Arkansas Business Publishing Group shuts down between Christmas and New Year, so there’s always a reward for pushing on through. I don’t think I’ve ever been so eager for a year to end while simultaneously dreading the new one.
A year ago, I used this space to make a “grown-up Christmas list,” riffing on an Amy Grant song, and I actually got some of what I wished for. The middle class in America did see a rebound in median income. Abuse of the justice system in Arkansas was punished rather than rewarded. People who bribed state officials were sentenced to prison rather than given immunity.
I would enjoy those blessings more if two of my wishes hadn’t been ground into dust and watered with my tears.
A year ago, I actually wrote these words: “2016 being an election year, my list also includes this standard wish: That anyone who sets out to mislead the public be thwarted.” Instead, a man who entered the political arena by promoting a malicious lie about the citizenship of the current president was himself rewarded with the presidency.
I also wished last Christmas that someone would figure out a new business model for the news industry that would support the kind of robust reporting and editing staffs we had when I entered the field almost 35 years ago. I explained then that this was not just a selfish wish: “I genuinely believe that democracy depends on an informed electorate,” I wrote, blissfully ignorant that the next few months would reveal the depravity of the minds that were already rushing in to fill the void.
(A young man, undereducated and unemployed, becomes increasingly religious and ultimately feels compelled to drive 350 miles to conduct his own armed assault on a pizzeria in response to ominous messaging about the actions and motives of American political figures that he obsessively accesses online. Clearly, radicalizing propaganda can work on susceptible Christians too, but are Christian parents monitoring the fake news their children are absorbing?)
A year ago I knew we would be facing a miserable election year, but I assumed (stupid me) that we would end up with a president who was fit and prepared for the job, even if not perfectly aligned with my opinions. Now I have no idea what to expect from 2017.
Will Donald Trump actually get interested in the details of legislation? If so, will he actually try to deliver on some promises made to the working class? (Will he even remember what those promises were? He said he forgot completely that he had made some kind of promise about Carrier jobs in Indiana.)
Or will he rubberstamp any legislation that Congress sends over in exchange for letting him do whatever he wants with the office of the presidency — including continuing to produce a reality TV show?
A huge question for me: What will happen to the Affordable Care Act? Trump may have forgotten that he promised to replace it with something much, much better, but 20 million Americans — including 300,000 Arkansans — are counting on him not to pull the rug out from under them.
Politically, of course, it was absolutely unthinkable for any Republican to vote to make improvements in Obamacare while Barack Obama was president. Perhaps now, with Trump getting all the credit, Congress will make the fixes that could have been done years ago.
I think that’s the only wish I’ll make publicly this year: That politics finally take a back seat to the reality that millions of hardworking Americans, many of them employed by readers of Arkansas Business, simply cannot afford health insurance without help from the government.
The last issue of the year is an indulgence for the Arkansas Business reporting staff. We revisit what we think have been the biggest business stories in Arkansas in the past 12 months, and we remind ourselves and our readers of the most interesting things newsmakers have said and done.
Next week, subscribers will receive the Book of Lists. It’s a compilation of the lists — accounting firms, banks, hospitals, etc. — that we do every week of the year, and this year we’ve added a section of “Market Facts” for a big picture that complements the minute detail of the lists.
I’m the editor of the Book of Lists, but I’m also its biggest fan. I use it almost every day; I can’t imagine how anyone who sells anything in Arkansas lives without it. Here’s a pro tip for 2017: When the Book of Lists hits your desk, get a big fat marker and scrawl your name across the front immediately.
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Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com. |