By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK – A proposed federal economic stimulus package that could bring as much as $2 billion to the state would have a major impact across eastern Arkansas Delta, Gov. Mike Beebe told leaders from the region Friday.

Beebe also told a statewide audience on his monthly radio call-in show that when the federal government finally does turn the spigot, he wants stimulus funds to flow to the state without congressional earmarks.

“One size does not fit all,” he said. “Each state is different.”

The $819 billion stimulus plan Democrats pushed through the House recently to try to jumpstart the nation’s slumping economy has stalled in the Senate, where members of both parties are trying to pare down the package of new spending and tax cuts.

In a speech to the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus, Beebe said stimulus money the state would receive would not only fund new infrastructure construction such as roads bridges, but also would expand broadband to bring high-speed Internet to areas of the state that do not have it.

New roads and bridges would increase the number of jobs in the region and across the state, one of the key components of a stimulus package, he said.

Road improvements also would improve economic opportunities in many of the poorer and rural areas of the state, Beebe said.

“People would love to live in a small town if they thought they could make a living,” the governor said.

He said the new money should not be used to create new programs because when it runs out those programs will still have to be funded.

“The taxpayers are paying for this stimulus package and it needs to be spent wisely,” Beebe said.

Carl Rosenbaum, chairman of the Arkansas Highway Commission, said last month the agency could get $350 million or more for road and bridge construction. The state Highway and Transportation Department

already has a list of projects that will be ready to go when the stimulus funds arrive, he said.

Earlier Friday, on his “Ask the Governor” show broadcast statewide on the Arkansas Radio Network, Beebe said each state needs flexibility to spend stimulus funds how it sees fit. He said he had spoken with U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both D-Ark., and they agree.

Beebe said there is some talk that Congress may require states to use some of the money on education because many states have had difficulty adequately funding public schools. Arkansas adequately funds its public schools, he said.

“I don’t begrudge those states but give other states the flexibility,” he said.