According to a report in yesterday’s Yellow Sheet (subscription required), State Representative Adam Driggs failed to pay the property taxes on his home for nearly two years, resulting in a tax lien being filed and eventually sold to an investor.  The Yellow Sheet also noted that Driggs paid off the lien the same week that he told the Yellow Sheet that he was “99%” certain he would be running for Congress in CD3. Driggs’ defense was that “…the unpaid taxes were little more than a misunderstanding, and one that was cleared up almost immediately.” and he added “”I didn’t realize that until [we received a notice] that said, ‘You’re late.’ As soon as I found out, I went down and paid it immediately.”

Voters in LD11 will know that Driggs had earlier attacked his opponent Rich Davis for claiming a tax exemption on a property he no longer lived in.  News that Driggs was a tax delinquent himself will strike more than a few voters as hypocritical.

Here is J.D. Hayworth’s latest advertisement in his run for the U.S. Senate. The ad highlights the record of his opponent, John McCain, who has failed to secure the border and to add insult to injury, has voted to make taxpayers pay for benefits to illegal aliens.

Here is a video clip from January 8, 2009, long before State Treasurer ever thought about seeking the Office of Governor with Napolitano on her way out.

Observe the two styles of leadership exhibited here. Treasurer Martin is calm cool and collective but definitely firm in his warning to Governor Napolitano that the State of Arizona is going broke. Napolitano is clearly shaken, grabs her things and storms off.

Shortly thereafter, Governor Napolitano departed the State of Arizona leaving Secretary of State Jan Brewer to succeed her. With a Republican Governor at the helm, one would think that Brewer would have taken the Chris Christie approach to the state budget and cut, cut, cut spending. Instead we got a Governor who hiked, hiked, hiked the sales tax 18%. (Incidentally, the last Governor to do this was another Republican, Jane Hull.)

Now the State still finds itself in a budget crisis with no sign of closing the deficit and a recession that will likely double-dip.

The state’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee official estimates say Arizona is $368 million in deficit already and we’re only a week into the fiscal year. Add to that the $400 million in federal Medicare matching dollars that was counted on that’s not coming. That’s a budget out of whack by nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars and we really haven’t gotten started on this year’s faux-balanced budget fashioned under the flinty Governor Brewer last February.

Oh yeah, that Brewer budget is also predicated on passage of both Prop. 301 and Prop. 302 this November. The former steals $125 million from the Growing Smarter fund for land preservation and the latter steals $325 million from the First Things First fund for “the children”. Well-funded “no” campaigns are already gearing up to defeat those measures ironically consisting of many of the same interests behind Prop. 100’s grand coalition of multi-millionaire spenders.

So, add the $768 million in known shortfall to $450 million in evaporating voter-protected funds and on or about November 3, 2010, Jan Brewer’s balanced budget achievement will be more than $1.2 billion in the red four months into the fiscal year.

How will that deficit be closed in an environment of a 64% mandate to raise taxes before cutting education, public safety and health and human services programs? The past might be a guide to this inevitable future.

Governor Brewer embraces the honorific “Truth Teller” for the selfless and heroic sacrifice of her unblemished anti-tax credentials in championing Prop. 100’s three-year, one-cent sales tax increase. On countless occasions she would start her pitch for Prop. 100 with, “In my 28 years of public service, I’ve never voted for a tax increase…” But how spotless is that record really?

One could fairly claim Brewer lost her anti-tax virtue in 2009 by, not once, but twice being the sole vote (or veto) to raise property taxes $250,000,000 per year, every year until the tax is repealed in some distant future (if ever). There is no need to get twisted around the vagaries of a temporary vs. permanent tax cut. The indisputable fact is that on two occasions in the summer of 2009 Brewer vetoed legislation that would have kept property taxes from being hiked a quarter-billion dollars every year going forward. In doing so, she followed in the footsteps of Governor Napolitano who vetoed similar tax-killing legislation the year before. If she couldn’t stomach signing the bills she could have allowed the legislation retiring the state property tax forever to become law without her signature. But she did exhibit leadership and vetoed them. Twice. That’s cold.

But Jan Brewer has a distinguished and controversial history of property tax increases. Her tax promiscuity caused her great stress and embarrassment in 2002 when she was called on it by her opponent for the Republican nomination for Secretary of State, Sal DiCiccio, the former and current Phoenix city councilman. The Arizona Republic’s Bob Robb laid out the dust up in his July 19, 2002 column titled, “Of all the races to brew a rumble: Secretary of State?”

“Brewer hotly denies the charge, pointing out that the property tax rate declined while she was on the board. As it did. But the resourceful Arizona Tax Research Association got the Legislature in 1996 to pass a bill, called “Truth in Taxation,” to expose the game politicians play with tax rates as opposed to tax levies.”

“Property values are, of course, rapidly rising, particularly in the Valley. That means the same, or even somewhat lower, rate can produce higher tax bills. “Truth in Taxation” requires that the previous rate be rolled back to reflect subsequent appreciation in previously existing land and improvements. Governments then have to provide public notice and vote on increasing the rolled-back truth-in-taxation rate.”

“Clearly Tax Research’s intent was that the truth-in-taxation rate would become the base against which the question of whether property taxes are being increased would be measured. And Jan Brewer, who was in the Legislature at the time, voted for “Truth in Taxation.” Since she has been a county supervisor, the county has fairly consistently voted to exceed the truth-in-taxation, and Brewer has voted with the majority. So DiCiccio is right: Brewer did vote several times as a county supervisor to raise property taxes, properly understood.”

The Arizona Daily Star backed up DiCiccio’s in an August 22, 2002 ad watch examining the truth of his charge in a campaign spot.

“When Brewer was chairwoman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, county officials boasted that the 2001-02 budget marked the third consecutive year the board reduced the tax rate. In the 2001-02 budget, the county even notified residents that it was able to afford a 3-cent tax cut for its citizens.”

“At the same time, however, property values rose steeply, resulting in higher average tax bills. According to the Arizona Tax Research Association, it would have required a 4.7-cent cut in the rate in 2001-02 to hold taxpayers at existing levels. In fact, supervisors actually increased the primary levy for operating revenues by nearly 2 cents, although it was offset by a reduction in the secondary rate for past bond sales.”

Yeah, but that’s a decade ago—a youthful indiscretion however repeated and chronic.

Not so fast.

On December 21, 2009, in her best Yuletide cheer and after triumphantly concluding a special session that didn’t balance the budget, Brewer conducted a public cabinet spectacle where she outlined how bad our budget situation was at that time. In an eerie foreshadowing of Brewer’s tried-and-true abuse of truth-in-taxation she bemoaned the lowering of the “qualified tax rate” to a $2.74 rate in 2010 from a $4.40 rate back in 1998 all in keeping with the above mentioned ‘Truth in Taxation” law that the State of Arizona, if not Brewer’s Maricopa County, stayed faithful to. She quantified the amount of money Arizona was losing at $700 million per year. (See Page 19 of this PowerPoint presentation from the Governor’s official website).

Seven-hundred million dollars in faithless overturning of “Truth in Taxation” doesn’t fill a $1.2 billion hole but it does get you almost there. No single Brewer tax increase will balance her budget. So far, a $250 million property tax increase and $1 billion sales tax increase haven’t done the trick. Another $700 million property tax shift won’t solve our budget deficit either. But it is coming, like day follows night, from a lame-duck Brewer who may be awarded four years to conjure many more tax hike schemes that will surely earn the teachers union approval like Prop. 100.

Several weeks ago, I posted about how the right, in its vigor to try to stem the problems of illegal immigration, is actually advancing the leftists agenda of national id and north american integration.

This installment is to provide more evidence of the same.

In a March 8, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, “ID Card for Workers is at Center of Immigration Plan”, you can see that it is the explicit intent of the leftists (such as Schumer), globalists and RINOs (such as Lindsay Graham) to force anyone applying for a job to present a national id to obtain one.

What do you think e-Verify is?  It’s a web front end sitting on top of the US Department of Homeland Security’s national id database which integrates data from the US Department of Labor, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department, pretty much every department, but most importantly and worst of all, from the states.

Why do the feds need the state data on the states’ own citizens so badly?  Because otherwise, the feds to not have all of the data they need to track each legal citizen uniquely.  Why? Because in the past it’s been ILLEGAL to do so.  Not to mention the fact that there is absolutely no authority in the constitution for the federal government to track law abiding citzens, nor to expend sacred tax dollars on doing so.

How does the federal government get data from the states?  There are several ways, but here’s a summary of a few relevant ones….

1) 42USC666 (a)(13), implemented under the federal Deadbeat Dad’s law.  This federal statute required states to collect SSNs from all drivers’ license applicants and remit them to the federal government.  However, this information alone was still not enough to create a water  tight data tracking system for citizens (nor to obtain enough information on individuals to tie to legal gun purchases from dealers, but that’s another story.)

2) REAL ID. The REAL ID program was a federal mandate on the states to collect and remit certain information on their citzens in order for the federal government to complete building out their national id database.  The cost of compliance on states was very high.  Additionally, conservatives opposed this strongly on religious and political grounds and many states, such as Arizona, “opted out”.

3) A state voluntarily hands over the data.

This one is a tricky one.  For example, the state of Arizona, has always traditionally resisted handing over data from its law abiding citizens.  However, recently under SB1070, the anti-immigration law, SB1070 removes ALL RESTRICTIONS from sending and exchanging license data for ANY LICENSE for ANY PERSON (legal or illegal), with ANY AGENCY of the federal government.

SB1070 does not restrict the sending and exchange of law abiding Arizona citizens’ data with the feds to a police stop.  It removes ALL RESTRICTIONS and ALL PROHIBITIONS from the exchange of law abiding Arizona citizens’ license data with the federal government, beginning July 1.

That means any agency that has license data on Arizonans can send all or none, it can send the entire database of license data anytime it wants, beginning July 1, 2010.

You can rest assured that the federal government, especially Janet Napolitano and the US Department of Homeland Security, will amply incentivize the MVD and DPS to do so, so she can get her hands on the data she needs to track your gun purchases, among other things.

So, whereas Arizona opted out of the federal mandate program called “REAL ID” wherein the federal government attempted to pull data from Arizona to complete its national id database data on Arizona citizens, under SB1070, Arizona turns around and hands Janet Napolitano and G_d only knows who else, including the IRS, all data it has on you as a law abiding Arizona citizen.

Hmm… betcha didn’t know that was in the immigration law, did ya?

Read the bill - indeed.

So, how does that turn Arizona licenses into national ids?  Despite the cartoon picture at the top of this post, a national id is not a card, barcode, RFID chip, nor a magnetic strip.

It is the DATA the government has on you, such as your unique identifers, name, domicile, any biometric identifiers such as the digitized MVD photo on your license, which is also in your MVD data file.

So, if Arizona hands the data over to the feds and the feds promptly stick the data in their national id database and all of that data links directly to your drivers license, guess what?!?!?!?

VOILA…. your Arizona drivers license turns into something Clinton always pined for and dreamed of foisting on the country, A NATIONAL ID CARD!

The same card can and will be used to deny birth certificates for your children, unless you agree to a national id card check.

The same card can and will be used to deny you the ability to work, per the WSJ article above, to deny you work.  In other words, no citizen may work before the US Department of Homeland Security clears them to work (or doesn’t if you happen to be a political opponent.)

If you do not have your unique identifiers and national id on your mind or in your hand at all times,  you will be denied the ability to buy, sell, or engage legally in any commercial transaction, such as banking, buying/selling a home, opening a business (SB1070 does not exempt the exchange of business license data with the feds either.)

Conservatives have ALWAYS opposed national ids, since day 1 when FDR wanted them, in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was vehemently opposed, in the 1990s the conservatives stopped every Clinton and democrat attempt at creating them.

Now, conservatives are supporting them.    Worse, it’s conservatives advancing the leftist globalist agenda, which has always been to number and catalog citizens as a form of control and……..

.

Hospital bed tax proposed?  See video at the end of this article.

The heaps of praise from the liberal Democrats continues for this self-proclaimed “Constitutional Conservative”!  Even a former McCain campaign staffer took time to leave comments of praise in Mr Konopnicki’s local hometown weekly newspaper.  And tomorrow, he’s co-hosting a $2,500/person fundraiser at the Biltmore for the Democrats and his liberal Republican pals.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2010/06/10/20100610thurlets102.html

A m e r i c a n  P o s t – G a z e t t e

Distributed by C O M M O N  S E N S E , in Arizona

Tomorrow Arizonans head to the polls to vote up or down an on 18% sales tax increase. Proponents have been running television ads on TV claiming that our schoolchildren will be hurt if it does not pass. Really? One out of every nine children in Arizona’s schools came here illegally, and that is considered a conservative estimate. $430 million from Prop. 100 is designated to go to K-12 education. 1/9th of that equals $47 million. And even that is a conservative estimate, because the state is required to give more money to schools in poor neighborhoods – which have more illegal immigrants. Do the schools really need this additional money? SB1070 has resulted in thousands of illegals fleeing the state. There will be less children in the schools so less money is needed to teach them. In reality, the schools don’t need more money, they need to be better managed. For example, “While cutting teacher pay, laying off teachers, and pleading poverty, Paradise  Valley Unified School District was busy spending $49 MILLION on no bid contracts to ‘green’ some offices, expand the Benefits Office, buy sustainable green recycled carpet at 31 sites and sustainable roofs at 16 locations.” Click here to read the full outrageous story. If the state is really broke, there are other areas that can be cut instead of raising taxes, like cutting off the millions of tax dollars given to private lobbyists for government agencies each year. Government agencies shouldn’t be paying expensive outside lobbyists to grow and perpetuate their bureaucracies. If Prop. 100 passes, you can fully expect to see millions more of your money going for non-educational purposes like “greening” the schools, and more than $47 million to illegal immigrants. Please forward to everyone you know.

We’ve seen Jan Brewer’s inarticulate admonitions to vote for Prop. 100, we’ve seen Goldwater underscore that there is more fat to be cut from government. Now, we see the quality of individuals who support prop 100 in this video.  According to this story, a benighted ASU student who supports Prop 100 decided free speech isn’t a right to be accorded to those he disagrees with.  The student was caught red-handed tearing down anti-Prop 100 signs by Mr. Brandon Trichel.  According to Mr. Trichel, about 80% of the anti-Prop 100 signs have been torn down by those who want to take more money from you to spend on what they deem your money is best spent on.  It is little wonder the No on Prop. 100 campaign looks disorganized when thugs are tearing down the signs.

I can’t urge voters enough to go to the polls on Tuesday and vote NO on Prop. 100.  The election was purposefully held on an odd date (Tuesday, May 18) and was intended to be the only issue on the ballot so that a low voter turnout and voter disinterest would allow highly organized constituencies to confiscate more of your money so they can waste it.  Teachers unions, school administrators, police unions, fire unions, the brainwashed parents of public school students, local government workers, construction contractors that build schools and their associated trade unions, etc. will all turn out on Tuesday if they haven’t already sent in their early ballots to force those least able to afford higher taxes to pay more for their purchases.  Arizonans should know well that the lottery was supposed to fund education, and we have repeatedly voted for bonds and overrides and we have thrown money at education time and again all to no avail.  No matter how much money we throw at education, greedy administrators and entrenched special interests will ensure Arizona’s students remain at the back of the pack.  It’s time to send state government a loud and clear message that it’s time to trim the fat.

Mr. Trichel, I strongly urge you to press charges against the student.  It will teach him that the First Amendment still means something and it will convince future tyrants who hate liberty and the free exchange of ideas to think twice before trampling on the rights of others.  Would this tool or his ilk have mercy for any anti-Prop 100 individuals who were caught tearing down Yes on Prop. 100 signs?

If only Governor Jan Brewer could take the same approach to cutting spending, cutting taxes and reducing the size of government.

I fear for my state.  The video posted below by SoundAdvice is disturbing and very important for every voter to see before the August 24th Arizona Republican gubernatorial primary.  If you know someone who has not yet voted on Prop. 100, please show them this video and have them read the transcript I provide below before the May 18th special election.  This video is guaranteed to motivate the apathetic voter to rally to the “NO on 100” side and show up to cast their ballot in person on Tuesday.  

The Buz Mills campaign, please, carefully and fairly edit this spectacle down to 60 seconds and broadcast it on every Arizona television station.  You have the resources.  As a man who believes he has what it takes to lead us through these terrible economic times, you have a duty to Republicans and to Arizona to ensure Gov. Brewer never again takes the oath of office as Arizona’s governor.  There will be plenty of time to sort out Dean Martin and John Munger.  Expose Brewer now before it’s too late.

When I first watched it, I found the sound in the explosive Brewer Verbal Assault Video a little hard to make out.  So, I decided to create a transcript to clearly reveal the true offensiveness and creepiness of Brewer’s unprofessional and thoroughly inappropriate rant.

Please make sure this video and transcript get wide distribution before Tuesday’s important vote.  I’m honestly unsettled about having that woman in a position of trust and responsibility.  It might be too late to defeat Prop. 100 with all those early ballots already submitted.  But it is not too late to save our state from an over-her-head political flunky who has risen far, far beyond her Peter Principle level.

– MBW

VIDEO:

TRANSCRIPT:

[The exchange is largely inaudible until Voter holds up a penny in her left hand while Gov. Jan Brewer clutches her on her right side in an awkward embrace]

VOTER: Penny tax, Penny tax!

BREWER: You vote “yes.”

[Voter holds up her hand where “NO on 100” is written in marker on her palm]

VOTER: I voted “no.”  Sorry.

BREWER: Are they your children?

VOTER: These are my kids, yeah!  No, I’m sorry.  You know what? It’s been such a struggle for me.  And if, if there would have been a pay cut for…

BREWER: You know what?

VOTER: If there would have been…

BREWER: Know what?

VOTER: …a pay cut for those fat-cat administrators…

BREWER: Let me tell you something … let me tell you… if you vote “no” it’s going to be more trouble for you because you are going to have uneducated children, you are not going to have any jobs in the state of Arizona and no recovery and who will you have to blame but yourself?

VOTER: You know what I heard?  We can take the money for other programs…

[Brewer repeatedly points her finger or fingers at the chest of the voter throughout the following]

BREWER: That’s not true.  Do you think that Jan Brewer… do you think… do you think that I, whose has never voted for a tax increase in my life, would have done that? Do you think that I, who has stayed up night after night after night, week after week after week, making myself sick – to say we can’t raise taxes, it just can’t make it work?  There is no other way to turn our economy around.  If you say “no” just because you don’t have the facts… and I don’t think you have the facts… if you had the facts, I think you would vote “yes.”  You can’t do that to your children. You can’t do that to yourself and you can’t do that to the state of Arizona.  It’s a one penny tax, temporary, for three years so we can correct the structural deficit.

VOTER: That would be fine with me if, if other people would take a pay cut.  The $41 million in Paradise Valley…

BREWER: Who hasn’t taken… who hasn’t taken a pay cut?

VOTER: I think there needs to be…

BREWER: Who? 

VOTER: There needs to be more…

BREWER: Who?

VOTER: More…

BREWER: Who? Who? Who hasn’t taken a pay cut?

VOTER: I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I don’t want to… I’m sorry… [inaudible]

BREWER: I’m just… You know I’m just so concerned because you’ve got your children. I have no… no… I don’t have, but I don’t have children in the schools.

[Fade to disgust]

Democrat President Harry Truman is reported to have once said, “Give the people a choice between a Republican and a Republican and they will vote for the Republican every time.”

That was then, this is now.

Accidental Governor Jan Brewer’s sales tax increase compulsion has rewritten that sentiment, “Give the people a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat and they will vote for the Democrat every time.”

What a disgrace.

– MBW

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May, 11, 2010                                                         

GODDARD STANDS WITH TEACHERS

Having Killed Irresponsible Corporate Tax Giveaways, Attorney General Supports Prop 100 For Schools

Phoenix – Today Attorney General Terry Goddard stood with teachers to support the temporary sales tax increase, Prop. 100. His support came after Governor Jan Brewer finally heeded Goddard’s call to reject a massive corporate tax giveaway which would have been detrimental to Arizona’s economy, costing Arizona taxpayers up to $950 million per year. Today Brewer said that there was “no way” she would “do the business tax cuts.” 

In March, Goddard sent Governor Brewer a letter calling on her to promise to veto the fiscally irresponsible measure.  ”The corporate tax giveaways that were proposed were always the wrong thing to do for our state-and thankfully we stopped them,” said Goddard. 

Now that the corporate tax giveaways are off the table, Goddard announced his support for Prop. 100.  ”Prop 100 is not the long term solution that we need, but we cannot balance the budget on the backs of our children.”  

In contrast to the current approach taken at the Capitol, Goddard has promised an administration that will put aside political labels, and bring together leaders of all parties in order to find solutions to Arizona’s budget problems. 

Got to give credit where credit is due.  While the State, DPS and Redflex (a foreign corporation) will never acknowledge the guys at camerafraud.com nor Arizonans Citizens Against Photo Radar, the State of Arizona has ended their contract with Redflex and the 24×7 streaming video recorders (aka photo radar cameras) on the highways of Arizona are coming down.

Unfortunately, the video recorders on the highways only represent 10% of all photo radar on the streets in Arizona.  Therefore, their ballot initiative is actively continuing to collect signatures in order to ensure that the remaining 90% of these streaming video surveillance devices and revenue generators (which actually increase accident rates) get taken down permanently.

In other words, by ending the contract, the state has effectively done next to nothing for Arizona citizens.  A big THANK YOU to camerafraud.com and Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar for continuing the fight to bring down the 90% of video recording cameras that will remain on Arizona’s streets after the Reflex cameras on the highways come down in July.

by Byron Schlomach, Ph.D.
Goldwater Institute
 
State finances will be in worse shape in 2014 if the proposed 18 percent increase in the state sales tax passes on May 18, according to long-term projections by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. With Proposition 100′s passage, the deficit in 2014 would be almost $1 billion. Without Prop. 100′s tax increase, the projected 2014 deficit would be $200 million.

These new estimates highlight the fact that Prop. 100 fails to address the state’s long-term structural deficit brought on by too much spending. Past spending and new programs were not adequately funded when they were signed into law. But the damage this caused to the state’s financial stability wasn’t clear for a few years because tax revenues spiked during the real estate bubble. JLBC’s deficit projections assume the state maintains current eligibility requirements for taxpayer-funded health care, which is likely given the new mandates passed under the federal health care bill.

Prop. 100 is, at best, a partial, short-term fix to a long-term problem. Projected deficits in 2014 markedly worsen with the proposition’s passage for one simple reason: The tax increase is supposed to be temporary. This will allow the government to keep spending more than it would otherwise bring in through regular tax collections. In contrast, if Prop.100 is rejected, the state will have to adjust its spending priorities and get spending back in line with the normal tax revenues coming in the door.

Increasing taxes “temporarily” now just assures that we will have this debate again in three years. The only way to permanently solve an over-spending problem is to stop over-spending. That means we must take on the challenge of weeding out ineffective programs and waste and stop asking families to sacrifice so the government doesn’t have to.

Dr. Byron Schlomach is an economist and the director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute.