STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX – Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and Republican lawmakers succeeded today in agreeing on the worst budget deal in Arizona history.
Brewer, who for the last several weeks vowed to not make deep cuts to vital services like education, has reportedly agreed to cut more than $600 million, including deep funding cuts to K-12 education. Republican lawmakers allowed Brewer’s tax increase of $438 a year for the average Arizona family after months of condemning it.
Both decided to harm middle-class families, Arizona’s economic engine, by increasing their income taxes on top of the sales tax increase.
“This is the worst budget deal Arizonans could have asked for,” said House Democratic Leader David Lujan. “It cuts education and vital services to children and middle-class families, the elderly and the disabled while burdening them with high tax increases.”
Brewer had six months to solve the budget crisis, but she sat on her hands in the executive tower, waiting until the last minute, while Republicans planned massive cuts to education and vital services.
Then Brewer planned massive cuts herself — $60 million to health care for children and adults, $30 million to the elderly, disabled and others and $30 million from services for people like children with life-threatening conditions. But Brewer said otherwise, appearing in public and championing how her plan protects education and these vital services.
“After six months of wasting Arizona’s time and money, Gov. Brewer gave in to Republican lawmakers and decided to sign their budget that devastates education, children and middle-class families in Arizona,” said Assistant House Democratic Leader Kyrsten Sinema. “Arizonans wanted a better economy, jobs and education, but instead they got a destructive short-term plan that depletes stimulus money and creates an unstable revenue system, leaving a budget hole next year that makes us worse off than today.”
Instead of addressing the need to create a stable revenue system to ensure the state has adequate funding for education, Republicans’ plan appears to give away huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, while forcing the middle-class families to pay higher income taxes.
All the while, Republicans, including Brewer, refused to include Democrats in negotiations, isolating themselves in crafting a purely partisan Republican-ideological budget that furthers their own destructive January budget cuts.
“As Democrats, we recognized from the beginning that to solve Arizona’s budget crisis, we needed to work together to create a bipartisan, common-sense and comprehensive budget solution to create a stronger Arizona,” said House Democratic Whip Chad Campbell. “Republicans, including Brewer, exhibited stubborn behavior, refused bipartisanship and now set Arizona on a path to economic destruction.”
It's been over two weeks, and the state legislature is still at a halt. The reason? Governor Brewer and many Republicans are refusing to work with the Democrats and moderate Republicans. The Governor and the Republicans have been fighting in public and they're leaving the impression that they'd rather shut the state down than come to a negotiation.
I mean, I'm in politics and I can't believe this behavior. It takes me back to, oh, I don't know, Junior High. It's interesting that in any other profession, behavior like this would ultimately lead to the party that's refusing to work with others' termination. So many politicians take the view that it absolutely has to go their way or they won't budge (sounds like a childhood tantrum, huh?), but they need to adjust their attitudes and get over their specific goals and outcomes and focus more on coming up with a plan that we all can agree on, a plan that’s for the common good.
To find out more on what you can do to help influence the budget negotiations, please visit strongerarizona.com.
