My philosophy: government’s role is enablement, stewardship, and guardrail — not micromanagement. Government should provide the public goods and predictable rules that let families, entrepreneurs, and communities flourish; it should safeguard fairness and competition; and it should remove barriers that prevent Arkansans from realizing their potential.

How that translates to policy:

• Taxes: Keep rates moderate and simple so people keep more of what they earn, but fund core responsibilities (education, infrastructure, public safety). Pursue targeted tax relief for workers and small businesses rather than across-the-board giveaways that favor well-connected interests.

• Corporate subsidies: Reject permanent crony subsidies. Use time-limited, performance-based incentives with clear deliverables and clawbacks tied to jobs, investment, and local benefits. Public money should create mutual benefit — not pick winners forever.

• Business incentives: Favor outcome-oriented incentives (workforce development, R&D, broadband expansion, site-ready infrastructure) that spread value across communities. Incentives should be transparent, measurable, and prioritized where they genuinely unlock new opportunity rather than relocate activity that would come anyway.

Priorities (in order):

1. Protect essential services first. Any tax relief must not hollow out schools, public safety, or core infrastructure that businesses and families rely on.

2. Target relief to those who need it most. Prioritize payroll/earned-income relief and small-business support (simpler filing, higher small-business credits), not subsidies to national multinationals.

3. Simplify & broaden the base. Eliminate needless complexity and narrow credits that create bureaucracy and rent-seeking; replace with simpler, transparent mechanisms that are easier to audit and harder to game.

4. Phase and evaluate. Implement tax changes in phases, monitor revenue impacts, and be prepared to pause or adjust using objective metrics.

5. Protect the vulnerable. Expand targeted credits (EITC-style) or exemptions for low-income workers so tax reform increases take-home pay for those who need it most.

Guiding principles: integrity (honest fiscal math), principled entrepreneurship (encourage mutually beneficial economic growth), humility (test policies, measure outcomes), stewardship (preserve public goods). Where possible, replace opaque carve-outs with time-limited, measurable tools that either produce jobs and investment or sunset.

Yes — responsible limits and accountability are essential. Government should operate like a family budget: revenue must match prioritized spending over the long run, with buffers for downturns.

Long-term vision:

• Balanced-budget discipline plus rainy-day savings. Continue enforcing balanced-budget rules while growing the rainy-day (stabilization) fund to smooth downturns. (Arkansas already operates under balanced-budget requirements.)

• Transparent fiscal rules, not gimmicks. Pursue clear, constitutional or statutory guardrails (e.g., sensible expenditure growth caps tied to inflation + population or revenue triggers) while protecting core services and avoiding across-the-board cuts that shift costs to localities or families. Consider carefully designed tax-and-expenditure limits (TELs/TABOR-style) that include exceptions for emergencies and require legislative clarity.

• Accountability mechanisms: require periodic program performance reviews, sunset dates on major tax expenditures, and mandatory fiscal impact statements for new tax breaks.

• Public reporting: an easy, public online dashboard showing revenues, reserves, long-term liabilities, and the cost/benefit of tax breaks.

• Institutionalize oversight: empower nonpartisan scorekeeping (e.g., JBC strengthening, independent fiscal office) so voters and legislators have reliable data.

This approach balances restraint with the flexibility needed in true emergencies while ensuring tax relief is durable and credible.

Practical reforms I’d pursue:

• Program-based budgeting & performance metrics. Budget by program with clear outcomes and measurable KPIs (education attainment, road condition index, broadband coverage), not only line-item inputs. Require agencies to publish performance results.

• Sunset and review for tax expenditures. Put major credits and subsidies on a sunset schedule with mandatory ROI reviews before renewal.

• Transparent, user-friendly portal. A searchable public dashboard showing appropriations, actual expenditures, state contracts, and the fiscal impact of proposed legislation — updated monthly.

• Strengthen pre-enactment analysis. Require credible revenue estimates, multi-year fiscal impact statements, and independent scoring for major tax and spending measures.

• Citizen engagement & local alignment. Hold annual regionally-rotating fiscal hearings with local leaders to ensure statewide budgets align with local priorities and to foster cooperation across levels of government.

• Biennial planning with annual accountability. Use a two-year framework for strategic planning while maintaining yearly appropriation checks to respond to changing conditions.

These changes will make budgeting a tool for outcomes and trust rather than obscurity and surprise. (Arkansas’s appropriation process already contains mechanisms we can modernize and make more public.)

Short answer: Yes — with strict guardrails.

Why: Sandboxes are a pragmatic way to foster innovation (fintech, clean energy, broadband models, AI in public services) while allowing regulators to observe, learn, and adapt before rewriting laws. They can attract investment and jobs when designed well.

How I’d structure them in Arkansas:

• Clear eligibility & public objectives. Applicants must demonstrate consumer benefit, public interest, and measurable objectives (jobs, access, cost reductions).

• Time-limited & supervised. Participation is temporary, tightly scoped, and monitored by a designated regulator with periodic public reports. Violations = immediate removal + penalties.

• Consumer protections & disclosure. Participants must disclose risks, maintain required capital/reserves or insurance, and follow data-privacy safeguards.

• Transparency & evaluation. All sandbox tests produce publicly available outcomes and regulatory recommendations; successes should either be brought into full compliance with statutory changes or sunset.

• Avoid regulatory capture. Sandboxes should not become loopholes for entrenched players or substitutes for proper rulemaking; they must be competitive and open to new entrants.

Examples and studies show sandboxes work when they are narrow, monitored, and focused on public benefit rather than private advantage. I’d pilot sandboxes in areas like rural broadband delivery models, clean-energy microgrids, and responsibly governed fintech for underserved communities.