With Bidenflation guzzling through the pockets of all Americans, especially at the gas station, we have heard more and more politicians promoting the idea of a gas tax holiday. Regardless of how popular the idea has become or how good it sounds among Republicans and Democrats alike, it’s still nothing more than a gimmick and talking point for campaigns.
A tax holiday isn’t a new idea. Several states have permanent sales tax holidays, commonly occurring for a week or two each year around the time kids return to school and parents are busy shopping for clothes and classroom items. But these permanent recurring tax holidays don’t accomplish what they seek to accomplish.
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…
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…
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…
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.
In addition to these schemes, lawmakers are currently considering a measure, SB1018, to create a refundable “earned income” tax credit at the state level…
