Major funding for election 2026 Arkansas TV debates is provided by the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce.

From the campus of the University of Central Arkansas in the studios of Arkansas TV, it's election 2026 Arkansas TV debates about you.

54321.

And hello everyone.

And again, welcome to Debate Week here on Arkansas TV.

At this hour, the candidates for Congress in Arkansas's first district.

And they are in alphabetical order.

Rick Crawford, the Republican Party nominee and the incumbent, Steve Parsons, the Libertarian Party candidate.

And Terry Yarborough Greene, the Democratic nominee.

Questioning the candidates this hour, Andrew Bagley of Hell in a whirl, Diana Davis of Katy Jonesboro and George Jarrett of Talk, business and Politics.

Some rules.

For the following hour, each nominee will have one minute to respond to questions.

The other candidates will have 30s in turn for rebuttal if they choose.

At the conclusion of questioning, each candidate will have one minute for a closing statement.

Now, the order of candidate appearances, platform appearances, everything determined prior to the debate with a number drawing that was observed by the candidates themselves or their representatives.

And with that little bit of housekeeping, time to begin.

Our first question is from Andrew Bagley.

And it goes first to Mr.

Crawford.

Thank you.

Employers across Arkansas need skilled workers.

Yet many young people in rural communities face limited educational and career opportunities.

What role should the federal government play in supporting schools, community college and vocational programs?

And how would you ensure that these investments lead to jobs that allow young Arkansans to stay in their home towns?

And finally, would you support earmarks for proposed facilities to provide the training, like the workforce training center that's being proposed in Helena, West Helena, at Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas?

Yeah, I'll take the first part of that question.

The last part.

First.

I absolutely would support earmarks for that, because I think it's essential that we invest in our young people and their education.

One of the things that we're seeing in education is a move away from universities and toward, career, education, career and technical education.

And here's where I think we can hit a home run in Arkansas.

Arkansas is blessed with an abundance of vocational educational institutions, and we have a vast array of industry.

That's where the partnership comes in.

So yes, the federal government can play a role, and I'm happy to facilitate that when and where I can.

But where we see really good results is when an industry comes in, partners with a local community college or vocational technical enterprise and says, let's develop a career curriculum that's suited to a particular industry that is locating in our district or in our community.

And that's where I think you can deliver the most value and sort of change the trajectory with things like student loan debt and things that are taking place in the university setting.

Doctor Yarborough green one minute.

I agree we need to invest in our students.

And the, the model put forward is, a good one.

The federal government can certainly, help with grants, etc.

for this type of educational, support student loans, for example.

Need to be.

Interest-Free student loans.

That's the way it was when I was going to school.

I think that we have a big problem right now with people who are borrowing money at high interest rates, and they're never able to get out from under those debts.

We want people to have good jobs, and we don't want people to be in debt for the rest of their lives.

So, yes, I support all of those proposals.

Mr.

Parsons, you have one minute.

So in the U.S.

Constitution, there are several words that do not exist.

It would be student, child, pupil, college, school education.

However, if you were to do those same searches on the Arkansas Constitution, those numbers all, all, all of those searches, you're going to get hundreds of hits.

So part of the problem is I don't think this is a federal topic.

I think this is a state topic.

I don't believe that there's really a constitutional authority for the federal government to be involved.

That said, I do think that technical training is better than the old school notion, that this country has been sold a bill of goods for for decades.

And that is if you just go get a four year degree in liberal arts, that's going to be a golden ticket.

That's not your golden ticket.

The other thing is, for workers in total, we need to change the immigration rules, especially with respect to green cards and work visas, because it's almost impossible to bring workers into the United States today.

And Arkansas farmers, for example, 62% are over age 55.

Mr.

Crawford, back to you for 30s, sir.

Well, again, I'll say, we have an abundance of educational resources, career and technical education, and not just in first district of Arkansas, but throughout the state.

And it's a great opportunity to leverage those resources in partnership with the private sector and where the federal government can help.

Certainly, I think we should and recognizing the need and particularly in districts like the first district of Arkansas, which is one of the poorest districts in the nation.

Doctor Yarbrough green, 30s.

Yes.

We are one of the poorest districts in the nation, and our students need all the help we can give them, and workforce training is what they need.

Then I support that fully.

And anything the federal government can do to to support that.

I would agree with, I would also agree with people who do want a university education, being able to not go into debt for the rest of their lives for it.

We need to fix that.

Mr.

Parsons 30s.

So with the workforce and this is for the United States as well as Arkansas, again, it's so difficult.

The immigration policy is so broken.

It's almost impossible for people to come to the United States legally, to work here.

And we have worker shortages in several industries, including in agriculture.

So we need to fix that and also make all of the changes in general, which would include assessing and dealing with inflation and a variety of other topics, which are the things that constrain us from bringing having people be productive and have good jobs in the country in total and including in Arkansas.

Thank you sir.

Diana Davis and I have a question.

Goes first to Doctor Green.

Thank you.

For many years now, citizens of the first Congressional District have complained and struggled with the fact that their mail has to pass through a Memphis sorting facility, even though it is mail intended for Arkansas addresses.

Some packages are never seen again.

Late fees are incurred by many postal customers.

One entire town's water bills went missing.

How would you go about fixing this problem?

Well, that is a problem that Congress doesn't have all of the power to to fix the, As we have discovered when, Mr.

DeJoy was put in charge of the post office, there is a, panel, of people that are take care of that.

And many of those are, Nominated by the president.

I would like to maybe Congress can enact laws, however, that fix this problem because it definitely needs to be fixed.

Maybe Congress can take a little bit of power and, tell the post office, what to do to fix these problems.

They are ridiculous.

And it didn't used to be that way.

We used to have.

I used to love our post office and trust it and never have a problem with it.

It was only when this person was put in that we had a problem.

Time is great, Mr.

Parsons.

One minute.

I'll save my answer till the end.

But let me start in describing my background.

I grew up working in a family business, later earn two fellowships to attend graduate school and receive my PhD in economics.

And I made my living helping businesses around the globe make real world business decisions in the face of government regulations and constraints.

I also did corporate training where I taught practical economics to managers and large corporations, and I was on adjunct faculty member.

I was an adjunct professor at Washington University in Saint Louis for over 20 years.

I came to, Arkansas a more than a decade ago with my wife of 42 years, Doctor Susan Parsons, now a retired pathologist.

She's the person I admire the most for her hard work and her dedication for what she what she did.

I if I'm elected, I will donate my entire salary to, to to charities in this district.

And I'm not accepting any campaign donations from anyone.

Mr.

Crawford, to you for one minute.

Okay, back to the question about the post office.

This isn't a new issue.

We've actually been working on this issue for literally years, and I think the easiest, quickest fix short answer is reopen the sorting facility in Jonesboro.

That would address a lot of our problems.

I've done spot visits at the facility in Memphis, and they draw up every time I show up there, because they know they're going to hear from me about this.

I've had the U.S.

Postal Service actually ask us to help them track, lost, letters and packages that have been put in the mail.

The point you made about communities losing their water bills.

We hear about this all the time.

We had this put on our website.

If you have some sort of a tracking number or something like that.

Help us out because we're trying to work in partnership with the Postal Service to fix this.

But in the short term, the best thing, in my opinion, that could happen to address this is reopen the Jonesboro sorting facility.

So it's not just a post office, but an actual sorting facility that, distribution point not too great in 30s.

That sounds like an excellent, way of fixing it.

And yes, the sorting facilities to be reopened.

And it seemed to me that most of the problems started when Mr.

DeJoy was put in and he started tearing machines out of post offices across the country and completely revamping how they distributed mail.

And that's when that's when the problems started.

You have another 30s, Mr.

Parsons.

I can't disagree with the other two candidates here, but but I will say, as a general matter, when you have government owned, government run facilities and activities, they tend to be less efficient.

So we always need if you're going to do that, we always need to look for those ways to mimic a free enterprise and try and be more efficient in the process.

Thank you.

And, Mr.

Crawford, back to you for 30.

Yeah, I think the Postal Service has somewhat struggled over the years.

Are they a governmental entity or are they private sector?

And so I think a clear definition of what exactly they are, because I think they like the idea of being a government enterprise.

On the other hand, they also like to position themselves as being a private sector.

They're really not.

It's sort of a hybrid approach, but there are lessons that could be learned and applied here from the private sector, for example, Fedex and UPS, and know how to get packages delivered on time.

Yeah.

Thank you sir.

George Gerard, now with a question that goes first to Mr.

Parsons.

Mr.

Parsons Nadal Hassan is scheduled to be executed in December for killing 13 people at Fort Hood.

His execution is going to be live streamed.

Do you think it should be live streamed?

And if you do think it should be live streamed, do you think that has the possibility of turning him into a martyr?

So first, I don't consider that to be a federal topic, so all I can do is give my own impression.

I have I have mixed opinions about having it be live, and but I don't think that the federal government should specifically have have the authority to say whether some things live, the, on the, the death penalty, which I'll, I'll expand a little bit.

The Libertarian Party's position is they're against the death penalty.

I think that if that if a if a crime is egregious enough, I don't mind having a death penalty as a practical matter.

However, in general, what will happen with the death penalty is you'll spend 1.5 million to 2 million extra dollars to incarcerate and and to deal with all the legal appeals.

So as a practical matter, the death penalty.

I'd say we don't need to do the death penalty in general.

For other kinds of cases.

This one is different, simply because it's so expensive.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Crawford, one minute.

Yeah.

This actually is 100% a federal issue, because the crime took place on a federal installation by a U.S.

Army soldier against U.S.

Army soldiers.

So this is 100% a federal issue.

Should it be live streamed?

Personally, I think, no, I would I would say I think it has the potential, as you suggested, to possibly motivate extremists or further motivated extremists that might seek to do us harm.

However, I do think that there are provisions made, and I think there are adequate provisions made for the, members of the victims families to be present if they choose to be.

And there should be, reporters, allowed access to visit to, witness it.

And there will be, you know, a, members of the public will serve in that capacity to observe, make sure that it's carried out appropriately.

Yeah.

Doctor green, one minute for you.

I am 100%, against live streaming this.

That is, That is not.

That is horrid.

It is wrong.

It is disgusting.

And it, would, like you said, perhaps make this man a martyr.

Personally, I'm against the death penalty.

As, Mr.

Parsons said, it just cost us a lot of money.

And I think incarcerating people, if they have committed a heinous crime, incarcerating them for the rest of their lives is more punishment, actually, than death.

But I think the idea of live streaming this is, is actually is actually very disgusting.

And it's not the America I know Mr.. Mr.. Parsons 30s.

So maybe I misspoke.

My intention was with respect to having the federal government's involvement was should the federal government have sort of carte blanc description or ability to say whether a death penalty is allowed or not?

And for that matter, if it's if it's the death penalty in some other state to determine that the federal government would be the one that determines whether that would be live streamed or not.

And again, I find it it's, I find the live streaming a little bit repugnant personally.

Mr.

Crawford, another 30s again, federal crime, federal U.S.

military installation.

U.S.

Army soldiers were shot and killed by a US Army soldier.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice was applied here.

This guy has been incarcerated since 2009.

He's scheduled to be executed on December 3rd.

Miss, Doctor Green, you have another 30s.

I am not opposed to the military Uniform Code of Justice carrying out what they need to carry out.

I personally don't like the death penalty, but, that's not my call.

I just disagree with it being live streamed, because that is, That is what, the jihadists do.

That's not us.

Next question is from Mr.

Bagley, and it goes first to Doctor Green.

Rural hospitals across Arkansas are struggling financially in many communities.

Face the possibility of losing nearby emergency rooms, maternity services and other essential medical care.

And this is coming at a time of insufficient reimbursements from Medicaid and Medicare.

Many of our areas are already health care deserts.

What legislation would you propose to ensure that facilities like Helena Regional Medical Center remain open and offer the services for the residents in rural areas to have adequate care?

Well, as a doctor, I'm pretty familiar with the health care system.

I've seen it from the inside out and for many years, and I've seen things deteriorate over the years with, Medicare and Medicaid being cramped more and more with regulations and bureaucracy.

And now, with the incumbent having voted last summer on the reconciliation bill to cut, Medicaid money, this is hurting our rural hospitals.

I would instead of cutting Medicaid, I would reverse those cuts.

I would also expand Medicaid and Medicare, and I would have a commission study ways to decrease the massive amount of bureaucracy involved so that doctors and hospitals could get their could not have to have a separate department to fight denials.

That's a waste of patients money.

Mr.

Parsons, one minute, sir.

Medicare reimbursement in this state is bottom.

It's 50th.

It's the lowest.

My my closest hospital, which is Baxter Regional Medical Center, which my wife and I donate money to.

And they'll receive more money when we die.

Is the bottom 1% in the country.

So one of the things I'd like to do if I were elected is to dig in and see how the formula system has gone so awry that, for example, the same procedures that exist in California cost.

They receive more than twice as much money as Baxter Regional Medical Center would be.

So that's one of the things I do dig into.

Second, there are variety that regulations, licensure laws, and other constraints that make things difficult.

I used to teach health economics a fairly, fairly strong background.

The other thing would be we need tort reform in the United States.

A lot of medical procedures are done because because the medical professional is concerned about lawsuits.

And this is let's be clear, the United States is the lawsuit capital of the world.

Mr.

Crawford, one minute.

Well, we can start by recognizing what the real problem is, and that's Obamacare.

Obamacare.

When it was implemented, President Obama stood there and told the biggest lie he could to the American people.

And that is, if you like your health care, you can keep it.

And nobody's been able to see that promise held true.

So that's number one point of clarification.

Medicaid cut $1 trillion out of Medicaid.

Flat out false.

That didn't happen.

That was not part of the working families tax cut provision.

What was what took place was a measure to slow the spending trajectory in Medicaid so that we're not spending $1 trillion a year.

Instead, we're probably we're on course to spend about $650 trillion this year over the next ten years.

That will start to accelerate, in fact, increase up to about 900, billion dollars in another up to about ten years.

So what we've been trying to do is prevent spending $1 trillion a year and reduce the lower the trajectory on Medicaid spending, so we can reduce costs and deliver better value to Arkansans who need help.

Again, to Doctor Greene for 30s.

Well, what, the end result that we are going to be seeing on Medicaid is, work requirements, which are going to, and on Snap, that's just a barrier.

It makes it harder for people.

They get thrown off because they couldn't figure out how to reapply.

Our bottom line are rural hospitals are closing and it's because of decreased Medicaid dollars have to go to Mr.

Parson's for 30s.

So one of the other things we can do is to change some of the structures of incentives.

So for example, we need to have Medicaid block grants, not the matching grants, because that creates perverse incentives in terms of how the dollars are spent.

It's going to be a lot more efficient if we have block grants.

And also, again, to reiterate, we need to cut a variety of regulations.

It's things like certificate of need requirements so that there's simply too much regulation in this industry.

Mr.

Crawford another 30.

Another problem with Medicaid, Medicare used to be that, Medicare Medicaid reimbursement rates were sort of a target and a benchmark that private insurers would say we will reimburse at 125%.

We will reimburse at 150%.

Therefore, Medicaid Medicare became loss leaders for those providers.

Now, what we've seen under Obamacare is private insurers saying we won't reimburse under under any circumstances, anything higher than the prescribed by CMS for Medicaid and Medicare.

That's what's killed private insurance.

And that's why those hospitals are suffering.

Again, to Mrs.

Davis and I question first for Mr.

Parsons, 30 to 33% of rice that we eat in the United States is imported.

Many foreign countries subsidize their rice farmers at levels that are out of compliance with the World Trade Organization, but there's no one that will stand up and enforce these agreements on agriculture.

That puts our American rice farmers at a disadvantage.

How would you help rice farmers open up demand for their products and would you work to stop the flow of imported rice?

So first US rice.

This is 2025 numbers, about 45% of the revenues.

They receive came directly or indirectly from government subsidies through through the farm subsidy programs.

And about 40% of us rice was also exported.

So there's, there is the flow of rice, both directions.

Part of the interesting thing is that with those kinds of kinds of subsidies, that means that we're subsidizing people eating rice in Mexico.

What do you think that's a good or bad thing?

I think that's not necessarily a great thing to have happen.

The congressman has said for years now that that if we are net importers of food, that's the day we say goodbye to, to our national security.

On his watch.

Over the last three years, we've been a net importer of food for every single month for the last three years.

The, and I'll, and I'll talk a little more in a bit about generically, what kinds of things we can do to help rice farmers and to help farmers in the United States.

And talk to Mr.

Crawford for one minute.

This is an example where people talk about tariffs being bad.

People use this term.

Tariffs are bad.

Tariffs themselves are not inherently bad or good.

They are a tool.

And in this case could be used to provide some relief to farmers.

For example, India highly subsidized rice production enters the U.S.

market and displaces U.S.

rice farmers.

I've led an initiative for 301 relief under section 301, so that our U.S.

Trade Representative and our Commerce Department could put those kinds of tariffs on Indian rice and Thai rice to provide some relief, because I think it's a better value for U.S.

rice producers to capitalize on domestic markets as opposed to fighting for global market access, which is oftentimes difficult.

And so I think the easier answer is to protect US producers, whether they be rice farmers or any other commodity.

And recognize that we have competitors that are displacing them in our own country and into a well.

I'll save my further comments in my rebuttal.

Doctor Green, one minute.

Fully tariffs, can be good things.

They need to be applied, meaningfully.

And this is an example of where tariffs could be applied meaningfully to help our, our domestic rice farmers.

One of the other problems with just farming, our farmers in general is consolidation of, of ag big ag and have we have only, minimal number of markets and suppliers for farmers, all types of farmers.

And I think that one thing that Congress needs to do is enforce some antitrust legislation, strengthen some antitrust legislation, and increase competition over to Mr.

Parsons for 30s.

So in 2024, for example, or before the April 2025 tariffs went into place, there were a handful, maybe a dozen countries for which there were genuinely issues with regard to their tariffs.

But we implemented tariffs on 185 countries around the world.

20 of those are ones that we had agreements with already, that put their tariffs on, on our goods at virtually zero.

And in a flash, we placed tariffs on each of those 20 countries, 13 of which we we had a trade surplus.

Where time, sir.

Mr.

Crawford, back to you for 30.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things I'll say about tariffs, you know, everybody wants to talk about, you know, how the president has used tariffs and in some cases they haven't been necessarily surgically applied.

I want to talk about the Biden administration, who vacated every single policy that the that President Trump implemented when he took office in January of 21, with the exception of section 232 tariffs.

He kept those in place.

Why?

Because it was essential to protect the US steel industry.

We can do the same thing for the US ag industry.

Let me go back to Doctor Green for.

30s.

I agree that occasionally, we have a tariff that is a good surgically, we'll use tariff.

The recent spate of tariffs that Congress has not stood up against and not done anything about, but just allowed to happen, stayed silent on tariffs against Canada.

Ridiculous tariffs that have hurt our family farms.

A new question George Jared first to Mr.

Crawford.

Mr.

Crawford we haven't passed a farm bill since 2018.

Farmers are reeling in the state of Arkansas.

Up to 25% of the farms in the state have been shuttered in the last 18 months.

And more on the way.

What do we need to do to get a farm bill passed?

And what do we need to do to help our farmers?

In addition to passing a farm bill?

Yeah, we actually passed a farm bill out of the House back in June, sent up to the Senate.

So right now in the House, we're waiting on the Senate to take action.

I hope they'll do that.

Soon.

Now, the clock is ticking because we do have a lame duck session approaching and it'll be difficult to maneuver.

So we've we've seen, you know, under the last two Congresses, extensions of the current farm bill.

I don't particularly care for that.

We did an awful lot to provide some relief in the Working Families Tax Cut Act.

That was included an additional, billion dollars for farmers, supporting, farmers here in Arkansas, around the country, as well as adjusting the reference prices to the PLC, which was critical.

And farmers know what I'm talking about to my my colleagues over here that aren't familiar with that, it's price loss coverage, which is the most critical support that they receive here in East Arkansas.

That was those, reference prices were updated to reflect more of a market based, reflection of what the what the actual prices should be versus what they were set in 2012 under the original farm bill.

Yeah.

Doctor green, one minute.

I agree, the, current farm bill needs to be passed.

My understanding is that it is being held up in the Senate because many of the Senate Democrats, and I can't fault them on this, are wanting the bill to include a, repeal of the Medicaid and Snap cuts.

And and I agree, the Medicaid and Snap cuts definitely need to be repealed.

But I would prefer seeing that addressed separately.

And I would prefer just seeing the farm bill passed.

Mr.

Parsons one minute.

So so the more important issue is the kinds of things we actually can do to help farmers.

Number one, let's stop being the puppet of Israel and end the war in Iran so that we can get fuel and fertilizer back to this country.

Second, I want to end the tariffs and the trade wars and in the tariffs, because virtually all of these tariffs are reciprocal tariffs by other countries.

Also, I want to change the immigration reform program so that we can more reasonably in the end, all of the bureaucracy around green cards and work visas.

Again, there's a shortage of workers in less so in Arkansas as it is in the United States.

But there's a shortage of agricultural workers.

And the last category is ending a variety of regulations.

One of them would be the 1920 Jones Act, which requires any shippers to use ships that are twice as old and five times as expensive.

But there are a variety of other kinds of regulations, including the bio fuel standards, which is using up farmland, and fertilizer, not to produce food.

Mr.

Crawford?

32nd, sir.

Yeah.

I want to go back to one point that, Doctor Green made the work requirements for Medicaid 80 hours per month, per month, and children and disabled are exempt from that, and the elderly are exempt from that work requirement.

And those work requirements include education and community service and also the AG committee, which marks up the farm bill has no jurisdiction over Medicaid, so it shouldn't be anywhere close to a consideration for a farm bill.

Doctor Green 30s.

The work requirements, seem reasonable until people don't have internet access.

Or they have.

They have trouble with the paperwork.

And most of these people already are working.

The last time we tried work requirements and we have tried that, we've tried it before, it was found that it did not save any money except and people that truly deserved the benefit were denied it.

And it was only because they weren't able to to make it through the paperwork.

The bureaucracy.

Another 30s for Mr.

Parsons.

So the knee jerk reaction is that will have a modification.

The tweaking of farm subsidies in a in a farm bill.

I suggest pointing us to New Zealand as an example.

In 1984 they did a flash cut and they ended all farm subsidies and they ended all tariffs.

Everybody thought they're going to probably lose 10% of the farms, but over the course of 40 years, they had lost 1% of the farms.

I don't recommend a flash cut, but we need to move away from subsidies.

That is not for enterprise.

We have a fresh question coming up in just a moment.

But first, we want to let you know or remind you that the candidates will have the opportunity to participate in individual press conferences directly following our debate.

And you can scan the QR code, which is up on your screen now with your mobile device, to watch.

So get those phones ready.

You will see, by the way, you'll see that QR code periodically through the balance of our debate.

A new question now, Mr.

Bagley has it and it goes first to Mr.

Parsons.

Rural Arkansas faces significant infrastructure challenges involving roads, bridges, water systems, sewer systems, drainage and access to reliable high speed internet.

This was probably never more evident than when Helena, West Helena had half of its town without water for a two week period.

These shortcomings can discourage businesses from investing, in smaller communities.

How should Congress prioritize infrastructure investments in economically distressed rural areas?

And would you specifically seek congressionally directed spending, commonly referred to as earmarks, for those rural communities in the first district?

So, first, in terms of the kinds of money that the federal government spends, infrastructure is better than the vast majority of the money that that Congress does spend.

But second, a lot of that, I think, is in fact, it's a state and local kind of an issue.

And we need to do the kinds of things that will help the country in total, and that would be doing the things to reduce inflation, which is ending the war in Iran.

Eliminating the tariffs.

Reducing regulations.

If you do those things, every place, every place in the United States will improve.

So in terms of rural Arkansas, we just need to do the same kinds of things that we do do.

This would be good for for the country.

And.

Mr.

Crawford, to you for one minute.

So we've been hands on in the community in Helena, West Helena, on this water issue for literally years.

And you can solve this problem with simple leadership change, quite frankly.

We have directed, time energy Resources to trying to address this particular problem in Helena, West Helena, because it seems like every other month you're under a boil order.

It is no way to to deliver services to people.

And look, these municipalities, they struggle with, funding and resources.

So you could probably engage with partnerships with water operators around the county to help spread out the cost of managing those, utilities and make it more efficient to deliver those services to the people who live in Helena, West Helena.

And so I think it starts with leadership at a very local level.

I've set up meetings and attended those meetings myself.

And had the mayor declined to attend, even though we set him up on his behalf.

And we're trying to drive resources, to, to solve this problem for the citizens of Helena, West Helena and Phillips County.

One minute, Doctor Green.

Yes.

The, water problems, the infrastructure problems are severe and they are widespread.

Federal grants, administered by the state have helped, the city of Luxor was able to take advantage of a $10 million grant from the Biden infrastructure bill, and they have a new pipes and a new water tower.

But, it it does require, local, local buy in and local cooperation.

But in some instances, the grants that are available require, matching funds.

And many of these very small communities do not have a tax base to be able to have matching funds.

And some grants need to be available that don't require matching funds.

Another seconds for Mr.

Parsons.

So I agree with Congressman that that it's almost certainly a leadership issue.

But again that's that's local.

There's not much the federal government can do about that.

I am going to tackle the the broadband issue.

And that is because I've worked with that.

The company that that has done the broadband mapping for the United States.

And part of the problem is we've already put in, a federal $1 billion as you try to push broadband farther and farther out into the rural areas, the costs become increasingly high.

And, it's so, so for those farthest points, it's going to be 10 to $20,000 per home passed.

Got to go to Mr.

Crawford, not 30s, sir.

Well, since we're talking about broadband, I think the mistake that was made in broadband is we were talking about trying to, deliver connectivity to everybody in the country.

I think the language was overly prescriptive or prescriptive.

If you will.

And that said, fiber, it didn't account for whatever technology might come in years to come.

And this goes back ten years.

But now we have the ability to deliver that last mile in a more cost effective way through things.

For example, not trying to do a commercial, but, Starlink, for example, that could help empower those rural communities that have difficulty paying for things like, Mr.

Broadband.

Mr.

Davis has the next question, and it goes first to Mr.

Crawford.

Congressman, the Iran war has cost me.

I'm sorry.

Miss Doctor Green, you're older.

I owe you another 30s, I apologize.

Oh, broadband, infrastructure.

The I want to reiterate that we had that the, Biden infrastructure bill has provided excellent finances for good infrastructure that has occurred, that has been put in, and that the incumbent did vote against it.

And again, my apologies.

Just talk to gray.

Now.

Miss Davis has a question.

And it goes first to, Mr.

Crawford.

All right, Congressman, the Iran war has cost over $40 billion and the lives of 21 U.S.

service members, plus 865 wounded and the lives of over 3300 people inside Iran beyond the Strait of Hormuz being impacted.

The Houthi rebels are now trying to control the flow of oil in the Red sea.

Can this war be justified here at home with Arkansas farmers and consumers being hurt by it so much?

Yeah.

Let me start by saying nobody wants a war.

Sometimes we find ourselves in these positions and quite frankly, Iran has been a thorn in our side for 47 years.

Iran is, hegemony in the region.

They are a threat to not only to Israel, but our other golf allies in the state and us, who they consider to be the Great Satan.

They have killed untold numbers of Americans.

They have funded and financed, terror operations against the United States and our allies for the last 47 years.

They were close, very close to a nuclear weapon.

And I still think they are.

They are, continue to be a threat.

And it's nobody wants to pay this price.

But we also don't want a nuclear armed Iran.

And what the Iranians demonstrated, their ability to range, as far as Diego Garcia with a ballistic missile, which means if you turned around three, 180 degrees, that means they could range Europe.

Now, what happens if they put a nuclear warhead on those ballistic missiles?

That's the very real threat that exists.

And this president has been the first in a long time since Reagan to actually be willing to address the threat in Iran.

Doctor green one minute.

Iran has always been a threat and an enemy, mainly an enemy of Israel.

And I think we have been, targeted mainly because we have been a friend to Israel.

And, from what I understand, Netanyahu has tried to talk many other presidents into going into this war and no one else, no one else would fall for it because they knew that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz.

And so every other administration has opted for diplomacy.

I don't I think the intelligence community, it was it was said that the intelligence community said that they were not imminently about to have a nuclear weapon.

I think this war was started on a whim and it was not initiated.

It was is not like the Constitution insists, agreed upon by Congress.

And I think Congress needs to take their power back and say no.

Mr.

Parsons, one minute.

So in the last 35 years, there have been six major military involvements by the United States that had, between 18 and 80 allies.

How many allies do we have in Iran?

It's really just one.

And that's a that's a terrible sign and a part.

I don't like that because Israel is the one that in Gaza killed 20,000 children, 14,000 of them were 12 years old or younger.

There are about, that's about three times as many as in the estimate of the number of Hamas fighters that were killed.

A candidly, in the same time period, the congressman just continued to support to support Israel, take a PAC money.

I can't understand really how he claims to be pro-life, but there are, some other things we can do.

Keep in mind that in 2015, after 12 years of negotiation with the UN Security Council and several other countries, we had an agreement on the nuclear program in Iran.

But President Trump, I'll save the rest of that for later.

We go back to the congressman first.

Yeah, I thought Mr.

Parsons was using the same playbook that he used last time and got 4% of the vote.

Most people would learn try a new strategy up to this point, he looked to be using the same strategy.

Now he's moved into the anti-Semitism strategy to garner some more votes.

Ridiculous.

And trying to characterize my support for Israel in that context is completely and totally unacceptable.

And by the way, I think of the three of us, I'm the only one that served in the military, and I've actually been targeted by Iranians and have a current threat against me now to, Doctor Green for 32nd.

I'm very sorry about that.

Iran is a threat.

But I do believe that this, I believe that when we go to war, it should be done with the proper amount of thought and deliberation and with partners.

And none of that was done.

This is one man saying, we're doing it.

We're doing it now, and it has never been okayed by Congress.

Got to go to Mr.

Parsons 30s, sir.

So first, Congressman, thank you.

Thank you for for your service.

When you wore the uniform not not thank you for your service in Congress.

And and I'm sorry you had that the issue with with threats.

But but again it is Donald Trump likes negotiation only if he can take credit for it.

So we had 12 years of negotiation with the U.N.

Security Council and other countries.

We had a multi country agreement and Donal Mr.

Jarrett has a question.

And it goes first to Doctor Green.

Doctor green and the subject has been touched on a little bit and other questions.

But we're going to go ahead and touch on it again.

President Donald Trump has engaged in trade wars and tariff wars with countries all over the world.

The net effect has been an increase in consumer prices for average residents here in Arkansas.

Are these trade wars and tariff wars?

Are they worth the price that we're having to pay when we go to buy goods and services?

No, I don't believe they are.

I believe that his decisions on who to impose a tariff on has more to do with, ego wins, who he can extort for something he wants because many countries he's imposed a tariff and then said, oh, but will relieve it if you'll give us or if you'll give me this.

And sometimes in his own pocket, the corruption is just, the corruption is just unbelievable right now.

And the tariffs are just a part of that.

And most of them make no sense.

I agree with tariffs that make sense.

I agree with tariffs that are going to help our manufacturers or our farmers.

But most of these do not.

Why in the world would you impose tariffs against Canada.

That makes no sense.

Mr.

Parsons one minute.

First, to be absolutely clear, to put to put it in its place.

Tariffs are a tax.

It's a tax on American businesses.

95% of that tax is going to be passed on to consumers.

Oftentimes what American businesses are doing are buying components that they're going to be using to produce American products right here, right here in this country.

And sometimes they can obtain those products from anywhere but outside the United States.

The, the, so and in April 2025, those, those that increase in taxes was going to be the biggest tax increase in 40 years.

The congressman seems to be pro tariff.

Pro tax, which means he's anti-free enterprise.

So I think it's absolutely not remotely close to being to being worthwhile.

And especially because it is it is 185 countries.

If we'd said put in the tariffs on the 12 countries that are the biggest offenders, I'm I'm fine with that.

Got go all the time.

I'm sorry.

Mr.. Mr.. Mr.. Crawford one minute.

I am neither anti free enterprise or pro tax, but I I'm not anti-Semitic.

Like the gentleman on the end here.

And so we can clarify that.

Tariffs as I said before, are neither good nor bad inherently in and of themselves.

There are a variety of factors that should be considered when implementing tariffs, but it opens up a bigger conversation about what we're doing here at home to empower American businesses.

Because as my, challenger indicated, yeah, we have, producers of American products that have to outsource a lot of things because we've been regulated into submission on things like rare earth mineral extraction, things like mining, things like developing certain, like fertilizer.

We're talking about farmers.

We're almost completely reliant on foreign sources for key elements of our production.

And so if we can accomplish, some of this by bringing putting tariffs into the mix, maybe that's a good thing.

But they are not good or bad in and of themselves inherently.

Doctor green seconds.

I agree, tariffs are not inherently good or bad of themselves.

It depends on where they're applied and the tariffs that, this president has been, applying apparently willy nilly for the past, for the past year have hurt small family farms, have hurt businesses here in America, and they make no sense.

Mr.

Parsons 30s the terrorists tariffs that are applied just generically are bad.

They're and they're inherently bad.

And again, if we just looked at the top, the top 12 problem countries, we could negotiate, put pressure on them.

And that's fine.

But generically to apply tariffs to everyone, that is generically bad.

I actually agree with the regulations topic, including things like the 1920 Jones Act.

So there's a waiver now.

It's on its third time period.

There's a waiver for the Jones Act because the Jones Act causes us to have to use ships that are twice as old and five times as expensive as those that are calling time.

We've got a call time.

So, Mr.

Crawford, back to you for 32nd.

Again, I think the you know, if we're for looking at tariffs being applied using a variety of metrics, are they reciprocal?

For example, you know, Doctor Green mentioned Canada.

Well, Canada has been taking advantage of us for now years.

And so the president decided enough was enough.

I would like to see us normalize our relationship with Canada.

But I also don't think that we ought to take a bad deal simply because they're Canada.

I think that we should be realistic about the damage that they've done with the trade imbalance that exists.

Next question from Mr.

Bagley.

And it goes first to the congressmen.

Members of Congress take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, but they also face significant pressures from their political parties, presidents, donors and interest groups.

Do you believe Congress has allowed the executive branch to assume too much authority over federal spending?

Military action and trade policy?

And if so, how would you go back up, go about reclaiming that power?

I think there's obviously a balance that has to be struck with regard to congressional authority.

Article one gives us the authority to do a lot of different things.

But then of course, article two and article three prescribe these other co-equal branches their authority as well.

So I don't think that article one authority has been, subordinated to article two.

And I think we have just as much concern about article three, that is judicial activism and the impact that it has on outcomes, around the country and here at home.

And so I obviously support the Constitution.

I raised my hand every time to to swear that oath and did so in the military as well.

And I will do it again, because I think the Constitution is the, you know, obviously the cornerstone of everything about this country.

Doctor green, one minute.

Yes.

The Constitution there it is a balancing act.

And over many administrations, the executive branch has been taking a little bit more power, and, many Congresses and, and the Supreme Court have let them I think that has reached a tipping point.

I think this president this term is taking many more, and much more power than any other president has ever done.

And, with starting wars and the tariffs, the war with ice, with this kind of private army that is now deployed.

And I think it's time that Congress stands up and takes their power back.

Mr.

Parsons, one minute, sir.

First, I want to go back to the point, because the Congressman has said twice now that I'm anti-Semitic.

I have friends and colleagues who are Jewish.

And to complain that Israel has killed 20,000 children, 14,012 and under is absolutely not an anti-Semitic statement, but it is a statement about Israel.

So he needs to step up and reflect that and recognize that for for government in general, the bigger government is, the more the tendency is to want power to increase your power and of course, to abuse power.

So, any of these kinds of programs, one of the things I would do is I would come in and be the, be the charter member of the article one, section eight, grow a backbone.

Backbone, club.

So because of that, it's the nature of big government that there's going to be power.

There's going to be abuse of power.

Mr.

Crawford 30s, Mr.

Parsons is suggesting that the Israelis have killed 20,000 children.

20,000 children?

I mean, how were you sourcing that from?

I mean, the Israel was attacked by Hamas on October 7th, and they're over, 1700 innocent Israelis were killed unprovoked.

And you're still going to sit there and run with that line and expect the people of the first district of Arkansas to buy into it.

Unfortunate.

Doctor Green 30s.

I believe we were talking about the Constitution and the separation of powers, the three, the three branches of government and their power.

And I would say again, that I think Congress needs to be a check and a balance against the executive branch.

I would even say that the judicial branch needs some, some checks and balances also, like maybe some term limits for the Supreme Court.

Just an idea.

Mr.

Parsons 30s.

So what's my source?

So first, at the end of this debate at Steve Hyphen parsons.com, my website, I will provide documentation, references, support for every statement I've made here.

But it's Unicef.

There was a separate UN study that was done that indicated clearly they had clear evidence that not only were those numbers of children killed, but also there were being targeted by Israel.

Anybody can Google that.

If you just simply Google that, you can you make up your own mind.

So Arkansas make up your own mind.

Thank you sir.

And with that, we've concluded the question and answer portion of our debate.

And we turn now to closing statements.

And before that, the order of closing or reminder, the order of closing statements was determined prior to the debate, by a draw our first close tonight or this morning from Mr.

Crawford.

Thank you Steve, I appreciate it.

Thank you, our panelists, for the questions.

And well, thank you, Doctor Green, for being here today as well and for the contribution you've made to the debate.

I want to close with this, and I believe and have for a long time that public service is a responsibility.

It's not an entitlement.

And for the last almost 16 years, I've had the incredible opportunity to serve the people of the first district.

Hard working folks, they love their families.

They support their communities, and they they they just expect the government to be accountable.

And I've never forgotten that, the decisions that are made in Washington have an impact on people here at home.

I've had the opportunity to serve in the military.

I've had the opportunity to serve our country in Congress.

And I just, I know that there's an awful lot of work to be done, but the things that I've learned, there are judgment and discretion, matter and integrity matters.

And I'm again, I'm asking you for your vote on I'm on November 3rd.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Parsons, one minute to close.

So 97% of incumbents win their U.S.

House races.

But that doesn't mean that your votes unimportant if I can win 4% of the vote.

As a libertarian, we can send a message to Rick Crawford.

If you don't like the war in Iran, if you're tired of the war in Iran, if you're tired of him continuing to support Israel despite the killing of 20,000 children, we can send a message.

If you don't like tariffs, you prefer free enterprise.

We can send a message, if you are tired of inflation and a $40 trillion national debt, if you believe that you can run your life better than the federal government, we can send a message.

You can vote for me, Steve Parsons, libertarian.

And that message will be Congressman, enough is enough.

As I mentioned, I will have on on my website a documentation for every Steve I from parsons.com for every statement I've made here in this debate.

Thank you sir.

Doctor green one minute.

Thank you.

Thank you all for having this debate.

Thank you, everyone for being here and participating.

I am a pathologist, not a politician.

I'm still more comfortable behind a microscope than a microphone, which I think is a good thing.

But I saw Arkansas families hurting, families not being able to afford groceries, gas, family farms shutting down.

Things are not well.

And I wanted to fix them.

The incumbent and I thank you for your service.

I do has been here for 16 years and the economic problems have only been getting worse, and in the last two years have gotten exponentially worse.

And Congress and the Senate are not standing up to this executive branch as they make unconstitutional decisions.

Doctor green, we thank you.

And with that, our time has expired.

Again, our thanks to our candidates for participating.

And, of course, to the panelists.

And you can what I remind you to watch this and all Arkansas TV debates on demand at the Arkansas TV YouTube channel and on our website.

The candidates have been invited again to participate in individual press conferences immediately following the broadcast.

Continue watching, if you will, our live stream at youtube.com.

Slash at Arkansas TV or again by scanning the QR code on your screen.

Now, again, thanks to the candidates and to our journalists for participating and to you for watching Election Day, Tuesday, November 3rd.

Thank you.

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