by Daniel Stefanski | May 10, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Some Arizona special interest groups and legislative Democrats were furious with the state’s budget compromise this week, and Governor Katie Hobbs may be feeling their wrath for months to come.
As details of the finalized budget negotiations were unveiled, outrage ensued over the protection of Arizona’s historic ESA program, which Hobbs and most other Democrats have vowed to dismantle or cap while in office. Senate President Warren Petersen, House Speaker Ben Toma, and other legislative Republicans had accomplished their primary mission to defend and sustain the ESA program for existing and new families, despite the Grand Canyon State’s divided government.
Before the votes in both chambers, the two Democrat leaders for the House and Senate issued a statement, calling on negotiations to continue, in large part, due to the uncapped and very-much-so protected ESA program.
A coalition (consisting of the Arizona High School Democrats, Arizona State University Young Democrats, Keep Arizona Blue Student Coalition, Maricopa County Young Demcorats, Northern Arizona University Young Democrats, University of Arizona Young Democrats, and the Young Democrats of Arizona) wrote a letter to the state’s chief executive, urging her “to go back to the drawing board and reject any budget that does not include a cap on ESA vouchers.” The student-led letter asserted that “continuing this reckless expansion would have a detrimental effect on public education in our state.”
Save Our Schools Arizona Director Beth Lewis wrote an op-ed for a local publication, stating, “For Hobbs and legislative Democrats, this budget is a must-win game that will decide the future of public education in our state. Will they rise to the challenge and play full court press, or will they fail to deliver on their campaign promises to public education? We’ll know soon.”
The organization also reminded Hobbs of her recent call (on March 22) to roll back the ESA program in the latest budget, tweeting, “We couldn’t agree more, Governor Hobbs! AZ’s budget **must** roll back ESA vouchers, or the state cannot fulfill its constitutional responsibility to fund our public schools.”
The lobbying from Save Our Schools and others turned to desperation and politicized grief as both the House and the Senate passed the budget bills over Tuesday-Wednesday, ensuring that Arizona’s ESA program will continue to benefit tens of thousands of families attempting to control their children’s educational pursuits and objectives. After the state senate approved of the K-12 Education budget bill, Save Our Schools AZ tweeted, “Under cover of night, the Senate votes 25-5 to pass the K12 portion of the budget with zero progress towards a cap on unfettered ESA vouchers.”
And after the Arizona House gave a green light to the same K-12 budget bill, Save Our Schools AZ responded, “BREAKING: AZ House passes the K-12 budget 43-16, betraying AZ public schools by failing to cap the universal ESA vouchers that threaten to bankrupt AZ. Thank you to the 16 #PublicSchoolProud lawmakers who took a principled stand by voting NO. Fighting for what’s right matters.”
After the dust settled on the votes, Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts opined, “Hobbs, in her State of the State speech, called for a repeal of the universal voucher program but the more likely prospect was a spending cap, to ensure it doesn’t suck the lifeblood out of the public schools that the vast majority of Arizona children attend. Instead, she negotiated a budget that protects the Republicans’ signature universal voucher program. Instead of standing tough and insisting on a budget that could draw legitimate bipartisan support, she teamed up with Republicans and steamrolled her own stunned allies.”
On Wednesday, the Arizona House Majority Communications sent out a press release, announcing the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee to Examine ESA Administration – due to “discussions between the House Speaker and the Minority Leader.” The purpose of the new committee is “to provide clarity and ensure that the governance and administration of ESAs is appropriately designed to manage a growing and complex program.”
Democrat Senator Catherine Miranda seemed to see it as an opportunity to quell her fellow Democrats’ complaints and applauded the news of the new committee, saying, “It was our last piece of hope to get SOMETHING to at least have ESA CAP talks. This will allow that path.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Pat Nolan | Apr 6, 2023 | Opinion
By Pat Nolan |
Governor Hobbs has proposed a budget that is a radical’s dream. It increases funding for a laundry list of pet programs of the radical left, while at the same time cutting programs that are supported by the vast majority of Arizonans. The Hobbs budget expands funding for illegal immigrants and increases taxpayer funding of abortions. At the same time, Hobbs would kill the expansion of our popular parental school choice program and defund the Border Strike Force.
House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci describes the Hobbs budget: “Attacking school choice, peddling state-funded abortions, and incentivizing illegal immigration in Arizona are all non-starters and, frankly, something you’d expect to see proposed by a politician in California, not Arizona.”
In response to Hobbs’ radical budget, Republicans passed a responsible, “baseline budget” which would continue state spending at last year’s budget levels, with adjustments to education and health care programs to account for inflation. When asked if Hobbs would reject the baseline budget Rep. Biasiucci responded, “If she does that, it’s party politics. This is everything we need to make sure that schools don’t shut down, make sure government stays open, make sure all our essential services stay open while we figure out what we need to do with the rest of the money.” Unfortunately, Hobbs vetoed the legislature’s reasonable budget. She is playing a game of chicken, threatening a government shutdown.
If Republicans stay united, the taxpayers will be protected from the free-spending Democrats. Given the one-vote margin in each house, we can’t afford to lose a single Republican vote. To protect us from Hobbs’ costly budget, it is essential that Republicans stick together.
I have heard disturbing reports that some Republicans are quietly signaling they are willing to cut a deal with the Democrats behind the backs of their leadership. That would severely weaken the bargaining position of Republicans as they negotiate for smaller government. More important, it would betray their constituents who voted for them based on their promises to limit the growth of state government.
Why on earth would Republicans be willing to cave to the Hobbs budget? There are a couple of possibilities. They could trade their votes for a pet project. Or they could be self-promoters with a messianic complex seeking acclaim from the liberal press as “rising above the partisan bickering.”
Believe it or not, it could happen here in Arizona. Around the country and in Congress, turncoat Republicans have made side deals to expand government spending. And though it seems odd, these quislings frequently represent “safe” Republican districts. Senator Romney comes to mind, and he is not alone.
In California, back when Jerry Brown was governor, a Republican representing the most Republican district in the state voted for the bloated budget after she had promised to oppose it. When asked why she flipped, she blithely replied that she got a new library for UC Irvine. Another Republican sold out for even less—Willie Brown promised him an office with a wet bar in it. Judas at least got thirty pieces of silver. As sure as night follows day, the press heaped praise on both of them for their “courage” in avoiding a budget impasse. But in truth, they voted against the interests of their constituents.
To avoid such a betrayal from happening here in Arizona, conservatives must press their representatives for a firm commitment that they won’t cut a side deal on the budget. We must lock in those commitments now and shut down any side deals before negotiations start in earnest.
My State Senator is Ken Bennett, and my representatives are Quang Nguyen and Selena Bliss. LD 1 is the most Republican district in the state. Conservatives shouldn’t have to worry about them keeping faith with their promises to the voters, but as President Reagan told us, “Trust but verify.”
Therefore, I am asking all three for a firm commitment that they will only vote for a budget that is supported by the rest of their Republican colleagues. The great conservative Senator Everett Dirksen famously said, “When I fell the heat, I see the light.” And I hope conservatives in all Republican districts will turn up the heat, so Republicans stay united to protect the wallets of the taxpayers.
Otherwise, it will be every legislator for themselves, and they’ll cut the hog fat. And we the taxpayers will be the hog.
Pat Nolan is the Director Emeritus of the Nolan Center for Justice at the American Conservative Union, and lives in Prescott.
by Daniel Stefanski | Mar 6, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Congressman David Schweikert took to the U.S. House of Representatives floor this week in another attempt to reason with his colleagues over the current fiscal state of our nation.
Schweikert, a seven-term lawmaker in the U.S. House, serving on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, spoke on the House floor – as he often does – to highlight the latest numbers and analysis from the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) baseline projections of the federal budget over the next ten years.
In his speech, Schweikert addressed his Democrat colleagues’ “avoidance of the math,” saying that, at the rate the government is spending money, Americans 25 years from now will, according to the CBO, see their taxes doubled, their corporate taxes doubled, and tariffs doubled – “just to maintain baseline services.”
Schweikert also took President Joe Biden to task for using “Social Security and Medicare as props for his re-election campaign.” Congressman Schweikert questioned if his Democrat colleagues actually have a plan to help fix the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds, which he alleged will be gone in a decade, “doubling senior poverty in this country.”
Schweikert also exposed the numbers behind a shrinking American workforce, stating, “So you have a world now where my brothers and sisters on the Left run around saying, ‘Well, we have this low unemployment.’ And then you look at the available populations that should be in the labor force, but they don’t show up in the data because they’re not looking.” He concluded his point by reminding his listeners that “we have fewer people today in the labor force than we did before the pandemic – by millions.”
The congressman attempted to appeal to the common sense of his legislative colleagues, challenging Representatives to think about the long-term effects of the fiscal policies that they pass for the country, saying, “The reason I walk through all these slides is the first part of understanding how devastating the debt is. And it’s not pretend. You can’t just say, ‘We’ll just pretend. We’ll print a $1 trillion coin and walk away from it.’ You’ve got to stop the clown show…..The second half of this presentation was hope…Stop being afraid of it, Congress. Stop acting like a protection racket where you protect incumbency. Not incumbent-elected, but incumbent bureaucracies, incumbent business models. Design the tax code. Design the regulatory code. If the Democrats continue insisting to subsidize everything, fine, design it so there’s competition. Not the chosen favorites that they want to hand a grant out to. And in that competition, I think actually becomes the disruption that saves us.”
Congressman Schweikert was speaking before a near-empty chamber, and it remains to be seen if any of his colleagues on the Left will heed his pleas for more fiscal responsibility, sanity, and foresight into the consequences of the future. The U.S. Congress is expected to have fierce debates this year over legislative spending and borrowing with key deadlines approaching for the federal government.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Mar 2, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
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.”
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.
by Daniel Stefanski | Feb 21, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
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.”
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!”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
