Ideological conundrum.

IDEOLOGY CAN TIE YOU UP IN knots, don't you know? You think of yourself as a true believer in free markets, but what about those Vietnamese catfish? Or those Mexican truck drivers? Or that Canadian lumber? Does your neighbor's job take precedence over ideology?

You are a conservative who believes that powers not specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution are reserved to the states. But can't Congress do something about the Arkansas Constitution's crazy usury limit?

Last week, Sen. Blanche Lincoln went before the Senate Banking Committee and asked for a change in federal banking law that would allow Arkansas auto dealers and other sellers of big-ticket items to charge the same interest rates as their out-of-state competitors. Congress has already granted that kind of relief to Arkansas banks, but the state Constitution, as currently amended, bans interest rates more than 5 percentage points above the Federal Reserve's discount rate as Usurious.

(The fact that the Federal Reserve hasn't even had a discount rate in a year and a half makes the whole issue almost surreal, but that's too much to tackle right now.)

Lincoln made her plea on the basis of economic necessity and fair play--valid points, in my opinion. Arkansas' usury law, as riddled with holes as it is, is still the most restrictive in the country. The protection that it offers consumers is more than offset by the dollars that it encourages to leave the state--or never come here in the first place.

But ideologically speaking, why should Congress care? Sen. Paul Sarbanes, the Maryland Democrat who wouldn't consider such action when he chaired the Banking Committee, asked the obvious question: Why doesn't Arkansas take care of its own problems by amending the state Constitution?

Lincoln explained that the state Legislature only meets every two years and can send to the voters three proposed amendments in each session. So fixing this local problem locally would take "time and money," she said.

What Sen. Lincoln didn't say is that Arkansans wouldn't fix that part of the Constitution even if it were on a ballot. It was considered a minor miracle that the "Ax the Tax" amendment that would have removed sales tax from groceries failed a couple of years ago. What kind of miracle would make a majority of Arkansas voters say yes to paying higher interest rates in the current low-interest environment? That dog won't hunt--it isn't even playing dead. The Legislature won't waste a precious amendment proposal asking for the impossible, even if it really needs to be done.

Instead, a business community that, ideologically, opposes meddling by the the federal government is begging the federal government to meddle in something that really is a state problem. And Sen. Lincoln, who presumably agrees with democracy, is asking Congress to impose a change on Arkansans that she knows full well Arkansans would reject.

Ideology will get you every time. I know the usury limit is anachronistic--but I still think those bloodsucking payday lenders should be run out of Arkansas on a rail, preferably covered in tar and feathers.

One of the most demonstrably successful businessmen in Arkansas died last week, but you probably didn't know his name.

David Tucker, 44, had been general manager of the Red Lobster restaurant on McCain Boulevard in North Little Rock for the past 10 years. He took an underperforming location and made it consistently the highest-grossing restaurant in Pulaski County. (To my knowledge, only one restaurant in Arkansas has claimed higher gross receipts, but that claim can't be substantiated by hotel-motel-restaurant tax receipts.)

Tucker's Red Lobster was among the best performing in the chain and he was supposed to be honored by the Darden Restaurant corporation next month.

The central Arkansas business community has lost a managerial dynamo.

Our 13-year-old son has reached a milestone in his life: He got his first credit card application in the mail last week. I'm so proud. Citibank even knows my boy's middle initial.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. E-mail her at gmoritz@abpg. com.