Legislative Republicans continue to search for avenues to reach an accord with the Governor’s Office on the new fiscal year budget, and on Tuesday, the leaders of the House and Senate took a new approach to bring Arizona’s chief executive to the negotiating table.
House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen sent a joint letter to Governor Hobbs, requesting a meeting with the Ninth Floor over the stalled budget negotiations. After receiving the Governor’s budget proposal in January, both the House and Senate passed a budget that was then vetoed by Hobbs.
Toma and Petersen’s letter references the vetoed budget and the Governor’s actions to bring Arizona dangerously close to a shutdown: “The Legislative Budget you vetoed on February 16th represented shared, ongoing funding priorities. That budget would have prevented a government shutdown, while leaving the available one-time funds untouched for executive and legislative negotiation of priorities. Our budget was the responsible approach to governing in a time of economic uncertainty.”
The legislative generals struck a balanced and reasonable approach in their letter to Governor Hobbs, highlighting an alleged unwillingness to negotiate by her office: “In our first and only meeting to discuss the budget, your office stated it was unwilling to receive feedback or take questions. Obviously, we need some level of agreement to pass a budget. We believe we can achieve most of our priorities and include yours that are reasonable. For example, we have several members who support additional funding for School Facilities Building renewal, the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD), and transportation projects.”
Tuesday’s letter is the latest salvo in a continuing saga between the two sides on the budget negotiations. Both parties remain far apart on key details needed to forge an agreement before the June 30th deadline.
Daniel Scarpinato, one of former Governor Doug Ducey’s Chiefs of Staff, responded to the allegations of Hobbs’ refusal to negotiate with Republican legislators: “I cannot imagine inviting legislators up to the 9th floor and refusing to take questions. We always took questions from Republicans, Democrats and the media. They didn’t always like the answers – but I just can’t imagine saying something like this to elected leaders.”
I cannot image inviting legislators up to the 9th floor and refusing to take questions. We always took questions from Republicans, Democrats and the media. They didn’t always like the answers — but I just can’t imagine saying something like this to elected leaders. https://t.co/CBSm2osqRB
In a press conference shortly after the receipt of the letter, Governor Hobbs was asked about the request for enhanced negotiations and what her response would be to President Petersen and Speaker Toma. The governor inferred that her office had, in fact, reached out to legislative leadership after her veto of the budget, saying that she saw the letter “as a response to (her office) reaching out,” and that she was “encouraged that we can move forward on a process of negotiating a budget that we can all agree on.”
Hobbs’ characterization of her office reaching out to Republicans in the state legislature appears to correspond with a line in Petersen and Toma’s letter that outlines “a request from (Hobbs’) office to discuss priorities and identify differences to avoid a government shutdown.” However, as the letter highlights, this request came one day after Hobbs “created and committed funding to her ‘Flip the Leg Fund,’” which took place on the heels of unanswered legislative questions about her controversial Inaugural Fund. This announcement from Hobbs’ political operation left Republicans in no mood to work with a governor who is simultaneously financing election challenges to vulnerable legislators at the state capitol.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
As expected, Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed the budget sent to her by the Arizona Legislature, putting the state’s financial future into a potential situation of future limbo.
Instead of signing a budget very similar to one passed last session by a bipartisan majority of legislators, Governor Hobbs repeatedly attacked Republicans for doing their constitutional duties over the past month, characterizing the $15.8 Billion budget as “approved by a slim, partisan majority.” Her statement, released after her veto of the budget, framed the legislature’s offering as a “do-nothing budget” that “kicks the can down the road,” and that it was “an insult to Arizonans.”
After these sharp assertions by Arizona’s new Chief Executive, her office released a tweet from her @GovernorHobbs account that reiterated her oft-used claim that her “door is open” and that she welcomes “any sincere efforts to work on a budget that puts people, not politics, first.” Hobbs’ “open-door” claim has been refuted by Republicans throughout the first month of the legislative session, including one statement from Representative David Livingston on February 1, 2023, when he said, “It’s one thing to talk a big talk & use social media to say you have an open-door policy, but I can tell you from personal experience, her door is locked from the inside.”
🔥🔥🔥"It's one thing to talk a big talk & use social media to say you have an open-door policy, but I can tell you from personal experience, her door is locked from the inside."
Senate President Warren Petersen had also shared his concerns about the lack of communication from the Ninth Floor in the weeks leading up to this budget passage and gubernatorial veto. Also on February 1, Petersen told his chamber that “we have an open door policy to hear all budget requests and suggestions, and we haven’t heard a peep from Governor Hobbs!”
"We have an open door policy to hear all budget requests and suggestions, and we haven't heard a peep from Governor @GovernorHobbs!"
Republicans had no shortage of responses after seeing the news of the governor’s veto. Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope tweeted, “How brave to veto a budget that just six months ago was awesome. Gonna be a long session and a long four years @GovernorHobbs but I’ll be here for all of it. Some of us have been working and others have been offering platitudes about open doors and such. Arizonans deserve better…”
How brave to veto a budget that just six months ago was awesome. Gonna be a long session and a long four years @GovernorHobbs but I’ll be here for all of it. Some of us have been working and others have been offering platitudes about open doors and such. Arizonans deserve better… https://t.co/D82U7A1Jsv
Representative Lupe Diaz wrote, “Katie Hobbs just vetoed a sensible strong budget that both Republicans and Democrats voted on last year. With this veto she shows that she is willing to put the citizens of Arizona in the path of a State shut down.”
Katie Hobbs just vetoed a sensible strong budget that both Republicans and Democrats voted on last year. With this veto she shows that she is willing to put the citizens of Arizona in the path of a State shut down. Let your friends know that she is irresponsible and reckless.
Representative Joseph Chaplik informed his followers that “Every single Dem in #azleg voted for this budget in 2022. Katie Hobbs’ veto shows she’d rather shut the state down than do the right thing for every citizen of this state.”
Every single Dem in #azleg voted for this budget in 2022. Katie Hobbs’ veto shows she’d rather shut the state down than do the right thing for every citizen of this state.
Hobbs’ veto proves once again that she cares more for illegals than Arizonans and is an unserious… https://t.co/94mWApjitl
Senator Anthony Kern said, “Katie Hobbs just vetoed $82 million for the School Safety Program that provides grant funding for both school counselors and school resource officers.”
Katie Hobbs just vetoed $82 million for the School Safety Program that provides grant funding for both school counselors and school resource officers. @AZSenateGOPpic.twitter.com/QrG9m47yEF
Legislative Democrats, however, were appreciative of Hobbs’ veto. House Democratic Leader Andrés Cano applauded the governor’s action, saying, “Republican lawmakers unilaterally introduced a sham budget that they knew would be vetoed. This was a colossal waste of time by the GOP that involved no opportunity for compromise or negotiation.” Senate Democratic Leader Raquel Terán tweeted, “.@GovernorHobbs did right by every Arizona with this veto. This ‘budget’ does nothing to move us forward, but would rather chain us to the past. It’s time to step into the future and craft a budget that addresses our shared reality.”
Arizona’s Fiscal Year 2024 begins July 1, and Governor Hobbs’ veto has now officially kickstarted the stare down over a possible lapse in state funding this summer. Hobbs is expected to veto many more Republican bills this session, and it remains to be seen if communication between the sides will improve as they approach the June 30 deadline to reach an accord on another budget compromise.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The people of Arizona do not want to turn our state into the next California. But just a few weeks into her reign as governor, Katie Hobbs has made it clear—that’s exactly what she intends to do. Last week, Hobbs released her first budget plan, and it’s nothing more than a liberal wish list of big spending, extreme proposals, and corporate welfare designed to reward her special interest friends.
Her first target is education, and she wasted no time going after Arizona’s expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs). Yes, the program that is so popular that it overwhelmed the Department of Education’s website immediately after launch—the one that even some Democrats have openly supported. Despite being a private schooler herself, Hobbs wants to dismantle school choice for all with a full repeal of universal ESAs. And that’s just the start…
The last time Republicans lived up to their reputation for sound fiscal policy was almost 30 years ago. In March 1995, Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican House caucus, to the jeers of skeptics, resolved to balance the federal budget within seven years. They did it in four.
Yet ever since, Republicans have provided slight protection against the unending torrent of Democrat spending schemes. They talk a brave game of cutting when out of power but are mostly unable to curb their political urge to spend when they have the authority.
Consequently, the national debt doubled from $5 trillion to $10 trillion under the inattentive George W. Bush. Candidate Donald Trump in 2016 promised to pay down the debt completely over eight years. Sure. In just four years, the debt surged by $7.8 trillion, a 36% hike.
We’ve all seen the drill. Create an emergency spending need where none exists (climate change) or which could better be addressed in a more measured way (COVID), exaggerate the danger, create panic, open the spigot, take credit.
$4.1 trillion in new spending during the Biden years for these created “emergencies” have put Americans in extremely dangerous fiscal territory. The voters this time gave House Republicans one more chance to redeem themselves. Now the stakes are higher than ever, and the pressure is on.
The early rhetoric was promising. However, vows to “curb wasteful government spending” were followed by…reinstatement of earmarks. Those little pieces of unvetted local pork slipped into spending bills to benefit individual legislators. What a crushing disappointment.
Republicans swore off earmarks in 2011. But when a Democrat Congress brought them back in 2021, 120 Republicans partook, scooping up $5 billion for their own Bridges to Nowhere. A motion this year to disallow earmarks was overwhelmingly defeated in the Republican caucus.
15 conservative policy groups cautioned Republicans that “earmarks are one of the most corrupt, inequitable and wasteful practices in the history of Congress.” Each congressman earns his little cookie by supporting all of his colleagues’ polite graft.
Yet GOP appropriators claimed earmarks were their “constitutional duty” and actually help to control spending! What a crock.
The Republican face plant over a matter so obviously wrong gives fiscal conservatives the sinking feeling that they may not be up to the fight. Candidates barely mentioned the deficit/debt during the last election, in contrast to previous campaigns. What fiscal crisis?
Instead, Americans have been conditioned by their politicians to believe that no wants should be unmet, that we “deserve” lavish government benefits unyoked to effort, that thorny political issues from illegal immigration to educational failure can be solved by simply spending more, and that any fiscal consequences can be safely kicked down the road.
Republicans aren’t going to dig out of this hole any time soon. But they can start the process by doing the right thing right now.
As this is written, Republicans are negotiating an omnibus budget bill of nearly $2 trillion. The leadership has known for nine months this must be completed by year’s end, but once again thoughtful, thorough budgeting has given way to a 4,155-page bill delivered at 1:30 AM to legislators who can’t possibly understand its provisions.
The bill contains no program cuts, but instead a mix of mandatory spending, outrageous pork like LGBTQ “Pride Centers,” and a specific prohibition against funding for border security. Lawmakers must approve the bill now or, in the case of Republicans, be held liable for the dreaded government shutdown.
But economist Steve Moore has a better idea. Republicans only need to refuse to waive provisions of the 2010 Pay-As-You-Go Act. PAYGO has been routinely suspended in recent years, but just 41 of 50 senators refusing this time would result in $130 billion in mandatory “sequester” cuts, just 5% of the Biden spending splurge.
Alternately, Congress could cancel the $80 billion for 87,000 new IRS agents, take back $500 billion in unspent COVID funding, and/or scale back the “Green New Deal” subsidies, a relatively painless way to uphold the PAYGO rules.
Congressional Republicans will never have a better opportunity to begin the return to responsible governance. If they don’t have the will now, when will they?
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
State taxpayers should not be bailing out a broken Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) plan. But that’s exactly what lawmakers are doing in the recently enacted Arizona state budget. That’s right. Your elected leaders just passed a budget that includes hundreds of millions of dollars for road projects—all being paid for with your tax dollars. (You can see for yourself on pages 9-11 right here.)
At first glance, that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal. After all, it makes sense for tax dollars to go toward necessary road projects. But the problem is that these road projects are supposed to be paid for by the Maricopa County Prop 400 regional plan that was assembled by MAG…
