gonna pay for it

Republican spokesman Tim Bee spoke to a group of students at the U of A recently and told the story I'm paraphrasing here: He was stopped by a constituent who demanded that the state reopen our closed rest-stops. He said 'we're working on it - that's why we're trying to get this tax passed.' She responded with 'well, you can't raise my taxes.' When pressed on how to pay for the services without raising taxes, she said 'that's the government's problem.' 

In short, we want it all, we want it now, and we don't want to pay for it. 

So, over the last couple of weeks my great state decided they hadn't had enough national-ridicule or international derision. The now-famous Senate Bill 1070 has been derided as a return to Nazi Germany and lauded as a way to protect churches, and said to be responsible for the Balkanization of Policy. Regardless of what it says, it's polarizing my facebook page. I have friends on both sides, keep seeing pundits discussing it, and recently Robert Shelton, the President of U of A, reported Honors Students are pulling out and going to other schools due to SB1070.

I'm a moderate. I believe government should be accountable to the people, but that we, the people, elect government to legislate and rule in our stead, as well as on our behalf. I'm not convinced our system is designed to support this, or to enable growth or progress, so I'm going to join the Tea Party calls to kick everyone out of office.

We've had a republican-controlled legislature in Arizona since the myocene era, and the lowest per-pupil spending in education since people stopped using doubloons to pay for grog.

We've only had one republican governor (Hull) elected to office and NOT impeached/forced to resign since Jack Williams left office in 1975, with the bulk of those intervening governors (Castro, Bolin, Babbit, Mofford, & Napolitano) being democrats - and we still don't have an education system that works.

That's my entire life. Two Republican governors removed from office. Five Democratic governors who didn't fix the education-funding system.

Everyone sucks.

Republicans - you suck because you demand 'small government' and 'personal responsibility' while protecting Enron and making it impossible for the poor to overcome the adversity of not being rich.

Democrats - you suck because you call for protection of civil liberties but won't accept that the world is a dark and scary place and we need an army with a big stick.

Libertarians - you suck for not realizing that the founding fathers were rich white men motivated to protect their economic interests and didn't have the foresight to do a number of things we've since had to correct (discrimination, equal rights, etc...).

Independents - you suck because you aren't willing to CHANGE what a political party is by working from within, while failing to admit that we have a two-party system.

Now, I'm a registered democrat and vote in every election. I'm not married to "my" party though. I own a gun - several in fact. I even have a concealed-carry permit in the mail. I think my economic status is determined by my own actions, and to a lesser extent the actions of my parents. I'm not rich, and it's not because "the man" is keeping me down. Hell, if you look at me, I'm more likely to be the man than a lot of my friends. If I can't afford health insurance (which I couldn't for a while), I don't get sick. If my car breaks, I don't need a government handout to repair it. I'm in over my head in mortgage debt and student-loans, and don't appreciate the government 'helping' everyone else who isn't doing what I'm doing to pay the bills. That said, Fannie Mae made it possible for me to own a house in the first place, and Federal Aid put me through college (four times now).

I wouldn't be where I am without "socialist" services. I'm glad my taxes pay for these things. I am, though, angry that I don't pay more in taxes.

That's right - I said more.

I think these social services are necessary: welfare helps keep the streets safe and keeps children from starving to death; I'm very fond of having a police officer a phone call away; every child in my state deserves a good education, and it's my duty to pay for part of it. So far, Arizonans aren't doing that.

State Property Tax was suspended temporarily and is being motioned to be eliminated entirely. All property-tax in the state is levied by the county, and the lion's share of this is driven by school districts. Instead, state-services are driven by sales-tax and income tax. Sales tax, of course, is a regressive tax whereas property tax is progressive. Arizonans want to charge people who need services (like public school) a greater percentage of their income than those who can afford private services in lieu.

The issue, of course, is that people don't like taxes, and politicians won't get elected if they are in favor of them. (In Governor Brewer's defense, she is historically an anti-tax maven and is the leading proponent of Proposition 100's tax-increase. But then, she's probably not going to win the election in the fall.)

Cutting my taxes sounds good. Cutting my services doesn't. No one is campaigning on services though, not in Arizona.

In the aforementioned speech by Bee, he said that an 10% increase in property tax would generate enough money to fix the state's $3B deficit, and only cost him about $400 per year. Split over 12 (in my case 26) mortgage payments, I can afford that. So do it.

Oh yeah, no one gets reelected raising taxes. Fine with me - they all deserve to be fired for getting us in the position in the first place (Dems and Reps both - no one is innocent at our Capitol). Republicans need to be fired for constantly calling for the state to be in debt. Democrats need to be fired for not doing more to fix it.

After 35 years of them pushing our state into the hole it's in, I can't imagine that an entirely new crop could do much worse. Maybe, just maybe, we should do the smart thing and elect an economist...