by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jun 5, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Since the 2020 election, the left has been accusing conservatives of spreading the “Big Lie”—a label attached to anyone who believes that voter fraud does occur and that there are legitimate election integrity reforms that require legislative attention. Every reform that lawmakers have introduced has been labelled “Jim Crow 2.0,” and the left has rallied hundreds of organizations to prevent them from becoming law.
Yet while decrying legitimate election reforms from conservatives, liberals have been busy pushing their own election bills, such as HR1, which would have federalized our entire election process and completely changed the way we vote. It was a radical bill that fortunately stalled in the U.S. Senate due to a lack of votes.
But their defeat in Washington hasn’t stopped the left in their quest to undermine the security of our elections and chill our speech rights. A coalition of liberal organizations have decided to bring HR1 to Arizona with a new ballot measure called “Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections.” Suffice to say, there is nothing free or fair about it…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 29, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The overwhelming majority of people are done with COVID restrictions. Just look at the reaction when mask mandates were put to an end on airplanes last month. Cheering. Celebration. Throwing masks away. There’s nothing surprising about this—unless of course you’re a member of the liberal media.
With a desire to tackle COVID overreach head on, our own state lawmakers got to work last year. And through a series of Budget Reconciliation Bills, they took important steps to protect Arizonans from more COVID mandates.
But then in November, some of the protections were thrown out in court on procedural grounds. Thankfully, the Arizona legislature didn’t ignore the problem and got back to work this year. Now, they have passed several significant bills that are officially signed into law to protect against future COVID and government overreach…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 18, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Push a sympathetic message. Drum up a bunch of misguided support. And then aim for a ridiculous tax increase. That was the strategy from Red4ED after it launched a little over four years ago.
In that spring of 2018, the color red was popping up all over the place—from Facebook profile pictures to protests at the state Capitol. And it was supposedly all about increasing teacher salaries and funding for K-12 education. It was a movement that had great momentum, a sycophant media, and a political class that was terrified to stand up to them. Yet they figured out how to, in four short years, go from a political juggernaut to one of the largest and most expensive failures in Arizona political history.
Of course, defeating this multiyear assault on Arizona by Invest in Ed was a huge win for taxpayers, job creators, and the future prosperity of our state. And it would not have been possible without a combination of political miscalculations and blunders by the Red4ED decision makers and a consistent, sustained opposition from key organizations and elected officials willing to stand up to the bullies behind the movement…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 11, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Last year, the legislature passed historic tax cuts. The package was fair, lowering rates for all Arizonans across the board. Despite an effort funded with out of state millions to block the package and place it on the ballot, the cuts are in effect, and over the next two years our income tax will phase down to a single, flat rate of 2.5%.
That is what good tax policy looks like. Unfortunately, some legislators don’t want to be in the business of passing good tax policy. All too often they want to play the game of doling out taxpayer dollars to their special interest friends at the capitol, or to individuals in just straight welfare.
We have highlighted some of the bad tax credit programs being considered by lawmakers this year – hundreds of millions to woke Hollywood movie producers, millions to large corporations to fund liberal causes, both following millions doled out last year in corporate welfare.
In addition to these schemes, lawmakers are currently considering a measure, SB1018, to create a refundable “earned income” tax credit at the state level…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 7, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
If there’s one entity that specializes in giving people something they don’t need—or aren’t even asking for—it’s the government. So, naturally, while the country faces sky-high inflation and Arizonans make sacrifices in their family budgets, the Town of Gilbert saw fit to discuss a potential…commuter rail.
That’s right. At the end of April, the Gilbert Town Council announced that it’s considering a $289,000 consulting contract for a feasibility study on establishing a commuter rail. What this would accomplish—and why anyone thinks this would be good for Gilbert—remains a mystery.
Even before COVID, public transit usage has been on the decline. And that’s only worsened since…
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