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Tax Us or Tailor it

July 9, 2009 By 3 Comments

by Gayle Plato

The Arizona Budget Debacle

What else has not been discussed about this highly contentious plan?  All players in the government battlefield are grousing about either HOW are we going to pay for all of the programs, or WHICH elected official is going to fall on a sword and eat the increased spending?

What happened to WHY are we spending more every year when the rest of the state is going broke, and private industry is stretching every dollar?

Apollo 13 Style- Square Peg in Round Hole Time

The story and movie about Apollo 13 is a fantastic analogy. We need the smartest people in the room, coming up with the best solutions that are so outside of the normal scope and sequence; otherwise, the state is literally going to fiscally implode. We are outta amps and we gotta get the crew home.

Stimulus and Pick Anyone?

Work with federal stimulus funds and ask that they be re-issued from pet project expenses to other transportation like  alt-fuel buses and state roads. Do not assume we must take the stimulus money handed to us without a state review.  I do not care if it’s already been allocated. The 10th Amendment overrides all Congressional Revenue Packaging.  Look it up.

Get the good Governor and lege to write an appeal to the POTUS Administration and put the appeal on every website with a big press conference.  GO on FOX, CNBC, CNN, every blog, and even the mindless local news.

We need to ask voters  to approve a new lottery game, not a new tax.  With that, we can either rewrite or restructure legislation currently authorizing lottery funds that go to transportation.  All of that money should be re-issued to vital social services. There are 250-500 million dollars of potential needed right now.  Add a  major game to counter the expenses.  Most of that money is currently going to transportation, and that stimulus money AZ is taking should be supplementing transportation this year.

We need a program audit with a five point rubric.

All social services will be required to determine a treatment plan track for all recipients.   Review every agency by letting them know all funds are suspended, with IOUs only until they submit clear reports of expenditures and goals met. From state educational remediation to local counseling stopping criminal recidivism of teens, all programs need exit plans for all clients.  Within the year, if said programs do not meet criteria, meet the quota of graduated clients, the programs are either limited and on notice or cut completely. The audit, if a rubric, will offer simple and straightforward alignment. Clients must move out, make room for new, and help others.

Use all money for ONLY the programming proven to meet criteria. Every single agency goes on probation with 12, 18, and 24 month goals. No exceptions.  Think of it as No Tax Dollar Left Behind.

Audit repetition and eliminate it.

We need one clearing house of state social services and look for doubling up. If the IRS can find under/over expenses, we can screen.  With that, all programs need to meet mission statements and flow chart templates.  MANY agencies are complete mysteries and absolute clusters of mess.  Many agencies have no accountability.  NO private business would survive doing this.  Look at the highly successful University of Phoenix.  It thrives on scrutiny, highly structured programs, job descriptions of minute detail, and yet a McDonald’s approach to service and product.  Everything is designed with clear scripting.  Human services becomes interchangeable parts and those that produce get perks.  That’s why they work, and are growing like crazy, yet can charge very high tuition.  Employees are watched by the all-seeing eye with continuous audit.  They created a niche and tailored a new Big Mac of Education.  It pays and the model of development is a masterpiece of MBA-style machination.  U of Phx could revamp and tailor social services, even getting it in the black within a few years.

Finally, tell the agencies that they must cut more.  Period.

Some of the money MUST go to an audit, but have it run by a small commission panel of investigators.  All programs funded must either show client graduation from services and levels of functioning.  We need to foster self-sufficiency or the social servicing is not solving anything.

The federal government is creating a census of how many times we turn on the lights or how often you drive to the corner.  It’s a huge invasion being created as a data base of citizen activity.  We can definitely audit the money usage we pay.  We are the boss and the legislature needs to respect the job of watchdog.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Another Modest Proposals: Tax Those Who Want to Pay

July 9, 2009 By 7 Comments

OK, I’ll admit I’m really beating a dead horse here but let me throw out another approach to this sales tax increase.

Why don’t we apply the sales tax increase in those counties where Democrats hold a voter registration edge? Based on Democratic leadership we know that raising taxes tends to be an acceptable approach to pay for government spending. I’m sure that these Democrat strongholds will readily accept paying more for more government.

Even better, why not apply the sales tax increase in those legislative districts where the State Representative(s)/Senators vote in favor of it? Let those who support it serve as the proxies for the voters who elected them and are willing to pay the price.

Of course this will never fly because they know just how the voters will react to higher taxes – they’ll lose their jobs next election. And even if it did get implemented that way, where do you think all the money will be spent? In those districts where the rep voted against it and there is no tax increase. The voters will certainly learn where those district boundaries are located.

Filed Under: Taxation

Tempe Loses Second Court Battle over Tattoo Studio

July 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Goldwater Institute
News Release

Phoenix–Superior Court Judge Robert Oberbillig ruled today that the City of Tempe’s revocation of Tom and Elizabeth Preston’s business permit, based on the perception that their tattoo studio might attract crime, was “arbitrary and capricious” and ordered the City to immediately reinstate the couple’s permit and allow them to open their business.

After almost two years in litigation, the Prestons finally had their day in court on May 11, 2009 and justice prevailed: Judge Oberbillig ruled that Tempe had no right to revoke the Preston’s permit. But instead of adhering to that ruling, the City of Tempe filed a motion asking the judge to give it another chance to make its case, effectively asking for a “do-over.”

“It’s the Prestons 1, Tyranny 0,” declared Clint Bolick, litigation director for the Goldwater Institute. “This decision elevates the rule of law over political whim.”

Bolick urged the City to give up the fight. “Not only have the Prestons lost precious business opportunities for two years and counting, but the taxpayers are paying for this legal battle and losing tax revenues.”
 
The City of Tempe has 30 days to appeal the ruling.

Preston v. Hallman was filed by the Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation. For more information about this or any other Goldwater Institute lawsuit to protect individual rights and keep government within its constitutional limits, please visit http://goldwaterinstitute.org/litigation. The Goldwater Institute is a nonprofit public policy research and litigation organization whose work is made possible by the generosity of its supporters.

Filed Under: City Government, Press Release, Regulations

Legislators Should Hold the Line Against the Brewer Tax

July 9, 2009 By 10 Comments

Legislators Should Hold the Line Against the Brewer Tax
By Tom Jenney

Down at the Arizona Legislature, several otherwise conservative legislators are right now thinking very hard about capitulating to Governor Brewer’s scheme to put an 18-percent increase in Arizona’s sales tax rate on the ballot.

Those legislators have previously argued that they could wring more spending reductions out of the governor by allowing the sales tax referendum go to the ballot. But with the education and health budgets that passed this week, conservatives appear to have given up on significant spending reductions. So, those legislators are left to argue that if the Brewer Tax goes to the ballot, it will probably fail, thereby giving the Legislature a “mandate” to cut spending.

There are several grave problems with that argument.

For starters, the sales tax might actually win at the ballot. In a low-turnout election, the sky-is-falling propaganda from public employee unions and other spending interests could be persuasive.

If the sales tax does win at the ballot, Arizona will set itself up for short-run and longer-run fiscal distress. In the short run–assuming that the Brewer Tax is actually temporary–we will merely postpone a billion-dollar structural deficit crisis into the year 2012. We will also do damage to our economy at a time when we’re already hurting. The San Francisco Federal Reserve office estimated recently that a dollar taken from the private sector for government spending reduces economic activity anywhere from 60 cents to $2.30.

In the longer run, by resorting to a tax increase, and by failing to reduce spending, we will tell potential investors, businesses, workers, and retirees that Arizona is the next California: we are stuck in a cycle in which the government spends too much money in boom years, goes into deficit crises, raises taxes to keep government spending at high levels, and then repeats the process until it hits bankruptcy.

Even if the sales tax fails at the ballot, voters are not likely to give politicians a mandate to cut spending. Voters are often schizophrenic on fiscal issues. Even if they shoot down a sales tax in 2009, they could easily turn around in 2010 and punish legislators who vote for large spending cuts in popular programs.

Further, even with a “mandate,” Brewer and a majority of legislators may prove unwilling to cut much spending—especially because cutting spending will be harder to do in January, when the fiscal year is already half over and the money is half spent. At that point, the deficit fixes will be dominated by short-term borrowing and other financial gimmickry.

If conservatives keep the Brewer Tax from going to the ballot, that will force the state government to an earlier reckoning. Revenues will soon fall short of paying for the bloated education and health budgets that passed this week, and the Legislature will have to go back to work, perhaps as soon as September. But it’s better to start cutting in September than to wait until January.

As a matter of political prudence, given the Tea Party fervor brewing among the grassroots in Arizona, legislators should avoid a tax referendum like the plague. Grassroots activists know that the job of a conservative legislator is to stop bad legislation, not punt the ball to voters. And if the Governor can muster a majority of legislators to refer her tax hike to the ballot, shrewd legislators would do well to keep their names off the bill.

If necessary, the Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity will work hard to defeat the Brewer Tax at the ballot. We will bring our gigantic inflatable ATM bank machine to every town in the state, and drive home the point that Arizona taxpayers should not be used as a cash machine when politicians have overspent their budgets and are short on revenue.

But having a ballot battle over a tax hike would be a deplorable waste of Arizona’s collective resources. Legislators would do much better to hold the line against tax hikes, and start working now to reduce government spending.

–Tom Jenney is Arizona Director for Americans for Prosperity (www.aztaxpayers.org).

Filed Under: Spending, State Budget, State Government, Taxation

A Modest Proposal: Sales Tax on Steroids

July 9, 2009 By 26 Comments

You know what they say. There’s two things you can’t avoid in life – Death and Taxes.

Ask most people to choose between a slow and painful death or a quick sudden death, they’d probably choose the later.

Let’s superimpose that over the current state budget fiasco. The Governor wants to run a one cent (18%) temporary sales tax increase over a three year period. She claims its a management issue – a need for cash flow and liquidity.

Instead of spreading it out over a three year period, what if the Legislature gave her the temporary sales tax increase but instead of spreading it out over a three year period, they put it on steroids and limited it to six months? In other words they see the Governor’s one cent and raise it 5 cents?

(Now of course, you know I’m being completely facetious and oppose any tax increases. But for the sake of having some fun with the current political game being played out between the legislative and executive branches, let’s play the game of what if.)

Does anyone doubt that a sales tax increase of that magnitude would snuff out any embers of economic recovery here in Arizona? Ask anyone who conducts those scientific studies in which they feed lab rats pounds of sugar over a 30-day period what happens to the rats.

The rat gets fat and dies. End of study. The truth is obvious.

Instead of raising taxes to make up the shortfall of revenue, what if the Governor did an about face and lowered taxes across the board – especially business taxes? Imagine all those California businesses scrambling to survive and preparing to move to Nevada or Texas.

My point in all this is is to illustrate the absurdity of closing our budget gap by raising taxes – especially during a recession. Many conservative Republicans remember the approach that the Reagan Administration took in which taxes were lowered and revenues actually went up! Thanks Art Laffer!

If the Governor really wanted to get the economy going, she would take a play from Reagan’s economic policies and lower taxes or eliminate them altogether! This would create an economic environment that would attract new businesses, new jobs, more cash liquidity and ultimately, more revenue for the State.

Unfortunately, ego’s often get in the way of common sense when your standing at 1700 West Washington Street.

Filed Under: Economic Development, Economics, State Budget, State Economy, Taxation

What are Glendale officials cooking up for Coyotes?

July 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

by Carrie Ann Sitren
Goldwater Institute
 
At a restaurant, you expect to see a menu before you order–after all, you’re the one paying the bill. The City of Glendale, however, doesn’t care to follow that logic. Instead, City officials are refusing to disclose what deals they’re cooking up during closed negotiations for the sale of the Phoenix Coyotes, or what will ultimately be put on the table for Glendale residents to eat–and pay for.

Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Glendale officials are discussing offering concessions and annual subsidies of up to $20 million to potential buyers of the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team who would be willing to keep the team in Glendale. They need the team to stay because of the 30-year lease the Coyotes hold to play in Jobing.com arena, a venue built with $180 million provided by Glendale taxpayers. But since the team’s owner filed for bankruptcy and potential buyers have discussed moving the team to Canada, taxpayers could be left with an expensive, vacant hockey arena, and no team.

This is why the Goldwater Institute filed a public records request for documents showing what Glendale officials are offering potential buyers of the Coyotes. Surprisingly, the City denied the request. The Goldwater Institute promptly filed a lawsuit demanding that the City release the records.

When taxpayers are footing the bill, they have a right to know where the money is going and what their elected officials are doing. At a time when families are pinching pennies, Glendale officials cannot be allowed to give away millions in secrecy.  The judge is expected to decide within two weeks what records the City must disclose. At the very least, Glendale’s taxpayers have a right to see what’s on the menu before they pay the bill.
 
Carrie Ann Sitren is an attorney with the Goldwater Institute.

Filed Under: City Government, Constitutional Law, Judicial, Spending, Sports

Senate President Bob Burns Ousts Taxpayer Champions From Key Positions

July 9, 2009 By 22 Comments

From Patrick Gleason on Thursday, July 9, 2009

Last night Arizona Senate President Bob Burns, in what is viewed by many as a legislative temper tantrum,  booted two colleagues in leadership from key posts. Senator Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) was ousted from his position as Senate President Pro Tem and Senate Majority Whip Pamela Gorman (R-Anthem) was removed from the Rules Committee.

Their crime: Defending taxpayers from a massive tax increase pushed by an unelected governor in the middle of a recession.

It has been a sad state of affairs for Republicans in Arizona this year. There was hope among many that years of fiscal irresponsibility would end with Governor Janet Napolitano being replaced by Republican Jan Brewer. Yet in a move that left many puzzled, Brewer came out of the gate early this year with a proposal for the aforementioned multi-billion dollar sales tax increase. Now true conservatives such as Gorman and Verschoor are being punished for not supporting the Governor’s tax hike.

Verschoor will be replaced by Senator Steve Pierce (R-Prescott). Gorman’s replacement on the rules committee has yet to be named.

Americans for Tax Reform condemns Burns’ actions. ATR urges Arizona taxpayers to contact their representative in the legislature and urge them to join Verschoor and Gorman in standing up against the chocolate soldiers who are pushing to the Brewer-Coughlin tax hike. CLICK HERE to take action!

Filed Under: Spending, State Budget, State Government, Taxation

Three finalists for Supreme Court: Brewer should avoid one of them

July 9, 2009 By 2 Comments

The Commission on Appellate Court appointments has sent up three names to Governor Brewer, who will select one to fill the vacancy provided by retiring Supreme Court Justice Ruth MacGregor. There are two Republicans, Judge Ann Timmer, and Judge John Pelander. They both have moderate records as judges. While Timmer is good on prolife issues, she’s terrible on school choice. The third, Judge Diane Johnson, is a Democrat with a far left record, who should not be selected. Brewer may pick Timmer because she’s a woman, and so she may want a woman to replace MacGregor. Or she may go with Pelander because he’s from the southern part of the state.

Diane Johnson - Scottsdale

Judge Johnsen is a liberal activist and her appointment to the Az SC should be opposed by all conservatives. She has only been a judge on the Court of Appeals since August of 2006 and has ruled on so few (if any) controversial constitutional issues it is difficult to ascertain her judicial philosophy based on her judicial opinions. Her activities before becoming a judge, however, led to the clear conclusion that she is a liberal. Before becoming a judge, she was on the board of directors of two very liberal interest groups and was a big contributor to liberal candidates.

John Pelander - Tucson

Judge John Pelander seems to be a traditional conservative who tends to defer to the government on many close questions, but because he has ruled on so few controversial constitutional issues it is difficult to say whether this is the case with any certainty.

Concurred in result in case holding that a city ordinance requiring single family homes to be wheel chair accessible did not violate privacy because building codes that affect exercise of homeowners’ “personal, private, and aesthetic choices” are proper exercise of police power, nor did it violate equal protection because the homeowners were not members of a suspect class and the law did not affect a fundamental right and there was a legitimate government interest which is enough to get over rational basis scrutiny. Washburn v. Pima County, 206 Ariz. 571, 81 P.3d 1030 (2003).

Held that a city’s restaurant smoking ban was not an unconstitutional taking because it did not deprive restaurant owner of all reasonable use of her property, owner did not show that she suffered loss of revenue as result of ordinance, and owner could have complied with exemption in ordinance by creating a “designated smoking area” as defined in the ordinance, nor a violation of freedom of association because it does not fall within the realm of certain intimate human relationships even though a certain amount of intimate private association may occur in restaurants, nor did it violate equal protection because the restaurant owners did not claim to be members of a protected class and thus only received rational basis scrutiny. City of Tucson v. Grezaffi, 200 Ariz. 130, 23 P.3d 675 (2001).

Ann Scott Timmer - Scottsdale Chief Judge Timmer appears to be a conservative jurist with an overarching textualist philosophy who sometimes defers to the government but often rules on the side of the individual. Her favor for competition and privacy may prove to be a double-edged sword depending on the context, as may her propensity for narrow interpretation of constitutional and statutory texts. She has taken the social conservative position in several high profile cases.

Held that court need to apply a clear and convincing standard for judicial bypass of parental consent for abortion instead of just preponderance of the evidence in finding that a minor did not prove that she was mature enough to give consent for the abortion. In re B.S., 205 Ariz. 611, (App. 2003).Held that Arizona’s ban on same sex marriage does not violate the Arizona or U.S. Constitution. Standhardt v. Arizona, 206 Ariz. 276, 77 P.3d 451 (2003).

Concurred in result in case holding that statute and regulations that prohibited use of public funds for medically necessary abortions, unless abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother, did not violate right to privacy, does not violate privileges and immunities provision of State Constitution because statute does not discriminate on basis of sex, does not impinge upon the exercise of a fundamental right for purposes of analysis under privileges and immunities provision of State Constitution, and is rationally related to legitimate government interest in protecting unborn life and in promoting childbirth and thus does not violate privileges and immunities provision of State Constitution. Simat Corp. v. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, 200 Ariz. 506, 29 P.3d 281 (2001).

Concurred in the result in case holding that a constitutional amendment prohibiting bail or pretrial release to those felony arrestees who “entered or remained in the United States illegally” did not violate equal protection or substantive due process guarantees. Hernandez v. Lynch, 216 Ariz. 469, 167 P.3d 1264 (2007).

Concurred in the result in case holding that ordinances shutting down private sex clubs on the basis of being labeled a public nuisance, do not constitute a regulatory taking. Mutschler v. City of Phoenix, 212 Ariz. 160, 129 P.3d 71 (2006).

Filed Under: Judicial