by Sergio Arellano | May 18, 2021 | Opinion
By Sergio Arellano |
Virtually since it was first announced, the effort by the Arizona State Senate to audit the results of the November general election in Arizona’s largest County has been mocked or vilified by members of the media and assorted partisan figures. There is little doubt that their initial attacks were designed to thwart an audit, and there is little doubt that most of the effort since then has been to discredit the process and its participants to the maximum degree possible. When I talk to political people, there is a consensus that this has been a deliberate sabotage in an effort to discredit any potential findings before they are disclosed. “Convince the voters in advance that the whole thing is a joke, and they won’t believe it if something real is turned up by the audit.” said one to me recently.
The entire state would be well served if everyone would take a deep breath, refrain from turning the effort into a partisan circus, and waited for any findings and supporting evidence.
In the meantime, let’s give credit where credit is due, to Senate President Karen Fann and State Senator Warren Petersen, both of whom continue to make themselves available to a media that is looking to undercut them, while providing reasoned answers in measured tones.
As someone who has dealt with a hostile media, I know how difficult it is to not get sucked into the insults and childish behavior. But that is often a tactic used by reporters who know that their own behavior will not be a part of the story, only the responses to their behavior. So they goad and wait, and too many elected officials fall for it. As a result we have the public spectacle of Republicans firing away at other Republicans in an increasingly personal way, just like the media wants.
Fann and Petersen know when to respond and how, and the points they make are generally fair and on target. The Senate has a responsibility and is acting on that responsibility. Opposition is largely partisan in origin and passionate objections to legitimate concerns come mostly from those who spent years insisting that Congress spends tens of millions of dollars investigating a Russia hoax that they got daily updates on from their MSNBC shows. Fann and Petersen recognize this hypocrisy and have kept focused on the audit itself, the need to do it right, and the importance of getting as many facts gathered as possible before conclusions are reached.
The audit will show that everything was largely done right, or it will show meaningful problems or weaknesses in systems that need to be corrected. Both outcomes are victories for Arizona voters, even though some will claim victory and insist it is a defeat for others. If all was well then that’s obviously good news. If corrections need to be made, then the fact that they were identified and can be fixed for future elections is also good news. We all benefit from a system that strives for perfection and is checked for improvements.
If you want Election Integrity, accurate and legitimate elections, and a process that every voter can largely trust, then you’re on the side of an accurate and professionally done audit that produces verifiable results. I for one, am more than willing to patiently wait for the process to work, and I’d encourage every Arizonan to do the same.
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Sergio Arellano was born and raised in Tucson, AZ. He joined the Army at the age of 17 and served his country honorably as an Infantryman and Human Resources Specialist for a total of 10 and a half years before retiring from the military due to combat sustained injuries.
Sergio is a founding member of the Arizona International Consortium, the Santa Cruz County Elections Integrity Committee, and the first ever AZGOP Latino Coalition. Sergio is also credited with establishing Arizona’s first ever cultural exchange agreements between the Arizona Republican Party and some of Mexico’s prominent political parties.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 15, 2021 | Economy, Opinion
By the Free Enterprise Club |
Unions are in decline in America, and it’s no surprise as to why. Most do not offer any sort of value to the overwhelming majority of workers.
You would think they could take a hint. In 2017, workers at Nissan in Mississippi and Boeing in South Carolina rejected union representation by a wide margin. In 2019, Volkswagen employees in Tennessee voted against unionizing for the second time in recent years. And just last month, employees at an Amazon facility in Alabama largely rejected joining the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union.
So, what solution has labor unions come up with? Will they focus on bringing more value to members or potential members? Will their leadership stop supporting liberal and other far-left causes? Will they stop pushing socialist policies and politicians?
Nope. Their solution is to force American workers to join unions through legislation.
H.R. 842, also known as the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, would enact sweeping changes to the National Labor Relations Act. And it’s dangerous in 3 particular ways.
- The PRO Act repeals all state right-to-work laws. Currently, 27 states have right-to-work laws, including Arizona. These laws ensure workers can choose whether or not to join a union and pay for representation. The PRO Act would remove these laws, which could cause some workers to lose more of their wages and others to lose their jobs…
>> READ MORE >>>
by Lacy Cooper | May 13, 2021 | Opinion
By Lacy Cooper |
For the last 15 years I’ve protected Arizonans and Americans from dangerous criminals – the past eight working for the United States Attorney’s Office securing the southwest border. I’ve seen how decisions made in the halls of power – whether it be Washington, D.C., or Phoenix – play out on the ground. When our leaders put politics and political correctness before safety and security, there are real life consequences.
I know this because I’ve had face-to-face conversations with cartel members and listened to wiretaps on their phones. I’ve investigated them for drug trafficking, human smuggling, murders and mutilations. That was my job. I was a border security section chief for the District of Arizona.
In March, the flood of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally was 67% higher than at the same time in 2019, when the United States last experienced a surge of immigrants at the border. According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.” Our southern border is not secure.
This is a crisis. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has declared a state of emergency in several counties and deployed the National Guard. And it is a crisis that is entirely President Joe Biden’s making. Every action by this administration sends a direct signal to bad actors who control the flow of immigrants and drugs across the border.
Biden’s public safety failure
The media frenzy surrounding Biden’s border crisis has served to cover up another truly frightening aspect of this administration’s immigration policy: the release of criminals from jails and prisons. On Inauguration Day, the Department of Homeland Security issued an immediate 100-day pause on certain deportations.
With few exceptions, individuals who were going to be deported and were just awaiting their complimentary flight (or walk) back to their home countries would no longer be removed. The immediate consequence was that convicted felons who did not have permission to be in the United States were released from prisons after their sentences and let onto the streets.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton successfully sued Washington and obtained a nationwide temporary restraining order preventing DHS from enforcing the 100-day moratorium. But the Biden administration simply issued replacement guidance, which had the same effect. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got the message – individuals who do not meet certain enforcement priorities should not be removed from the country. And unlike the 100-day pause, this new guidance has no expiration date.
The Biden administration’s enforcement priorities are so narrow that they exclude many violent offenders. Take, for example, the “public safety” priority. It allows ICE to remove individuals who have been convicted of an “aggravated felony.” Sounds serious, right? But what if I told you that some murder convictions do not qualify as aggravated felonies. To put it in perspective, at least one of the killing offenses for which former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin was convicted would not qualify.
Violent offenders on the street
I prosecuted a Honduran in 2014 who had been denied asylum but returned to the United States and got into an altercation during which he hit his victim in the head with a metal bar, fracturing his skull. The resulting aggravated assault conviction was not an aggravated felony.
Just last year, the 9th Circuit ruled that if an individual harms a pregnant mother and kills her unborn fetus, a murder conviction based on that conduct would not qualify as an aggravated felony. An Oregon robbery conviction was also excluded from the definition. Another 9th Circuit opinion called into question whether a child pornography conviction would qualify even when a child under 16 was involved. The 2nd Circuit found that a conviction for unlawful firearms trafficking was not an aggravated felony by the federal standard. And the 3rd Circuit found that a woman in her 30s who was convicted of having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old boy was not an aggravated felon.
And yet, this is the porous metric DHS has decided to use when determining whether our community’s public safety is a priority. Tragedy will undoubtedly flow from this awful choice, and it is not just those who reside in close proximity to the border who will be affected. President Biden, it’s time to make public safety a real priority.
Lacy Cooper was the border security section chief for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. She served 15 years as both a county and federal prosecutor targeting violent offenders, gang members, cartels and terrorists. She is now Of Counsel with the law firm of Schmitt Schneck Even & Williams. The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
by Grover Norquist | May 12, 2021 | Opinion
By Grover Norquist |
Arizona’s income tax – with a top rate of 8% – is not competitive. Reducing and eventually eliminating the state income tax would be a huge win for all Arizonans.
Individual taxpayers and families would be able to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks. Small businesses would be able to invest more in their employees. And Arizona would be much more attractive to businesses and investment, bringing new jobs and opportunities to the state.
Over the last decade, millions of people and jobs have been fleeing from high-tax states to states that do not impose income taxes. The ability to work remotely will only amplify this trend.
Unfortunately, Arizona’s current income tax puts it on the wrong side of this equation.
Arizona is a high tax state and slipping further
Under the status quo, Arizona’s income tax – with a top rate of 8% – is not competitive. Eight states – including Arizona’s neighbor Nevada and nearby Texas – do not impose individual income taxes of any kind. Thirty-two more states – count Arizona’s neighbors Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, among them – have top rates that are lower than Arizona’s.
Even worse for Arizona, the list of states that do not impose income taxes will continue to grow. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, and Arkansas Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin are among several key lawmakers that are working to eliminate income taxes in their states.
Unless Arizona begins reducing and phasing out its income tax, it will continue to fall behind.
The good news is Arizona’s leaders refuse to sit back and allow it to fail. Gov. Doug Ducey, Sen. J.D. Mesnard, President Pro Tem Vince Leach, Majority Leader Ben Toma and many others are eager to provide pro-growth income tax relief.
A flat tax is a much better way to go
They are working on a tax plan that would streamline Arizona’s current four-bracket system (five brackets when accounting for the Proposition 208 “surcharge” of 3.5% that will be imposed on certain income, resulting in top rate of 8%) down to a flat tax of 2.5%.
That would be lower than its current bottom rate of 2.59% (with adjustments being made to ensure that even with the Proposition 208 “surcharge,” which would effectively create two brackets, the top rate would not be higher than 4.5%).
Flat taxes protect all taxpayers from tax increases. Under a progressive income tax, taxpayers are divided into small groups, allowing politicians to rob them one by one. Raising a flat tax, on the other hand, is much more difficult because politicians are forced to answer to every single income tax filer.
Making this news even better, there is a serious effort to include a full phase-out of the income tax (excluding the Proposition 208 “surcharge”) over time through the use of revenue triggers, a responsible way for states to cut taxes without getting ahead of their ski tips.
It could bring new jobs, higher wages
If such a provision were included, Arizona would be a model for other states to copy.
In addition to reducing income tax rates, the Republican tax plan would provide even more income tax relief by quadrupling the child tax credit and by coupling the standard deduction to inflation.
The Republican tax plan would be a huge victory for every single Arizonan. Reducing and, ideally, eliminating the income tax would attract businesses looking to expand, investors looking for growing economies with hospitable tax climates and families looking for greater prosperity.
This would bring new jobs and opportunities to current Arizona residents.
Income tax relief would also allow small businesses, which overwhelmingly pay their income taxes on the personal side of the code, to invest in higher wages, and would allow the hardworking people of Arizona to keep more of their paychecks.
Arizona’s future will be brighter if it begins reducing and eliminating the state income tax.
Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform, a nonprofit taxpayer advocacy organization that was founded at the request of President Ronald Reagan. Reach him at gnorquist@atr.org.
by Craig Eyermann | May 11, 2021 | Opinion
By Craig Eyermann |
George Orwell has a famous insight from his 1945 work Notes on Nationalism.
“One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Most people run into this insight in a paraphrased form.
“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”
That’s not something Orwell said or wrote, but is often attributed to him because of the power of his insight.
Orwell’s insight comes to mind because of the Biden-Harris administration’s implicit adoption of what’s called Modern Monetary Theory, which holds that “deficits no longer matter”.
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by Catherine Barrett | May 11, 2021 | Opinion
By Catherine Barrett |
As graduation season is quickly approaching, many high schools and universities are faced with deciding between virtual or in-person ceremonies. As states begin to lift mask mandates, as reported by The New York Times, educators choose to continue holding virtual graduations. Being forced to host these small ceremonies is not ideal, and the loss of their special celebrations will sadden many students. However, due to public health risks presented by the pandemic, this precaution is necessary for many schools. Virtual graduation is a hard decision, but it may have an upside. Let’s analyze the lack of traditional graduation ceremonies in serving as an eye-opener to the ‘lost’ school-time and the starless future in the job market.
Amid the complex changes, everybody has been compelled to cope. The strife of the pandemic has made way for more neighborly festivals later on. The need to adjust the face-to-face functions for pandemic limitations has set out the freedom for graduations to be more available later on. This option permits relatives who can’t travel or individuals with more extended families to participate in the special day.
Because of the pandemic, plans changed, and life was reconsidered. The virtual graduation functions were unquestionably not what seniors had expected as the hotly anticipated finish of their school vocations. Virtual graduations are not the slightest bit amazing arrangements; understudies merit the magnificence and acknowledgment that accompanies achieving such an accomplishment as moving on from secondary school or even primary school. Nonetheless, this isn’t to imply that beating the earlier year’s deterrents has received no rewards.
Alumni of 2021 merit the option to be disturbed about their deficiency of conventional functions, and their misery over virtual beginnings ought not to be neglected. Following quite a while of challenging work and late evenings considering, these understudies were denied graduation services and their capacity to command the entirety of their achievements face to face. Notwithstanding, these equivalent, appalling conditions have made COVID-time initiations open to potential participants who might not regularly have the option to drive to conventional graduations.
