The state of the state

Carl Muecke illustration

For all the talk about Arizona being flipped from red to blue, or at least purple, the reality on the ground is far different. That's because the most powerful branch of government, the Legislature, remains under Republican control — as it has for decades. The same situation is at work in the governor's office, where Doug Ducey is in his (term-limited) final stretch.

The most obvious result has been the "audit" of Maricopa County ballots, ordered by the Republican-run state Senate. Even if it eventually "validates" the election of Joe Biden as president, it has become a template for Republicans around the country and for any future elections they lose. It's hard to overstate the menace this presents to our experiment in self-government.

At the same time, the Legislature pressed two dozen voter suppression bills, intended to ensure that they continue to rule — widespread voting is the enemy of Republicans. One crafty measure will automatically purge by-mail voters who do not vote every two years. This happened even with mail voting widely popular in the state. Ducey took only a few hours before signing it into law.

Meanwhile, the body blows keep coming with such ferocity that it's difficult to keep up (see the daily headline links under "Phoenix and Arizona" to the left. The challenge is compounded by the hollowing out of local newspapers.

Ducey's signature achievement this legislative session was the passage of a $1.5 billion tax cut, imposing a so-called "flat tax." It's the largest cut in state history.

In addition to being the usual Aflac duck repetition by the GOP, this bill is intended to stick it to a majority of voters who approved Prop. 208. That 2020 initiative raised taxes on high earners to improve the embarrassingly low salaries for teachers and otherwise improve school funding. Arizona ranks second from the bottom in student funding and lowest in the nation for teacher salaries.

(The Legislature is undermining 208 in other ways, too. Republicans passed a measure "to allow the owners of small businesses — and anyone who organizes their finances for tax purposes as one — to escape paying the voter-approved income tax surcharge on the wealthy to fund education." It will deprive education of hundreds of millions of dollars, giving voters the finger.

The Ducey "flat tax" promises $350 to "the average taxpayer." In reality, most taxpayers will see far less — as if that sum was worth the opportunity costs of the measure. In reality, the bill gives the goodies to the wealthy. By "opportunity costs," I mean the public investments that won't be made. Beyond digging out of the hole on education funding, no money for commuter rail and expanded transit, restoring Amtrak to Phoenix, environmental protection and remediation, etc.

As a result, Arizona remains a state that won't attract top talent or advanced industries. Instead, at best, the same old call centers, data centers, and (water intensive) semiconductor fabs. Most of the economy will remain dependent on low-income jobs in tourism, catering to retirees, and construction.

One more: Legislative Republicans are trying to undo one of the most inheritances of Arizona's Progressive statehood, the initiative and referendum. This gives voters the power to place legislation on the ballot or repeal measures passed by the Legislature. But uppity sorts wanting to tax the rich to pay teachers is not to be allowed.

As the tax cut was sailing through, the annual gold-standard Kids Count was released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Arizona ranked 35th in economic well-being, 47th in education, 28th in health, and 46th in family and community. The leading states were uniformly blue with higher taxes.

You get what you pay for.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Roger]

It's clearly designed theft. From an azmirror article on why David Cook (R-Globe) voted against it:

"But Cook, who debated the budget while his home in Globe was under direct threat from the Telegraph Fire and while his family received an evacuation order during the House proceedings, made it clear that his objections were primarily rooted in the substance of the tax cuts. He raised the specter of the infamous debacle in Kansas, when a massive 2012 tax cut package triggered years of budget cuts and other fiscal woes, ultimately forcing that state’s Republican legislature to repeal many of the cuts."

We keep forgetting this just happened a few years ago. Not only that, but Pinal County is in serious trouble with their water situation, which will require money. He is part of a water users group trying to find a way out- but there is none.

Think of what is going on in Arizona this way: 'Get what you can while the getting is good.' They are getting and going before it all comes apart. We will be left holding the bag.

[Levi]

It is incumbent upon the Independent voters of Arizona to help wrest control of either the house or the senate or the governorship from the GOP.

[DoggieCombover]

Amen to flipping the legislature and/or governor to provide some semblance of sanity. I am almightily sick of the constant assault on freedom and democracy on a daily basis from the Republican "leadership," who ignore the bulk of the electorate. In particular, the pandering and posturing by the wannabes like Ducey, Brnovich et al. is painful and embarrassing to watch.

[Rogue Columnist]

A caution about "independent voters": Studies show that most self-identified independents consistently vote right or left.

[d]

Agreed on the "independent voter" being not so much. But they are likely the most persuadable of the voters, compared to wokesters and Trumpsters. This was an interesting piece in the NYT today, and I think dissects the mayoral election in New York city in a meaningful way.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/24/political-typology-reveals-deep-fissures-on-the-right-and-left/?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210629&instance_id=34110&nl=the-morning&regi_id=130225432&segment_id=62026&te=1&user_id=6f3e857b62dba555f91bf3e4df436edf

I maintain a Republican registration so I can can vote for the least crazy in primaries, which is often the defacto election in many cases anyway. I did the same in DC by being on the Dem rolls because the primary was truly the only election that mattered there.

[DoggieCombover]

Missed a beat on posting

[El Kabong]

Sigh.

[100 Octane]

Here is something to cheer everyone up...or not...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-30/trump-made-gains-in-2020-among-non-college-educated-hispanics?sref=4EVnFFsC

[euthanasia]

I need to post this just to see if I'm the only one who sees this, or has everyone gone batshit crazy in this country.

1. Joe Biden is NOT going to run again in 2024. He would be 82 years old. He is barely fricking alive now as it is? You damn well better find a viable replacement before then.

2. The GOP will never be BIPARTISAN. NEVER AGAIN. They will go scorched earth every chance they get. DON'T GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY!!

[100 Octane]

I agree that Biden won't run again, mostly due to age. He won (barely) because a small majority was sick of Trump. I also think Harris was a mistake as VP. She should have the AG job and be busy putting the insurrectionists in prison (all of them), instead of Merrick Garland, who seems ineffective at best.

The GOP is insane, the fact that they continue to operate as one of the two political parties just shows how far gone this country is.

[100 Octane]

"everyone gone batshit crazy in this country..."

Not everyone, but keep hope alive.

[Cal Lash]

Guano is dangerous shit if allowed to accumulate.

[euthanasia]

especially GOP guano and AZ is currently in over its head in the stuff. Karen Fann is producing more of the product than Hickman Farms.

[Euthanasia]

July fourth thoughts:

Forests are closed, still about one million of our closest friends are passing through payson.

How about we send fifty AZ national guard to the Canadian border?

Hard to believe that Karen Fann is making Kelli Ward look like a sane person.

Trump laundered a couple billion dollars of Russian mafia money through New York real estate. Feds hope to nail him for offering free parking for his employees. Job well done .

As children Trump ran into Merrick Garland at the beach. Trump kicked sand in his face. Merrick ran crying to his mommy. There’s a lesson about republicans and democrats in there somewhere.

Since 2001 7,000 troops have died in combat. 30,000 troops have killed themselves. If these numbers are anywhere in the vicinity of the truth, then enjoy the fourth as part of a sick, sick, sick country.

[Cal Lash]

"Manunkind" is of
NO BENEFIT to the
planet Earth

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@100 Octane, it's incorrect to associate the modern Republican ideology with insanity.

Don't mistake mental illness with malevolence of sober countenance.

The rightwing doesn't suffer from afflictions that can be catalogued in the DSM-V. They are highly functional, lucid and ruthless.

The anxiety, if you want to call it that, is real in a material sense. It is also malignant in an emotional and an ethical sense because of the coping and compensation mechanisms selected with the agency they have.

[100 Octane]

@Bobson, while I have no doubt you are correct (you sound a lot smarter then I am), perhaps in the clinical sense, they are not insane. But I am a blue collar guy who punches a time clock and see these people on a regular basis. For myself it is easier to keep things simple and consider them nuts. Why else would someone let Nancy Pelosi live in their head rent free?

[euthanasia]

Bobson, your description fits Mitch McConnel.

The bulk of the republicans in the US are ignorant by choice, angry because they are ignorant, misled because they are ignorant and dangerous because they are ignorant.

Notice the common thread?

[Cal Lash]

Happy 4th.
May you enjoy the new geological epoch:
The Anthropocene.
"Can we change nature, this time in order to save it?"
Elizabeth Kolbert

[El Kabong]

Oh c'mon, you Eeyores.

A year back we were teetering on the edge of fascism. We didn't go over. A pandemic was wrecking lives and livelihoods. It's abated some. Not all is gloom and doom.

Climate change is the scariest thing. I was an alarmist about it when that got you dismissed as a kook. I think the best we can hope for at this point is conditions that are awful but somewhat survivable. Kind of like the Black Death. That's not a very good best-case scenario.

[Cal Lash]

Survival:
I think thats what Kolbert is suggesting.
She is probably onto something.
And here i was hoping humans would wink out of existence. Oh well I am sending $$ to the Elephants.

[Cal Lash]

El bong
Yep the fascists lost out to the Oligarchs.
Meanwhile the planets on fire.
Coming soon to Netflix the history of american
fire fighters in the 10 century

[euthanasia]

A just in case posting:

Just in case any of you are getting heartburn about what is happening in Afghanistan, don't.

We are leaving and Afghanistan is returning to its natural state. A state which existed for 9,000 years before us. And a Muslim country for 1,400 years before we and the Russians stuck our nose where it didn't belong.

So don't worry about their Taliban issues.

Worry about the AZ Taliban in our state legislature and our National Taliban currently headed by Loser-Paluzza Trump.

[Cal Lash]

Helen, i agree with you on Afghanistan.
I had a friend that was a Marine and a Phoenix cop who flew helicopters for the PD and then for the Russians and the later for the CIA in Afghanistan.
I buried him back a few years ago in the Veterans Cemetery in Boulder Nevada.
When he retired he brought his Ukrainian wife to the United States along with her son who enlisted in the US Airforce.
The US folks that want to dominate the world have set it on fire.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@100 Octane, I understand where you're coming from. I have many people in my circles who would match the description of the people you describe as nuts.

We may wish for a desire to change their opinions, attitudes, politics and even behaviors. Rationality, say, would be a more virtuous worldview. But that's a mistaken notion.

If you seek a psychological explanation, turn to the American-Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer. He's done research on right-wing authoritarianism, or RWA, as a personality type. There's also a cousin of it called social dominance orientation, or SDO.

Rather than seeing RWA and SDO as pathologies, Altemeyer finds through the surveys that he developed that such personalities are much more normal than we think or are comfortable with. The surveys are conducted globally, and even in the most politically free and educationally advanced societies, at least one-third of society harbors authoritarian tendencies.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

I want to touch upon an idea I had, relating to Noah Millman's opinion piece in the New York Times about breaking up the larger states.

I've believed something similar. I've argued that instead of reapportioning House seats every decade, we should redraw state boundaries every decade and achieve parity among state populations.

One of the few shining examples of our rickety 18th century governmental framework is the system of federalism, in which subsidiary governments can act without waiting on the national representatives to act. (What the U.S. got wrong was remaining with a first-past-the-post presidential system; most democracies got it right with parliamentary systems).

It's subsidiarity, not the arbitary border lines of states, that give the government its character.

My proposal would be to apportion population equally among the available number of states. If we believe 50 is enough, and we give our territorial compatriots equal standing in government, each state should have among 7 million residents apiece. This might mean a dozen areas, states or even metro areas, might have to be partitioned from their existing government arrangements.

There's something neat if we take the approach of the minimal number of states. Let's say we model state borders around keeping the New York City Consolidated Statistical Area (23 million people among four states) as a single state unit.

We would get around 13 or 14 states, roughly the original number of the nation's original colonies.

The bad news is that someone, like Mr. Talton in Seattle, would live in a state that would have Minneapolis at the east end, Reno, Salt Lake City and Denver at the south end, and a lot of emptiness in between as a state. Plus Alaska.

A New York City-sized state could be crossed from one end to the other and back in less than a day. The northwest would need days or very expensive, carbon-intensive flights to survey. It also means government services by area are much more costly in these areas due to the lower or non-existent density.