The Arizona Republic ran an article Friday covering Governor Brewer’s Thursday night visit to East Valley Bible Church in Gilbert. Tom Shrader is the senior pastor at that church. Unfortunately, East Valley did not have the opposing view represented at the church. Based on the way the article was written, one would think that Governor Brewer had the entire congregation eating out of her hand by the end of the “budget sermon.” It appears that AZCentral website turned off their comments on the article but I’ll reprint it here and let you all comment.

Brewer wins over crowd during talk at Gilbert church

by Katherine Greene – Jul. 10, 2009 06:53 AM

The Arizona Republic.

Gov. Jan Brewer is willing to put her political career on the line for a tax increase, and the congregation at East Valley Bible Church in Gilbert just may support her.

“It sure doesn’t help my career,” she said, speaking to a near-full house Thursday night at the church on Elliot Road. “It’s not an easy thing, but it has to be done.”

Brewer spent much of her 90-minute conversation with pastor Tom Schrader talking about the budget, explaining how much needed to be cut, and why.
Several people at the church said they went into the meeting completely against the tax, but that after hearing Brewer’s arguments, decided it was necessary after all.

“The average person doesn’t know how tough it is” to balance the budget, said Mark Shaw, 57. He said he wouldn’t normally support any tax increase, but when Brewer explained the budget problem, he changed his mind.

“It was very enlightening,” he said.

Because some funds are protected by voter mandates, the pool from which cuts can be made is small, meaning the government must slash $3 billion out of about $5 billion , rather than the $11-billion general fund, Brewer told the crowd.

The tax might be career suicide, she said, but she believes it’s the only way to balance the budget.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m hopeful,” she said. “But I think that it’s the right thing to do.”

Brewer’s trip to Gilbert may help her gather a few more votes in November, when she hopes to have a temporary sales tax increase up for a referendum.

After the meeting, people said she had won them over.

“When I came in here, I told my friends, she was not going to get my vote,” said Steve Pass, 60. “I truly believe she wants to do what’s right for Arizona. She’s willing to take on the legislature, and they’re her own party.”

“She convinced me that this isn’t something she’s doing to try and extend her career,” said Colleen Pardo. “A lot of that information was very fascinating.”

East Valley Bible Church hosts weekly meetings each week of the summer that are open to the public, casual, and generally secular, save for a prayer at the end. Brewer also talked about growing up in Nevada and Hollywood, about losing her father and, later, her son.

“I was never angry at God,” she said. “I was angry at people.”

On education, Brewer said she wants to push for a voucher system where parents can choose which school their children attend and the state provides a set amount of money for each child.

That’s not likely to happen soon, she said. She urged parents to attend school board meetings and hold their board members accountable.

“It’s a community thing. You have to demand things in order to make change,” she said, to a round of applause.

She also said she wants more money for teachers. She pointed to test scores and statistics that show that homeschooled and private school children perform better than those in Arizona public schools.

“We need to pay our teachers,” she said. “A lot of (money) gets eaten up by administration.”

Darbi Maki , 28, a middle school teacher, agreed.

“This is just the way it is and what we have to do,” she said.

Pardo was with a group of about 15 children who were all homeschooled. She said Brewer “couldn’t be more right” about the education system.

In the prayer at the end of the meeting, Schrader asked God to help Brewer with the burden of the budget, and for her to find the best way to solve it, “even though we might not all agree with her.”