By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
‘The Alabama Political Reporter’ talked with Alabama State Senator Scott Beason (R) from Gardendale about the inaugural broadcast of his cable TV show on Monday night. The television program is ‘Scott Beason’s Reality Check.’
‘Scott Beason’s Reality Check’ is broadcast on the Alabama Cable Network (ACN) which is on channel 80 on the Charter cable system and reaches 400,000 Alabama families. Sen. Beason said that the program will be shown every Monday night at 8:00 pm central time and will be rebroadcast on ACN 2 or 3 times a week. Sen. Beason said that the show will talk about Alabama Politics because that is of interest to him; but it will also include segments from around the country. Sen. Beason said that the show will be about people: good news, things of interest, world news, and national news. Senator Beason said that the ACN was still working on the website; but that there was no plan at this time to archive the program on the web at this time. The Gardendale State Senator said that his program will also cover economics. “Capitalism is the best economic system in the history of the world. It has raised more people out of poverty than anything else has.”
We asked about the landmark Supreme Court rulings last week. Sen. Beason said that he thought that last week’s decisions were detrimental to the country. First the court delivered a blow to the sovereignty of the states and then it issued a ruling that restricted individual liberty. “The country did move hard to the left last week. We have been sliding this way for a while but it feels like we fell in a hole last week.”
Sen. Beason said, “One third of the people are real upset and are following all of this closely. A third of the people support what Obama has done and a 1/3 of the people don’t follow events close enough that they really know what is happening.” Sen. Beason said that he was concerned about President Obama’s disregard for the law and the Constitution and worried that if he is reelected there may not be any way to come back after that.
We asked if Alabama Governor Bentley should set up an Alabama healthcare exchange. Sen. Beason said, “I do not know all the details, but I think we should do what the other conservative governors are doing” and not go along with setting up the health exchanges. Sen. Beason said that we could set it up, but once the federal government comes in and tells us how they want it run that we would be better just letting the federal government do it. “I think nationalized healthcare is a mistake.”
Sen. Beason said that the state should not expand Alabama Medicaid as President Obama is calling on the states to do in 2014. Sen. Beason said that the current Medicaid program “is breaking the state general fund budget now.” “Government and economies can not provide all things to all people.”
Sen. Beason said that the September 18th referendum on whether or not to raid the Alabama Trust Fund for three years of operating funds is a philosophical question for the voters. If the voters approve the referendum then they are telling the legislators that they want to kick the can down the road and put off the “train wreck” for later. Sen. Beason said that a “no” vote would be telling the legislators to finally get serious about getting our budgets in order.
We asked Sen. Beason if the Referendum is rejected if he would favor something like Joe Hubbard and Patricia Todd’s tobacco tax or should the state downsize the general fund budget. Sen. Beason said, ‘I think you live within your means.” Sen. Beason said that people who “choose to smoke are easy targets” but he did not favor balancing the general fund budget by targeting smokers.
