by George Khalaf | Jun 25, 2026 | Opinion
By George Khalaf |
Arizona taxpayers work hard for every dollar they send to the government. They expect those dollars to be spent wisely, transparently, and honestly. When government fails to protect taxpayer money from waste, fraud, and abuse, it goes beyond just a financial problem. It is a betrayal of the public trust.
Over the past two years, Arizonans have learned disturbing details about widespread fraud within our state’s Medicaid system. Investigations have uncovered billions of dollars in questionable spending, fraudulent billing schemes, and the exploitation of vulnerable individuals who were supposed to be receiving treatment and care. Reports indicate that taxpayers may have lost billions while bureaucrats failed to ask basic questions or exercise proper oversight.
The media rarely covers these stories. Bureaucrats hate being watched. And way too many politicians would rather stay quiet than cause a stir. But that silence is exactly how fraud keeps growing. But we cannot shrug this off and move on. What we need is real accountability.
One elected leader who deserves tremendous credit for refusing to look the other way is Senator Carine Werner (LD4). Through multiple legislative oversight hearings, Senator Werner has demanded answers from state agencies, pursued whistleblower testimony, and insisted that government officials be held accountable. While many were content to issue statements and move on, she rolled up her sleeves and did the hard work of oversight. Her efforts have brought much-needed transparency to a scandal that should concern every Arizona taxpayer.
The push for accountability extends beyond Medicaid. Republicans in the House and Senate have also raised important concerns about ensuring public assistance programs are administered responsibly and that benefits are directed to those who genuinely qualify, including SNAP, which provides food assistance to every corner of this state. Programs designed to help struggling Arizonans who have no other avenue to meet their basic needs must be protected from abuse and mismanagement. Taxpayers have every right to expect strong verification standards, accurate eligibility determinations, and regular oversight of how public dollars are spent.
As I have conversations all over Legislative District 3, I hear the same frustration from voters. People are tired of government waste not being addressed while families continue to hand over their hard-earned money every April. They want leaders who will protect taxpayers with the same care they use to manage their own personal finances.
I’ve said repeatedly that government should be focused on delivering results in a few limited areas, not protecting and growing bureaucracy. Every dollar wasted by government is a dollar that cannot be used for public safety (a key focus that needs to be invested in), infrastructure, water security, education, or sent back to Arizonans in the form of needed tax relief. Taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going and whether programs are actually working.
When elected to represent LD3 in the Arizona House, I will make accountability a top priority. That means supporting aggressive legislative oversight – and leading it when necessary, demanding transparency from state agencies, strengthening protections for whistleblowers, and ensuring fraud investigations receive the resources necessary to follow the facts wherever they lead. It also means asking tough questions about spending and insisting that agencies justify how taxpayer dollars are being used, or face significant cuts.
Arizonans are tired of the excuses. We need a real change in culture and elected officials from the top down who will demand audits, push back against resistant agencies, tighten the rules, and stop treating taxpayer money like some endless slush fund.
As a member of the State House, I pledge to support the efforts already begun by vigilant legislators. I will fight to expose waste, stop fraud, eliminate abuse, and ensure taxpayer dollars are treated with the respect they deserve.
George Khalaf is a candidate for the Arizona House in Legislative District 3. You can follow him on X here.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jun 23, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Arizona ratepayers already know what it feels like to watch their electric bills climb. In just the last few years, rates have increased by 27% across Arizona, all while environmentalists and Democrats in Washington claimed that trillions of dollars in subsidies for “renewables” would drive down costs. Unsurprisingly, the opposite has happened.
Now, Arizona’s largest monopoly utility, APS, is asking the Arizona Corporation Commission for yet another rate hike. Their double-digit 14% request is bad enough on its own. But buried within APS’ ask is something even worse: automatic rate hikes for the next five years (something the Corporation Commission voted in favor of just a year and a half ago).
It isn’t just APS. At the same time, the Commission is also considering a double-digit (also 14%) rate hike for TEP, along with automatic rate increases. Arizona ratepayers are now seeing the consequences of years of bad energy policy, costly clean energy commitments, and a Commission that has not stopped any of it.
Before APS’ rate request becomes a real rate hike on your bill, the Commission still has to vote on it. Right now, the case is before an administrative law judge, with hearings expected to continue through June and July. After the hearing concludes, the judge will issue a recommended order, and then the Corporation Commission will make the final decision.
So, the question now is simple: will the Commission finally say no, or will it force ratepayers to pay for the Green New Scam?
This Rate Hike Is Not Because of AI or Data Centers
APS, Kris Mayes, and the Corporation Commission would like ratepayers to believe this rate hike is about AI, data centers, and explosive load growth. It isn’t…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jun 20, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
After months of vetoes and walking away from the table, Hobbs has finally signed a budget. A budget that looks pretty much the same as the one Legislative Republicans sent up to her desk at the beginning of May. A budget she vetoed, and that she and her colleagues in the Legislature bashed repeatedly. So, what changed?
There were two budget priorities our organization laid out before the session began. First, anything less than full conformity tax relief from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill would essentially be a tax hike on Arizonans. Second, an extension of Prop 123 (the increased distribution from the state land trust to K-12 schools to the tune of $330 million a year) must be a nonstarter in budget negotiations. Before getting into the details, both of these objectives were accomplished.
The biggest item in this budget fight was undoubtedly tax cuts from tax conformity. After President Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law on 4th of July 2025, states faced a decision: do they pass on the tax relief Republicans in D.C. delivered, or do they effectively increase taxes on their residents. Core planks of conformity included no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, an increased standard deduction, a new deduction for seniors, among several provisions for small businesses and corporations of all sizes, most importantly allowing them to deduct expenses in the year they are made, rather than depreciating those expenses over several years. In other words, the bulk of the business provisions weren’t even a tax cut. The question is not whether businesses deduct those expenses, only when they deduct them.
This question needed to be resolved quickly, as the legislature begins session the second week of January and Tax Day is in April. In the first week of session, Republicans in the legislature sent a package to her desk that delivered full tax relief. All democrats voted no. Hobbs vetoed it.
Again, in February, to prevent confusion and chaos for taxpayers beginning to file, Republicans in the legislature sent up another bill. It received a veto. At the beginning of May, they sent up a budget that included full tax conformity relief for the third time. Again, it met a veto.
Based on all of the votetoes, relentless opposition and endless rhetoric about “tax breaks for billionaires,” you would think that the agreed upon budget must have included significant changes to the tax package. But if you are thinking that, you would be very wrong.
So What did Hobbs and Democrats actually fight for in this budget that necessitated six months of chaos and tax season confusion?
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by Christine Accurso | Jun 19, 2026 | Opinion
By Christine Accurso |
I have sat at the desk where the reimbursement requests come in. I have reviewed the accounts flagged for misuse. I have personally picked up the phone and called parents when something did not look right. I ran Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program as its Executive Director, and I am here to tell you that the public conversation about this program is missing something critical: the truth about how it actually works.
You have heard the complaints. Fraud. Waste. No accountability. What you have not heard, because no one is saying it, is that robust accountability mechanisms already exist in this program and they are working. There have been plenty of op-eds, news reports, and counter-claims about ESA fraud. But very few of them come from someone who managed the program from the inside, day to day, and watched those guardrails operate in real time. I did. And this is what they look like.
Every parent who receives an ESA signs a legally binding contract. They must verify their child’s identity and their own Arizona residency before a single dollar is approved. Every purchase requires documentation: an invoice or a receipt. No documentation, no payment. If misuse is suspected, the account is immediately suspended and reviewed. If a parent attempts to bypass that suspension by going directly to the digital wallet vendor, that act is classified as fraud and results in immediate termination. Confirmed fraud is referred to the Attorney General for investigation and potential prosecution. And critically, all of that account holder’s ESA contracts may be terminated, not just the one in question. Misused funds must be repaid. Offenders can be permanently barred from the program.
The contract also prohibits account holders from concurrently accepting ESA funds and a School Tuition Organization scholarship in the same contract year. Reselling any item purchased with ESA funds is strictly prohibited. Tutors and instructional providers must have no disciplinary action pending before the State Board of Education for immoral or unprofessional conduct. These are not suggestions. They are enforceable contract terms with real consequences.
Every morning, an automated report runs at the Arizona Department of Education, cross-referencing every ESA student against public school enrollment rosters. Any student found enrolled in both loses their ESA account that same day. No warnings, no exceptions. Parents agree to cover core subjects: reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies, and science. All school staff with unsupervised access to students must be fingerprinted. Cash withdrawals are prohibited. Televisions, video game consoles, and non-educational equipment are explicitly unallowable. Incomplete documentation triggers a formal audit. And any unused funds that roll over may only be used after graduation for post-secondary tuition, textbooks, and fees. Nothing else.
When I personally called parents about suspicious requests, the answer was the same every time: they had made an honest mistake. They did not know the rule. They were informed, they returned the funds, and they continued in the program. The guardrails caught it. The system worked.
The fraud rate in this program is among the lowest of any government program in Arizona. Every confirmed case of fraud has been referred for investigation or prosecution. The fact that you can find those cases in the news is not evidence the program is broken; it is proof the oversight is doing its job.
And beyond all of the formal protections sits the most powerful accountability of all: these are parents who chose to be here. They made a deliberate decision to take responsibility for their child’s education. There is no bureaucrat, no administrator, and no government program that will ever advocate for a child the way their own parent will. That is not a weakness in the program’s accountability. That is its greatest strength.
Arizona’s ESA students are thriving. The program is accountable, it is lawful, and it is working. Before you accept the narrative that it isn’t, ask yourself why you have never heard any of this before, and who benefits from you not knowing.
Christine Accurso is the State of Arizona’s former ESA executive director, a long time school choice advocate, and the leader of the very successful Decline to Sign movement when the parents won the ESA fight in 2022 ushering in the Universal ESA program for all AZ students.
by Yendi Parker | Jun 19, 2026 | Opinion
By Yendi Parker |
Eight years ago, the United States Marine Corps moved my family to Arizona. Since then, my husband and I have used Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program to help provide the education our three children need to succeed.
As both a mother and a teacher, I have seen firsthand the difference educational choice can make in a child’s life. That is why I oppose the so-called Protect Education Act.
Despite its name, this measure does not protect education. It limits educational opportunities and restricts parents’ ability to choose the learning environment that best fits their children’s needs.
My own children have benefited from ESAs, and many students at the high school where I teach attend through the program as well. These are real children with unique learning styles, goals, and challenges. The ESA program empowers parents to make decisions based on what is best for their child, not what is most convenient for a government system.
Critics often claim that ESA programs drain funding from public schools. The reality is that the typical ESA award is only a fraction of the combined state and local tax dollars spent on a student in the public school system. When a student leaves a public school and uses an ESA, the state generally spends less on that individual child.
Opponents also point to isolated examples of misuse within the ESA program. No government program is perfect, but the Arizona Department of Education reports that the overwhelming majority of ESA families follow the rules. State analyses have found that truly egregious fraud accounts for approximately 0.3% of ESA spending. By comparison, federal SNAP benefits experience improper payments and fraud estimated in billions of dollars annually, representing a far larger percentage of total program spending. Yet no one argues that food assistance should be eliminated because a small number of people break the rules.
The answer is accountability, not fewer choices for families.
Arizona has become a national leader in educational freedom because we trust parents. Whether a family chooses a public school, charter school, private school, homeschool, or another educational option, that decision should remain with the people who know the child best: their parents.
The Protect Education Act would move Arizona in the wrong direction. It would limit options, create new barriers, and make it harder for families like mine to access the educational opportunities our children need.
For the sake of educational freedom, parental rights, and student success, I encourage Arizonans to look beyond the title and reject the Protect Education Act.
Yendi Parker is an English teacher at Yuma Catholic High School. She also serves as the Eastern Arizona Director for Our America and 3rd Vice President for the Arizona State Federation of Republican Women.
by Warren Petersen | Jun 18, 2026 | Opinion
By Sen. Warren Petersen |
Earlier this spring, a federal judge in Phoenix had to step in and protect law-abiding Americans from a prosecutor who had lost all sense of limits. He struck down Kris Mayes’s case against the prediction market Kalshi and, in doing so, exposed one of the more reckless abuses of government power our state has seen in recent memory.
The story should alarm every Arizonan, regardless of whether you have ever placed a trade. In March, Mayes made Arizona the first state in the nation to bring criminal charges against a federally regulated exchange—twenty counts against an American company operating under the direct supervision of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And she didn’t stop at the criminal docket, either; her allies in the state government pressed a parallel civil campaign to choke an American innovator out of existence.
It took a respected federal judge, appointed by President Trump, to end the spectacle. In finding that federal law leaves “no room for state regulation” of these markets, he warned against precisely the “inconsistent regulatory patchwork that Congress intended to avoid,” and that Mayes tried to foist on Arizonans. Mayes’s crusade was doomed from the start, and any honest lawyer in her office could have told her so. Instead, she torched your tax dollars and Arizona’s reputation, all to chase a headline.
This is what the weaponization of a prosecutor’s office looks like. We have watched the radical left turn the law into a club against the people they dislike: parents, police, people of faith, and President Trump himself. Mayes has now turned that club on the future. Prediction markets let ordinary citizens put their own judgment, and their own money, behind what they actually believe will happen in the economy and the world. They cut through the noise of the mainstream media and pundit class, and they are one piece of a sweeping wave of financial innovation that is remaking the global economy in real time.
President Trump understands this in his bones. While Mayes was busy criminalizing the future, the President was busy building it. His CFTC Chairman, Michael Selig, has led the charge, defending federal authority in courtrooms across the country, advancing clear and sensible national rules, and declaring that America’s financial markets are ready for a new Golden Age. The President has been emphatic that the CFTC must retain exclusive authority over these markets, and he is right. That is America First leadership: clear rules, room to grow, and the confidence that fifty different prosecutors won’t be allowed to strangle American innovation in its crib.
Arizona ought to be racing to the front of that parade. Instead, our Democratic officials keep stomping on the brakes. I led the fight to make Arizona the first state in the country with a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, only for Governor Katie Hobbs to veto it. I pushed to let Arizonans pay their taxes in digital currency. Again and again, the message from this state’s Democrats has been the same: if you dare to build something new, we will tax it, ban it, or drag you into court. Innovators don’t flee to Texas and Florida by accident. They flee politicians who treat builders like criminals.
I have spent fourteen years at the Capitol doing the opposite—defending the Constitution, guarding taxpayers, and standing up for the right to build without first begging permission from the government. As your attorney general, I will never turn the power of that office into a weapon against a company for the crime of innovating. I will use it to defend Arizonans, to enforce the law as it is actually written, and to show Washington’s worst instincts, and our own state’s, exactly where the line is drawn.
This task is too important to leave to my opponent in the Republican primary. Rodney Glassman didn’t merely vote for Democrats, he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat at the request of another liberal Democratic attorney general, Terry Goddard. So, ask yourself: when the radical left comes for innovation, for crypto, for free markets—and they will come—who do you want holding the line? A proven conservative who has already taken the arrows, or a man who spent the prime of his career carrying the other team’s banner and discovered his “convictions” only when trying to grab President Trump’s coattails?
The attorney general’s job is not to chase headlines by prosecuting the future. It is to be the wall that protects the rights, the savings, and the freedom of Arizonans. Kris Mayes tore that wall down. I intend to rebuild it.
President Trump is leading America into a Golden Age of growth, opportunity, and renewed confidence. Arizona belongs at the front of that charge, but is instead being dragged from behind, handing out indictments to the people who create our jobs. Give me the honor of serving as your attorney general, and I’ll make sure that our great state is exactly where it should be.
Warren Petersen is the President of the Arizona State Senate and represents Legislative District 14. He is currently running to be Arizona’s next Attorney General.
