by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Mar 4, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
For Maricopa County motorists, high gasoline prices are no longer an occasional inconvenience but a recurring hit to their wallets.
The story is the same every year. Every summer as temperatures rise, prices at the pump jump as well, often by as much as fifty cents per gallon in Maricopa County. Yet these price fluctuations, as frustrating as they have been for drivers, may soon look mild compared to what’s coming.
Arizona’s Historic Fuel Problem Will Only Get Worse In the Future
Arizona’s chronically high gas prices have been driven by two key factors. The first is that Maricopa County is required to use a specialized “clean burning gasoline” (CBG) blend that only a handful of refineries from around the country can produce. Compounding this issue is that Arizona does not have any in-state refining capacity of our own, making us reliant on imported refined fuel from high-cost California.
These complications have made our state vulnerable to price shocks. In 2003, a major pipeline failure limited gasoline shipments into Arizona and caused immediate price spikes and shortages.
In 2022, while gas prices did increase throughout the nation due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Maricopa County motorists were hit with significant price spikes, and consistently paid far above the national average. In 2023 and again in 2024, price volatility in Phoenix surged even when national averages stabilized.
And now this problem is only going to get worse…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 26, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
It’s not an accident that the top issue talked about by politicians these days is affordability. Over the last 5 years the cost of pretty much everything has gone through the roof, largely caused by the trillions in reckless spending by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Washington.
Taming inflation must remain our top economic priority, and the good news is that Arizona Republicans are taking meaningful steps to bring costs down. After adopting a 2.5% flat income tax under Governor Doug Ducey in 2022, state lawmakers have fought to slash grocery taxes, residential rental taxes and eliminate regulations that are driving up the cost of energy and housing.
Yet while the Republican controlled legislature is doing everything it can to make sure hardworking taxpayers get to keep more of their hard-earned dollars, municipalities throughout Arizona are passing an avalanche of tax and fee increases that are costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 20, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
It feels like just about everywhere you turn, politicians are inventing new ways to yank more money out of your wallet. There are property taxes, gas taxes, grocery taxes, and more. We’ve even seen cities and towns push their own tax, utility rate, and “fee” increases. (How are those water bills treating you, Gilbert?) And now, some states—like California and Massachusetts—are pursuing a tax that would charge you a fee for every single mile you travel in your vehicle.
So much for affordability.
Earlier this month, California’s legislature advanced AB 1421. If passed and signed by Governor Newsom, this bill would create a “road user charge” pay-per-mile system for our neighbors to the west. It also includes studying how to capture out-of-state vehicles as well in case you thought your trip to Disneyland couldn’t get any more expensive.
If you don’t think such a tax is possible, think again…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 13, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
On March 10, Pima County residents will decide whether to fund another 20-year, $2+ billion transportation plan after the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) failed to deliver on the last one. Two propositions will appear on their ballot this month related to this plan.
Proposition 418 would approve the new “RTA Next” transportation plan. Proposition 419 would extend the existing ½-cent sales tax to fund it. Both propositions must be passed for the plan to move forward. If approved, the new tax would begin April 1, 2026, just a few months before the original RTA plan officially expires in June.
The RTA is an independent taxing district specifically for Pima County. Its board is comprised of elected officials from local, tribal, and state governments that approve and oversee transportation projects. Back in 2006, voters were promised countywide improvements to roads, transit, and other infrastructure, funded by a 20-year timeline and a dedicated ½-cent sales tax increase. Fast forward to 2026, and several projects are unfinished, or never even started at all. Now, voters are being asked to extend the tax for another 20 years to finish what should have already been completed. That’s not a plan; it’s a bailout.
The project list for the RTA Next consists of multiple road improvements, bicycle infrastructure upgrades, transit improvements, and more. Many of these are the projects left unfinished during the first 20 years. They continue to blame their failures on Covid, the great recession of 2008, population growth not matching projections. The reality is that the actual problem is staring themselves in the mirror…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 9, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Governor Katie Hobbs rolled out her budget last month and, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t add up.
Not only because her “solutions” don’t match the problems she claims to be solving, like suggesting we can make goods and services more affordable by piling on new taxes and fees, but because her budget quite literally just doesn’t add up.
While it’s become common for governors to release budgets built on rosier revenue assumptions than the Legislature’s more conservative Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC), Hobbs’ proposal relies on projections so fanciful it resembles a fairy tale more than a fiscal plan.
Counting Chickens Before They Hatch
Hobbs’ budget is a $17.7B spending plan ($100M more than last year) that leaves a meager $37.8M balance at the end of FY27. That means her revenue projections leave very little room for error. Yet one of the more obvious facts about her budget is just how likely error-prone these projections are, a fact that Republicans during a joint appropriations hearing were sure to point out.
One of the most speculative assumptions Hobbs is making in her budget proposal is relying on $760 million of “reimbursements” from the federal government for expenditures the state has made for border security since 2021. That is a good chunk of change, and her budget is unworkable without it.
The problem is it is actually way more likely than not that even if the state receives something in the way of reimbursement, it will not be the full amount, and who knows on what timeline. Regardless, it is irresponsible to commit money out the front door that may never come in.
This is nothing new for Hobbs. Just last year she continued a COVID-era program that neither had legislative authorization to continue nor the ongoing financial allocations to support it. That wound up blowing a $122M fiscal hole in the previous year’s budget mid-session that Republicans had to mop up.
The Governor’s budget also depends on tapping the State Land trust for another $1.5 Billion. Setting aside whether its a good idea to raid the land trust set up for various beneficiaries (K-12, Universities, deaf and blind, etc), changing the formula for trust land distributions requires a constitutional amendment that would need to be approved by voters in November.
Hobbs’ “Affordability” Plan is Really a Chaotic Tax-And-Spend Plan
Hobbs wants to brand her budget as improving affordability, but it does just the opposite. Every idea in her plan is built around $1B in new taxes and fees and the hope that the bureaucracy can “manage” the cost of living while literally contributing to its inflation…
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