by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 4, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
If all else fails, run and hide. That seems to be the motto for Katie Hobbs anytime she’s confronted with a challenge. We saw it during her 2022 gubernatorial campaign when she refused to debate Kari Lake. We saw it when she ducked reporters asking for her reasoning behind refusing to debate Kari Lake. We saw it when she hid in a restaurant bathroom after another reporter asked her why she didn’t like discussing politics. And now that she’s governor, it should come as no surprise that Hobbs has chosen the same approach when it comes to the border crisis.
During the last three years, the Biden administration has completely abandoned its constitutional duty to protect each state from invasion, and Texas had enough. The state moved to defend itself from an unprecedented flow of illegal immigration due to the federal government’s negligence. And it has so far been supported by governors from 25 states who signed a joint statement standing with Texas.
Given Arizona’s dangerous situation at our own border, you would think Governor Hobbs would sign on or at least have something to say. But once again, she has chosen to run and hide…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 28, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Government officials throughout our country are in deep need of some education on the First Amendment. And the latest ones are currently serving in the Town of Gilbert right here in Arizona.
Last week, AZ Free News released an investigative report on Gilbert’s Office of Digital Government (ODG) and its Orwellian monitoring of employees’ online speech. For over a decade, the ODG, which is made up of approximately a dozen employees, has been working to ensure that Gilbert’s 30 official digital accounts—along with the personal online posts of all Town of Gilbert employees—align with a progressive, liberal agenda. And how much do you think this is costing taxpayers in Gilbert? Over $1.1 million each year in salary alone, with Chief Digital Officer Dana Berchman making over $200,000 annually.
When asked about the allegations in the investigative report, the town responded that it “will not tolerate divisive, offensive or culturally insensitive posts from employees purporting to represent the Town.” That’s interesting. Who decides what’s divisive, offensive, or culturally insensitive? The employees within the ODG? Dana Berchman herself?
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 27, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
A contentious fight is brewing in the Arizona legislature, the possible reauthorization of the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA). Governor Hobbs has made the reauthorization a top priority of her administration this session, mentioning it in her State of the State address. But the debate has an ironic element considering the history of its inception.
In 2011, the state was crawling out of a crippling recession, having lost literally hundreds of thousands of jobs and even selling off the state Capitol buildings to dig out of a deficit. The legislature, in collaboration with the Brewer Administration, introduced an omnibus bill sold as a “jobs package” which refashioned the bureaucratic Department of Commerce into the Arizona Commerce Authority, and incorporated both new targeted tax credit programs and incentives, as well as phased in corporate income and commercial property tax cuts.
Democrats a Decade Ago Opposed the ACA
The bill at the time was uniformly opposed by Democrats, including then Representative Katie Hobbs. Republicans mostly coalesced around the bill, with a handful of key conservatives voting in opposition of the legislation, largely in protest of the corporate welfare and multi-million-dollar “deal closing” fund with no legislative oversight. For those unfamiliar with the deal closing fund, it is a large pot of money appropriated to the Director of the Commerce Authority to throw at corporations to convince them to relocate to Arizona.
After the ACA was passed and signed into law, it would seem that only a few conservative voices and the Club itself would prove prophetic at the lack of oversight and inevitable gift clause violations, which is a constitutional protection from the government subsidizing private industry…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 20, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
If any business owner saw 450% growth in one of the company’s products or programs during a 15-month period, they would be ecstatic. And it’s safe to say that whatever that program was doing must be working. But for Governor Katie Hobbs and her allies in the teachers’ unions, who have never been known for their math skills, it’s a completely different story when it comes to the ESA program.
Back in July 2022, when then-Governor Doug Ducey signed universal school choice expansion into Arizona law, 13,400 students were enrolled in the ESA program. That number has now grown—as of January 16, 2024—to an astounding 73,415 students—a near 450% growth. Clearly, the program is in high demand, and it is definitely working. But after signing the Republican budget bill last year, without any cap or restrictions on ESAs, Hobbs is now trying to push a barrage of regulations that would effectively dismantle the popular program…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 14, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
When you’re hired to do a job, it stands to reason that you should actually do the job you’ve been hired to do. Think about it. If a company hired you to be a writer, and you never did any writing for the company, you probably wouldn’t keep your job too long. That is, of course, unless you work for the government.
For quite some time now, federal, state, and local governments across the country—including right here in Arizona—have been engaging in the practice of “release time.” If you’re unfamiliar with this term, it means that certain people are hired to do a specific job for the government, but instead of doing that job, they are “released” to work full-time for their union. This could be someone like a teacher, for example, who instead of teaching students, spends all his or her time doing work for the teachers’ union. But here’s the thing, even though these employees don’t actually work for the government, they still get a paycheck from the government—all funded by your tax dollars.
Is this practice unfair? Yes. Is it unconstitutional? Absolutely.
That’s why the Goldwater Institute has been challenging this practice in our state in a case that has made its way to the Arizona Supreme Court…
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