The ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy recently conducted a poll covering a number of issues. When people were asked what is the most important issue facing Arizona voters, they put education at number one (32 percent), with immigration (17.1 percent) and the budget (16.1 percent) coming in distant seconds. It’s good news that the Republican screaming about immigrants invading our country and the state budget bankrupting taxpayers is taking a back seat to concerns about the way we educate our children here in Arizona.
So what did the people polled say they wanted to do to improve education? A strong majority—65.8 percent—agreed with the statement, “I would be willing to pay higher state taxes to improve Arizona’s public schools.” Democrats and liberal Independents agreed in large numbers—84.4 percent and 86.2 percent—while Republicans and conservative Independents came in just a little shy of agreement—43.3 percent and 49.7 percent.
The pollsters gave their respondents a chance to go the other way on this, asking how they felt about the statement, “I prefer that Arizona reduce funding for state services such as public schools, universities and public health rather than raise taxes.” A feeble 23.5 percent agreed. Even on the Republican side, only 35.6 percent of Republicans agreed that it’s OK to reduce government services to keep taxes at their current level.
If this poll is anywhere near accurate, Arizonans are willing to pay higher taxes to improve education—theoretically, anyway. That number would probably come down if voters were faced with a choice. One of the rules I’ve heard from politicos about tax initiatives submitted for voter approval is, you need to have at least 60% of the people on your side in the months before the election to win on election day. Lots of people who like the idea of paying more for services in theory change their minds when it comes time to fill in the “Yes” bubble on their ballot. But even with that caveat, a 65.8% majority in favor of more taxes to improve education is impressive.
So. Democrats. Maybe it’s time to take the risk of suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous negative ads and come out strongly in favor of increasing funding for education, even if it means raising taxes for some people. You can strengthen your case by reminding people that Arizona’s top one percent of earners pay 4.6 percent of their incomes on state and local taxes while the lowest 20 percent pays 12.5 percent. It’s not “soaking the rich” to make them pay their fair share in taxes, which would allow us to fund our schools at a level where our per student funding is, oh, say, 40th in the nation rather than 49th.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2015.
Sorry David but when the public finds out the truth about Obamacare, all bets are off. Looks like we were lied to by POTUS, Pelosi, and Reid.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/robertrobb/2015/11/24/robb-democrats-fix-obamacare/76334788/
Meritus has been shut down in AZ and looks to lose nearly $80M of tax payer money. 23 other exchanges funded with SS/Medicare money have folded.
I would urge you to add more spending options to the next ballot. It would be so fun to watch.
Morrison-Cronkite Poll: Education, immigration reform favored
tags:
Arizona Education budget budget education Immigration latinos legislature Poll Voters
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
With education once again topping the list of top priorities for the state, more than two thirds of Arizona voters would prefer raising taxes rather than cutting school funding, according to a new Morrison-Cronkite Poll. Further, the statewide poll indicates that 56 percent of all registered voters favor Governor Doug Ducey’s plan to withdraw additional money from Arizona’s permanent land trust fund to support public education.
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Read the first sentence very carefully. It implies there was no third position, which would be to maintain current funding levels. Why does this study ignore it?
Statistics mean very little. Plus, one would have to ask, how do teachers salaries portend to improve public education? Have they been holding back?
*The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier professional journalism programs. Rooted in the time-honored values that characterize its namesake — accuracy, responsibility, objectivity, integrity — the school fosters journalistic excellence and ethics among students as they master the professional skills they need to succeed in the digital media world of today and tomorrow. Cronkite.asu.edu
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Then why would you locate it at ASU?
Arizona schools are absolutely starved for funds, it is true.
But unfortunately, David, before you can successfully pitch this agenda (increase taxes to “improve” public education), you need to fix the machine politics of corrupt urban districts that have all kinds of mechanisms in them to divert increased funding into things that don’t improve students’ educations.
And yet you never seem to recognize that or do what’s necessary with your local (as opposed to state-level) advocacy. I’ve been following your commentary for a long time now and I have yet to see you take the right kinds of stands against the corrupt politics and inappropriate uses of funds within TUSD.
Why is that? You must realize you lose credibility advocating for the things you say you care about at the state level when your local track record is so poor.
I don’t want my state taxes raised to pay districts that fund things like HT Sanchez’s salary, expense accounts, $1000 a day unused vacation pay, and bonuses, that’s for sure.
Did they ask these questions –
“Do you support raising taxes to educate illegals?”
“Do you support taking resources from your children to educate illegals?”
It is really very simple. The education we give our children today is our economy tomorrow. The fact that the economies of many other states are far surpassing ours is a direct result of the $3 Billion that the Republican dominated legislature has cut from education in Arizona since 2007, in conjunction with continuous cuts to education since 1990. In 1990, Arizona was about in the middle in per pupil funding nationally, today we are 49th. The Morrison poll shows that the majority in this state want to increase educational funding, even if that means an increase in taxes, and that is very positive.
Since we’re talking what the public wants…
A new Fox News poll shows 52 percent of the nation favors deporting the millions of illegals back to their home countries. Republicans and Democrats support Mr. Trump’s plan.
Fred that is pure nonsense. We all know it.
Better management of funds at the School District level where compensations is “Fair” not slanted completely towards the top. Eliminate the top heavy Middle Management duplicated positions for example that are in TUSD. Don’t “Over Compensate ” anyone especially Supt. HT Sanchez who continues to want to divide students, parents, and educators to the Hispanic and Non-Hispanic staffers where the Hispanic educators and students get all the favors/perks. Start to make those changes in the education system and then the sell to the public to raise taxes for education will be much easier and supported by the public. Be extremely competent on the allowance of Educating Illegal alien children.
Raise taxes so the Republicans can steal the funds for their pet projects. They have done that for years.
Why did the State get sued, because they stole money from Education.
If Ducey wants a border security task force then he should support a income tax surcharge to pay for it. He cannot say he wants this, then expct the Federal government to pay for it or expect to divert State money to pay for it. Kelli Ward should say what she always says, “we just don’t have the money!” We have plenty of money but give it away left and right. Abolish the corporate tax credit for “donations” to private school account. Abolish tax credits of all types for private school accounts. You want private school choice, great! Don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize your choice.
OMGitsme – the only people that have money stolen from them are the property owners, the billions of dollars Education has stolen from them for illegals. No vote, no representation, just a blank check.
Frances Perkins, you write, ” We have plenty of money […] Abolish the corporate tax credit for “donations” to private school account. Abolish tax credits of all types for private school accounts. You want private school choice, great! Don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize your choice.”
But your approach doesn’t work when the public school district serving more than 40,000 Tucson young people is run by a political machine that doesn’t ensure that the tax funds funneled into the district are used to meet students’ educational needs. When taxpayers haven’t held this district accountable for ensuring the funds it receives actually deliver sound educational services, improve academic achievement and accomplish integration, kids need other options.
Go ahead and eliminate tax credits once you’ve reformed TUSD and ensured that its service delivery is uniformly high quality — but that will not happen before the community breaks the death grip of the current board majority on the district and thus breaks the uninterrupted stream of ignorant, anti-progressive, anti-integration governance decisions they’ve been making for the past two and a half miserable years.
So are you going to be part of the solution, or are you going to continue complaining about Ducey and the state legislature and promoting the false idea that state-level politicians are at the root of ALL of our local problems with education, not just SOME of them?
Who are you supporting in the next TUSD board election? Don’t say Foster and Juarez, or you will be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
No. No, I don’t David. Neither do many of my friends and family.
At this point, you would have to pay my friend’s who have children to attend a TUSD school, or most public schools in the Tucson area. And, even then, they would most likely pass.
BASIS has a lottery to gain entrance. Many other private and charter schools are filling up.
We have supported better schools and real opportunities for our future adult citizens, believing that quality of life, and the state’s economy, would improve for all. But nowadays we apparently have a state legislature that routinely ignores majority votes, a mixed bag charter school systems unencumbered by the same accountability for the same public funding, and voters who have a stroke when asked for the slightest tax increase for anything.