A few weeks ago, we urged you to vote yes on Prop 100, the temporary one-cent sales tax that voters will decide today. Here’s why:
Let us begin by saying we’re not crazy about hiking the state’s sales tax by a penny per dollar for the next three years.
But we’re a lot less crazy about the alternative, so we’re urging you to vote yes.
The state of Arizona is facing its most serious economic crisis in modern history. The Republicans running our state have already stripped health-care coverage from more than 300,000 people below the federal poverty line. They have made Arizona the only state without a KidsCare program. They’ve dumped all-day kindergarten and cut away at our schools. They slashed funding for our universities, forcing tuition increases on college students and their parents. They’ve eliminated Arizona’s GED program. They cut programs for the disabled and the mentally ill. They’ve taken away hospice care from people who are dying. They have swiped so much money from state parks that several will have to close. They have taken money from funds meant to help victims of crimes. They have sold off the state’s capitol building.
And these are just the highlights; lawmakers are engaged in the deepest cuts to state government that we have ever seen.
But those cuts are going to get even deeper if the state does not
do something to bring in more money.
We wish lawmakers had the vision to rework our entire tax system to reflect our 21st-century economy, but the clowns now running our state have no imagination—beyond suggesting tax cuts.
And so there’s only one choice before us: Increasing the sales tax to bring in an estimated $867 million in the next fiscal year by voting yes on Proposition 100.
There are those who say it doesn’t do enough to solve the problem. Sorry, but that’s a foolish line of reasoning, suggesting that a better alternative is to do nothing while the state crashes and burns.
If the sales tax does not pass, lawmakers won’t look for a more equitable tax. Instead, they’ll take it as a mandate that voters want more cuts—and they will proceed accordingly.
We already know what they will cut if the sales tax does not pass. They will cut another $428 million from education. They will cut $107 million from our universities. They will cut about $150 million from health-care funding. They will cut $100 million from the criminal-justice system. And the list goes on.
Those cuts will mean the state will lose another 13,000 jobs, according to economists at the UA Eller College of Management. On top of that, we’ll lose more than $442 million in federal matching funds that would bring new dollars into our economy.
That’s right: We’ll kiss goodbye $442 million—money that would boost our economy. How dumb is that?
Take a look at who backs this tax. Your firefighters are behind it. Your universities are behind it. Your teachers are behind it. Your chambers of commerce are behind it. Your hospitals are behind it. Your business leaders are behind it. Your churches are behind it. Even Gov. Jan Brewer, who brags that she has never before supported a tax increase, is behind it.
And who is against it? Mostly just politicians who are lying when they say the state just needs to tighten its belt a little bit more.
We can think of plenty of better ways to fund state government. We’d rather see the tax base broadened a bit. We’d rather see a slight increase in income taxes on Arizona’s highest earners, who got a big tax break just three years ago. We’d rather get lawmakers who recognize that an economy responds to something besides tax cuts.
But we don’t have those choices. Instead, we have lawmakers who can’t wait to cut even more as soon as you give them an excuse. They’re the ones who are telling you to vote against the sales tax so they can get on with the slicing and dicing of everything that Arizona taxpayers have built over the last 100 years.
If the sales tax fails, the people who want to destroy our state win.
Save the state of Arizona. Vote yes on May 18.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2010.
If Prop 100 doesn’t pass…no more bathrooms along the Grand Canyon State’s Interstates? Info, analysis and explanation, please, Jim Nintzel.
Hmmmm, so you’re telling us, prop-100 is supported by the people who will PROFIT by it’s passage? How unexpected. [/sarcasm]
“We’d rather see a slight increase in income taxes on Arizona’s highest earners, who got a big tax break just three years ago.”
Where does the idea, that the productive, the ones who make the majority of taxes POSSIBLE by those in their employ, should be taxed until there is no reason to keep being productive here? (Ever wonder why the jobs are going overseas? The people there have all the same needs as the people here food, shelter, clothing…they just have less Government intrusion to finance.)
What about, instead of taxing the productive into non-productivity: apply a 2% tax to the 47% who pay no income tax now? You make $20,000 and pay no Federal income tax, you owe the State of Arizona $400.
This sounds better to me, than prop-100.
Well, Master Wildfire, the idea that people who earn more money should pay more in taxes has long been an American tradition. One early booster was Teddy Roosevelt, a fine president who did much good for the nation.
In fact, while the progressive income tax was in place, the United States became the superpower that it is today.
Also, we’re not advocating raising taxes on the wealthiest citizens until there is no reason for them to stay here. We’re advocating raising them to rates that they paid in 2006. That didn’t seem so onerous that the economy was in trouble. In fact, the economy crashed after we cut taxes. Now, if we wanted to be simplistic about the matter, we could blame the crash on tax cuts, but we recognize that would be as stupid an argument as saying that tax increases always hurt the economy.
Jobs are going overseas because CEOs make a fortune by eliminating their local work force in favor of cheaper labor and weaker worker protections, not because we have a progressive income tax.
I disagree with your idea of raising income taxes on the poorest people in the state rather than the most wealthy.
“Also, we’re not advocating raising taxes on the wealthiest citizens until there is no reason for them to stay here.”
But where is that “tipping point”? Yes “the CEO close companies and go overseas where labor is cheaper”…but the people have the same NEEDS.
It appear you support giving to the non-productive at the expense of the productive: How much slavery is really “acceptable”?
What makes “the rich” responsible for the poor Life-choices of the “poor”?
Yes, I understand that there are a tiny percentage of people who are truly poor; and I’m all for helping them. The “poor” that have free housing, food, healthcare and BETTER cell phones, clothes, jewelry and vehicles than I have…I have no sympathy for.
As for education: I say get rid of the illegals, cut taxpayer funded racism classes (aka “Ethnic Studies”), get rid of the Sodomite classes, sports, cut out all that’s not reading, writing, math, science and social studies. (I’m sorry, I may be bias, I don’t believe in funding “public education”: I believe in homeschooling. Homeschooling was good enough to allow my kids to work their way through college and to get their Masters degrees from a University. HEY! Obama claims to have been: a homeless black man, living on the street, with no job, and no income; yet he graduated from Columbia and got a law degree from Harvard…Why can’t others do the same? Or even just get a community college degree?)
But while tax rates like in 2006 seem to appeal to you.
It appears that you aren’t for returning *Government spending* to the same 2006 level.
Is this correct or am I misunderstanding?
Thank You
Master Wildfire: You are correct when you note that while I support returning tax rates to the 2006, I don’t support returning spending to the 2006 level. I could go into population growth and explain why I think that’s a bad idea, but judging from your comments, your vision for what Arizona should be and my vision for what Arizona should be are so far apart that it would be a waste of time for both of us. (“Sodomite classes”? “Slavery”? Really?)
I’m glad that yesterday, the voters resoundingly declared they were more in line with me than you.
It’s nice to hear your kids did well in college.
I know that my belief in “The money belongs to the one who EARNED it” is out of vogue in Entitlement mentality America. But I believe when what is legally produced, is taken against the will of the producer under threat of force (by force if necessary), to be given to the willingly non-productive recipient class (basically to breed votes) with NOTHING given in return to the producer, but contempt: The producer is a slave. (Yes, a lot of my beliefs are radical; I also believe if you don’t pay income tax you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. It’s amazing how people’s “core belief” and spending habits change when it’s THEIR money being spent.)
Yes, if the schools are truly as financially destitute as we are being told, just as with an individual or a private endeavor; things must be either cut, or left to the those willing to pay for them. Why do we need “ethnic studies” instead of focusing funding and resources on subjects that are of substantive educational value?
Yes “Sodomite classes”. did you question the lack of a need for such classes, or the “to the point” name?
Thank You for your fine discourse, here’s hoping those who proved themselves so incompetent with tax money to date, will use this new windfall more wisely.