The AP's Andrew DeMillo has the story:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A group of Arkansas legislators has asked city leaders from around the state to reconsider their support for a severance tax hike to pay for highways.

Fifteen Republicans and three Democrats on Thursday asked the Arkansas Municipal League to oppose the severance tax increase that former natural gas executive Sheffield Nelson is trying to place on the November ballot.

The legislators said they believed the increase would hurt jobs and growth in Arkansas.

House Speaker Robert Moore says the severance tax hike isn't competing with a proposed half-cent sales tax that will appear on the November ballot.

Moore asked members of the state Municipal League to throw their support behind the proposed temporary tax for four-lane highways.

That's right folks! Just in time to kick your holiday cheer into high gear! Our illustrious president has decided freshly cut Christmas Trees need a tax. Now for those of you who say "But Obama only taxes the rich," well... no... this tax is on everyone. This isn't even to mention how a new tax would affect local Christmas Tree farms. Who knows... maybe President Obama thought this was just as good of an idea as many of our state legislators did about the Amazon tax.

Why is the tax necessary? To pay for a big fancy government marketing campaign about....Christmas trees.

David Addington at Heritage has more:

Jason Tolbert, the Tolbert Report on Talk Business, did some digging and (low and behold!) found that Arkansas has a total debt of over $25 billion. We've been warning about this for over a year now, and we're thankful that Jason brought this public on his blog and news site.

Today, State Budget Solutions (SBS), a nonprofit organization advocating for fundamental reform of state budgets, released a report showing Arkansas ranking 14th overall in the amount of total state debt and 17th on a per capita basis with a total combined debt of over $25 billion.