Our arguments, in concept, are over entitlements. Framed, time and time again as reductions in spending vs. tax increases. The tax increase argument requires the belief that people will not do without.
Proposition 100 is going to be a bell weather.
5 comments:
The many reasons for voting 'yes' on Prop. 100 add up. If you can do basic math, you know that Proposition 100 is the right answer for Arizona.
The state has slashed spending by historic amounts, borrowed heavily and "rolled over" huge obligations into the future. And we're still nearly $1 billion short for next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
This is an addition problem. We need more revenues. Proposition 100 has the solution: a sales-tax increase of 1 cent per dollar for three years.
The recession and the mortgage crisis pounded Arizona harder than almost any other state.
Revenues are a third lower than in 2007. But we have more people, more students, more prisoners and a dramatically higher need for health services.
Economists say it will take three to five years for the state to reach the revenue levels of 2007. We need Proposition 100 to bridge the gap.
The Legislature wrote the 2011 budget assuming the tax increase would pass. And even so, there are harsh reductions.
Lawmakers also created a contingency plan in case Prop. 100 doesn't pass.
It would take a chain saw to education. It would dump a massive financial burden on counties. The math is mind-boggling.
The state would have to cut more than $420 million from K-12 schools, $120 million from higher education, $90 million from public safety and $200 million from health care and human services.
Those are on top of repeated rounds of budget reductions, adding up to more than $2.2 billion and shrinking the general-fund budget to $8.9 billion.
School districts have run the numbers, and the drop in spending is enormous.
Mesa Public Schools, for instance, has already lost $428 per student in past budget cuts. It would lose an additional $417.
Districts have had to make their own contingency plans, which include laying off teachers, stuffing more kids into classrooms, eliminating music and art, slashing gifted programs and pushing fees for sports and other activities sky-high.
If Prop. 100 failed, the total cuts to university spending would hit 30 percent. That could mean closing programs, capping enrollment and hiking tuition yet again.
Do the math.
Education is a major driver in today's economy. If Arizona subtracts so much support at every level of education, it will seriously reduce our ability to compete for jobs and new business.
Prop. 100 is also critical to prevent further reductions in state services for the needy and vulnerable. Those include treatment for the seriously mentally ill, assistance for drug-addicted mothers and child-care subsidies. This spending isn't pure compassion. It makes economic sense to help Arizonans work, protect the well-being of children and keep people healthy, avoiding crises that send them to the emergency room.
Public safety is at stake, too. The contingency plan would send more than 13,000 state prisoners back to the counties that sentenced them. But counties don't have the space, personnel, money or programs to handle a flood of felons, many of them violent and repeat offenders.
Overcrowding issues could force counties to release convicted criminals early. And the expense could bankrupt them, especially since counties are bound by legal spending and taxing limits.
Raising taxes right now, in a weak economy, is a tough decision. But add up the reasons, and the answer is clear: On Tuesday, vote "yes" on Proposition 100.
Europe's Lack of Discipline
By George Will
WASHINGTON -- When Chancellor Angela Merkel decided that Germany would pay part of Greece's bills, voters punished her party in elections in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. How appropriate.
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, ratified Europe's emerging system of nation-states. Since the end of the Thirty-One Years' War (1914-1945), European elites have worked at neutering Europe's nationalities. Greece's debt crisis reveals this project's intractable contradictions, and the fragility of Western Europe's postwar social model -- omniprovident welfare states lacking limiting principles.
Greece represents a perverse aspiration -- a society with (in the words of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan) "more takers than makers," more people taking benefits from government than there are people making goods and services that produce the social surplus that funds government. By socializing the consequences of Greece's misgovernment, Europe has become the world's leading producer of a toxic product -- moral hazard. The dishonesty and indiscipline of a nation with 2.6 percent of the eurozone's economic product have moved nations with the other 97.4 percent -- and the United States and the International Monetary Fund -- to say, essentially: The consequences of such vices cannot be quarantined, so we are all hostages to one another and hence no nation will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness.
The argument also involves honesty. One cannot advocate continuation of existing entitlement programs and tax cuts at the same time. We have to pay for the programs through taxes, which we have not been doing for the past eight years. If low tax rates are the priority, say so, and propose elimination of the costly entitlements.
The Republicans and the Tea Party in particular act as if we can "stop the spending" painlessly and never specify where to cut. Like the Good Doc, they may list cuts that do not add up to much and pretend that solves the problem. It is a fundamentally dishonest approach.
Like Bruce Bartlett and other responsible economists, I accept that Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are not going away. We need to urgently restrain their growth while also making provisions to PAY FOR THE POPULAR PROGRAMS. What is the alternative?
but why not cuts that "don't amount to much"? Why?
Earmarks, specifically are corrupting and low anding fruit.
Jimmy ~
I am all for cuts that add up beginning FY2011, when the economy will no longer be on life support. Why stop at cuts that don't add up to much.
My objection to the mini-cuts is not the cuts, but the suggestion that they accomplish anything substantive. They are political posturing intended to mislead gullible voters into believing that a simple solution is available if only they will elect Republicans. They won't screw things up so bad this time - see - they are for tax cuts and (painless) spending reductions! What's not to like?
You & I agree about earmarks. That said, I will again point out that they do not add to spending, they merely allocate money that has already been set aside. Further, there is no greater proponent of earmarks than Mitch McConnell (R), minority leader in the Senate. You & I agree because it is a system that breeds corruption - just ask Duke Cunningham and William Jefferson.
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