get to work, school, and soccer practice shouldn’t be penalized for buying a used car. H.B. 1342 gives families like theirs some relief.”

Cox said he hopes Arkansans will ask their state legislators to support H.B. 1342. “This is commonsense legislation that’s going to help a lot of families, and won’t cost the State very much in tax revenue. It still needs to pass the entire Arkansas House and the Arkansas Senate. I hope Arkansans will ask their lawmakers to support this good bill.”

Family Council is a conservative education and research organization based in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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Photo Credit: Ben Schumin, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

Video: Arkansas House Passes Bad Bill

Mar 7, 2019Jerry CoxLegislation, Legislature, LifeArkansas Legislature, Contraception, Legislation

The Arkansas House recently passed a bill letting pharmacists dispense oral contraceptives without a prescription. Oral contraceptives carry a number of significant health risks and can cause the death of an unborn child. Watch this video to learn more.

Senate Committee Advances Bad Sex-Education Bill

Mar 6, 2019Jerry CoxArkansas Capitol, LegislationArkansas Legislature, Contraception, Sex Ed

This morning the Arkansas Senate Education Committee passed a bill that forces public schools to teach graphic sex-education material to junior high and high school students.

S.B. 304 by Sen. Will Bond (D – Little Rock) and Rep. LeAnne Burch (D – Monticello) requires every school district in Arkansas to offer “evidence based” health courses to 7th – 12th graders that include instruction on preventing pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases through abstinence and contraceptives.

We know from experience that the kind of curriculum S.B. 304 mandates won’t actually teach students to be abstinent. Instead it will encourage students to be sexually active.

In the 1990s Governor Bill Clinton and Dr. Joycelyn Elders promoted these same kinds of sex-education programs in Arkansas. Family Council strongly opposed their programs, because they treated every public school student as if he or she would be promiscuous, and they failed to have a meaningful impact on Arkansas’ teen birth rates and teen abortion rates.

A few years ago, the Obama Administration spent millions of taxpayer dollars on “evidence-based” teen pregnancy prevention efforts nationwide. By and large, the program was unsuccessful; in fact, in some cases, students who went through the pregnancy prevention course were more likely to become pregnant afterward — not less likely.

S.B. 304 is just a continuation of these same flawed programs.