While we’re on the theme of Deja Vu all over again, some of you Arizonans may remember a little budget buster from earlier this decade called “Alternative Fuels Vehicles.” One would think that the brightest minds in Washington, D.C. would have taken a lesson from the past.

Govt to suspend ‘cash for clunkers’

WASHINGTON (AP) – Congressional officials say the government plans to suspend the popular “cash for clunkers” program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases.

The Transportation Department called congressional offices late Thursday to alert them to the decision to halt the program, which offered owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns of large backlogs in the system, prompting the suspension.

(Courtesy and credit to Breitbart and the Associated Press.)

The Arizona Department of Commerce has filed an amicus brief attacking the Arizona Court of Appeals decision invalidating the gift clause in the CityNorth case.

Incredibly, a segment of the Brewer Administration has jumped into the CityNorth case on the side of Phoenix and the other advocates of taxpayer subsidies to private industries who are trying to get the Court of Appeals decision striking down these subsidies as illegal gifts thrown out.

The Department of Commerce, a state agency under Governor Brewer, thinks the Court of Appeals ruling calls into question some of its programs. If this is the case, it’s because the Department of Commerce has been giving taxpayer money away to private groups, in violation of our state constitution’s ban on such gifts.

It was bad enough when the Department of Commerce was just a waste of money, a parking lot for old, washed up Democrat politicos. But now it is actively fighting to undermine our liberties.

With the state in a budget crisis, the Department of Commerce should be the first to go. Unfortunately, the oldest trick in the book of the apologists for Big Government is to put popular things on the chopping block like police and education.

Hopefully voters will remember that this fall when all the Chicken Littles predict massive cuts to police and education and general Armageddon if they don’t vote to raise taxes. How come the cuts put on the table by apologists for Big Government never include wasteful programs like the Department of Commerce, Structural Pest Commission, Board of Cosmetology, etc.?

If our state leaders had made more of an effort to cut out these boondoggles they would be on much more solid ground in calling for higher taxes. But they haven’t.

Deja Vu all over again?

You’re looking at a collage of the newest bogeymen. At least that’s what the liberal-led, Democratic controlled Congress is calling these American companies.

Polling must have revealed to Democratic leadership that it’s not in their political best interest to go after the doctors or the American Medical Association. And you know the Dems won’t attack their lifeblood, the trial lawyers association. That leaves only one target for the Democrats to take aim at – the insurance companies.

So this is all about strategy for the Dems in their march to take over our personal health care and decisions. If they can narrow and divide their opposition down to a few bogeymen, they figure they can rekindle American anger in back in their direction and mount the largest government fiasco since Social Security.

Make the calls to your congressmen today!

FoxNews and CNN is reporting that the Pentagon is preparing plans to assist the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) in the event of an anticipated Fall 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 virus.

According to the report:

In the event of a major outbreak, civilian authorities would lead any relief efforts, the official said. As the military would for a natural disaster or other significant emergency situation, it could provide support and fulfill any tasks that civilian authorities could not, such as air transport or testing of large numbers of viral samples from infected patients.

As a first step, Gates is being asked to sign a so-called “execution order” that would authorize the military to begin to conduct the detailed planning to execute the proposed plan.

Speculation is running rampant as to the use of military forces during such a pandemic including the use of massive quarantines.

This is really starting to sound like something out of a movie.

by Gayle Plato, M. Ed.

Education funding, the liberal’s beaten poster child, never reflects reality nor sees the light of day. Ask any state legislator, “How does the state actually fund money for schools”, and you’ll get a description of per-pupil base support, phrases like large capital (the buildings and big stuff), soft capital for desks, and transportation. In addition, when you say things like, “Why don’t we dictate how many ___ or fire all of the ____,” their eyes glaze. Your cracked pot on which you stand is crumbling like art of Piestewa Area 51 notoriety. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Of course not. Because the average citizen cannot just look up the state budget for education and have ANY clear picture of how the money is allocated. At a recent town hall meeting of Americans for Prosperity, I heard two budget experts trying to explain the line item veto in regards to programs that Governor Brewer crossed out. The experts were confused, and they read this every day. I challenge anyone reading this with a child in an Arizona public school: please tell me how much your child’s district gets for your student? Nobody truly knows. Yet the teachers’ unions are screaming, the liberal lobbying groups including our beloved Arizona Republic complain daily about the state being near the bottom in spending. Since when, in the history of public funding, is spending less a BAD THING? I want to know if amount spent is showing a return! Why invest more in a system rising in cost and producing lousy products? Students in Arizona are GMs-SUV gas guzzling Jimmys.  We are the ones going bankrupt to build these lousy products.

“Following the formula through state financial documents, however, is
complicated. For example, in the Statement of Revenues and Expenditures in the Arizona Superintendent’s Annual Financial Report for 2006-07, state revenues received by school districts are reported according to enrollment-based formulas, categories of spending and Proposition 301 funds collected from a 2000 tax increase to be used specifically for teacher base pay increases, teacher performance pay and certain maintenance and operations programs.3 Within the Statutory Formula Programs section is the Basic State Aid, as well as additional enrollment determined categories. However, in the State Summary of Financial Data, Basic State Aid is not a line item. Rather, state revenues for the classroom are categorized as Maintenance & Operations, Classroom Site Fund, and Instructional Improvement Fund. There is no direct link between the two. Further, some of the statutory formula funds, such as for soft capital outlay, are broken out separately. This is all very convoluted, but the point is that the system lacks transparency and,therefore, accountability.”  (http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/3170)

We spend approximately half of our state budget on education: the cost problem is simple. Throw out the formula as it is not relevant. During a state time of open enrollment, where children can move freely between districts, per-pupil costs get muddy. Do we properly track transportation costs? My son cannot take a bus as he’s from ‘out of district’. Where do his travel bucks go? Doesn’t seem they go with him, and when I asked at the districts, no one seemed to have a clue. Price per desks, cost of books, transportation based on district boundaries: the terms themselves are not current. Kids don’t sit in individual desks all in row reading Dick and Jane. North Phoenix /Scottsdale schools use smart boards and lap tops, while lower income classes are still huffing dry erase pens in stuffy portables, sharing antiquated IT in backwards labs. Who are we kidding about equalization of funding?

This is not Left v. Right. This is the Past v. Present. We are using formulas that carry over from a time when tabulation was done by hand. We can track every child and know where he is sitting every hour, put it in a data file, and have to the state by the close of the school day. Technology is supposed to HELP STREAMLINE.

Options

Regular Education: Offer a flat rate per child and let the districts sort it out.

All problems and costs beyond a flat rate based on the per student funding are up to the local citizens. Our Constitution mandates and recommends fiscal debate be with the majority of the people it impacts. Define the state amount based on pupil attendance. Determine an average cost for elementary and secondary regular education. Let them levy, bond, budget cut, or have bake sales. As a libs would say—buy and sell local.

Special Education: Get the state out of the way.

Federal funding tabulation does not need to go through the state as districts could submit data directly and get monies according to programs and students. Why do we filter all programs? Bureaucracy is the problem, with lots of made up jobs of cheese movers and crumb counters. Budget analysis is antiquated and fraught with waste.

Funds Follow Students

We are paying for kids to learn. The flat rate follows the child, and this should be accomplished in darn near real time. If the IRS moves to a majority of us electronically filing, with greater accuracy and less fraud, our education allocation can handle monitoring of students on a state level.

Emergency Funds are Temporary

Any school failing, falling down, feverishly growing, or facing crisis, needs to fill out specific requests with absolute cost analysis and face detailed scrutiny. This is the key for all state allocation problems. Our state gets in the middle of programming issues and temporary concerns, and then NEVER moves. We move the cheese and then let it mold.

No one, on a state level can mandate district decisions, but we are forced to pay for district mistakes. When any blogger writes, let’s fire all of the low-end administrators (yes I said that basically), all state level politicians literally laugh. Why? Because our ocean of debt is infiltrated by schools of jellyfish: endomorphic gelatinous blobs that float where they please, with far-reaching tentacles that sting all that swim. We allow schools to bite the hands that feed them. Make the districts grow up and balance the books, or the parents will vote the boards out and down all bonds.

Arizona creates odd mandates of building funds or programs like all-day Kindergarten. We allocate for a temporary need or local desire but then do not allow oversight, limits on pilot funds, or change as needed. If a district needs help with old buildings, let’s give official options for the emergency—not ongoing support. If a district wants all-day Kindergarten, we cannot line item it in for political points one year, but then not have ANY state control for fear of getting voted out.   That fear is the sting that’s killing us all.

Friends,

We emailed you on Tuesday about the Maricopa County $347 Million Court Tower Boondoggle and the scheduled meeting that was to take place on Wednesday. Well, we want to give you a bit of an update on what actually went down (or better yet, what didn’t go down) at the meeting.

Just prior to the meeting and responding to grassroot reactions, the agenda item on the $347 Million Court Tower Boondoggle was removed from discussion. From what my sources tell me, it was because of the pressure we put on the Board of Supervisors. But what does this mean for the future of this extravagant expenditure?

At this point, the budget-busting project is still moving forward so we must do whatever it takes to pressure the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors from allowing this project to continue. We have stated before, Maricopa County has a HUGE budget shortfall even after laying off employees at the Superior Court and cutting law enforcement budgets by 15%. Sheriff Arpaio is even having difficulties finding deputies to transport inmates to the courthouse.

This is a critical moment for Maricopa County and the taxpayers. We need to stand up to the Board of Supervisors and remind them that they are accountable to us, not to the contractors making political contributions. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors In Their Own Words

We also wanted to let you know about some research we conducted that we find very interesting in light of this excessive spending. We told you about the political contributions that may be influencing the obstinacy of the Board of Supervisors but we thought you might be interested in what some of the Supervisors have said in the past about the satellite court houses throughout Maricopa County.

Let’s take a look at the Special Meeting Minutes from July 19, 2002 from the Dedication Ceremony of the Superior Court NW Regional Center in Surprise:

“Chairman Stapley stated that he was pleased to see this facility, serving the northwest valley, become a reality. The goal of regional services is to meet the needs of the outlying areas, and he predicted that this center would become the heart of judicial services for this community.”

“Having formally represented the area, Supervisor Wilcox stated that the City of Surprise had worked for many years toward obtaining a regional center, and she was happy to have been a part of the initial planning as well as completion of the project.”

Now, we should take a look at the BOS “Summary of Key Accomplishments from the 2001-2005 Maricopa County Strategic Plan”:

“Completed planning and have begun building five new regional court centers to expand access to the Court system in localized areas throughout the County. This eliminated a 10-day delay for preliminary hearings and arraignments….Two additional RCCs are planned for the Northwest and Southeast regions, to be operational before the end of 2001.”

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors continued to comment. In 2002, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors submitted the “Regional Court Centers for Felony Case Processing” for a NACM 2002 Justice Achievement Award. Here is the description they submitted for consideration of the award:

“Benefits include tangible cost savings, such as jail housing and transportation costs.”

Finally, we have yet another quote that we would like to draw your attention to coming from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in the “Maricopa County Justice System Annual Activities Report – Fiscal Year 2000-2001″:

“The Justice Courts and Superior Court greatly streamlined front-end felony processing, by coordinating early court proceedings at Regional Court Centers which expedite case processing, and reduce jail overcrowding and inmate transports.”

We are left with confusion about the Board of Supervisors – do we believe the words and evidence from recent times, their comments of today, or the political contributions from contractors involved with this lavish and unnecessary spending. Our take is to listen to their words of the past and then follow the money.

AIA ACTION ITEM:

1. Contact all of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors today and demand that this project be stopped immediately. Tell them that you are forced to reevaluate your personal spending and that they have a responsibility to the taxpayers not to be engaged in excessive and frivolous spending. Fix the courts that we have already in place!
2. Please forward this message on to your friends and family and ask them do to the same.

Thank you for your help. Please forward any responses that you receive to us!
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Arizonans In Action | 3655 W Anthem Way | Suite A-109, PMB 412 | Phoenix | AZ | 85086

State schools superintendent Tom Horne is getting national attention for taking on the elements of so-called “ethnic pride” in an Arizona school district. Today’s Washington Times chronicles Horne’s ongoing battles with the entrenched bureaucrats and recalcitrant school board at the Tucson Unified School District who want to make sure Arizona taxpayers continue to foot the bill for Raza studies – a curricula that belittles the United States and advocates for racial separatism. Horne’s fight is one that’s worth winning. Here’s an excerpt but of course, you can read the entire article here.

Tom Horne has two degrees from Harvard University. He participated in Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington. He’s Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction.

In other words, he’s not the kind of guy you would expect to find at the forefront of a movement to eliminate a politically sensitive program such as ethnic studies. Yet there he is, blasting classes that promote what he calls “ethnic chauvinism,” calling for voters to oust school board members who support it and generally painting a target on his back for liberals and minority advocacy groups.

“What I object to is dividing kids by race and teaching them only about their own culture,” Mr. Horne said in a telephone interview. “That’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be teaching kids that they’re individuals and not exemplars of racial groups.”

Maricopa County Superior Court Presiding Judge Gary Donahoe

TIME FOR JUDICIAL REFORM

Our sources tell us that the Arizona Supreme Court is currently considering an appeal of a Superior Court decision that disqualified the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office from investigating the Court Tower. Superior Court Presiding Criminal Judge Gary Donahoe refused to let the County Attorney’s Office prosecute the case, yet allowed the Court’s attorney Tom Irvine of the law firm Polsinelli Shughart, who was also representing the Board of Supervisors that authorized the purchase of the Court Tower, remain as legal counsel for both the Board and the Court.  In a shocking display of judicial arrogance, Donahoe torpedoed the investigation to protect the Court Tower (where he will have a penthouse office) and Irvine.

The Goldwater Institute’s Clint Bolick, a nationally renowned attorney who has argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, declared that,

Irvine’s dual representation is “a blatant conflict of interest, one of the first kinds of conflicts you learn about in law school.”

If attorneys in this state realized what was going on, they would be shocked. Irvine is representing both sides of a business transaction – the Superior Court side that asked for the Court Tower, AND the Board of Supervisors side that authorized the expenditure. Irvine never even bothered to disclose his dual representation in the case. In fact, the Republican-dominated Board of Supervisors has actually allowed Irvine, a Democrat activist who used to be the attorney for the Arizona Democrat Party, to become their attorney instead of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in violation of the law.

The one-sided decision by Judge Donahue declaring that the County Attorney’s Office has a conflict of interest but the Court and the Board of Supervisors don’t when they’re sharing the same attorney is the most shocking display of judicial arrogance since the Prop. 100 fiasco a couple of years ago, when the Superior Court refused to enforce the new law prohibiting bail for illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes. In that situation, the Arizona Supreme Court had to step in to force the Superior Court to uphold the law. It looks like the Supreme Court is going to have to step in again to clean up this mess.

The appeal submitted to the Supreme Court summarizes the conflicts this way:

The conflicts of interest in this matter are numerous and severe. Shughart [Irvine] simultaneously represented two clients, the Superior Court and the Board, on the very same matter, the Court Tower project. Through this process, Shughart obtained a ruling from one client, the Superior Court, to benefit the other client, the Board. Moreover, in his minute entry, Respondent Judge stated he was releasing the ruling to the public in part to allow Shughart to use it to benefit Mr. Irvine in his other civil litigation. As a result, the minute entry has been used by Shughart not only to shut down the grand-jury investigation of the Court Tower, but also in an unrelated civil lawsuit filed by MCAO against the Board in which Shughart represents the Board. Finally, Shughart provided these legal services with all these multiple conflicts while one of its attorneys was the subject of a criminal investigation related to the Court Tower.

This is the strongest evidence yet that the judiciary is in dire need of reform. The Superior Court apparently thinks it’s above the law. This is the last straw for merit system appointment of judges, real reform will also include a change to electing judges.

Click here for video of Goldwater Institute’s Clint Bolick declaring Irvine’s representation of both the County Supervisors and the Superior Court a “blatant conflict of interest”