Recently, Tim Walz said the quiet part out loud, declaring, “We can’t afford four more years of this.” When Walz and JD Vance face off on the debate stage this week, this is one statement they will both agree on: Americans can’t afford four more years of the Biden-Harris agenda transformed to a Harris-Walz Administration.
As we and others around us grapple with skyrocketing inflation, depleting savings accounts, soaring interest rates, and wages unable to keep pace with the financial ruins from the Biden-Harris agenda, Tim Walz is right – Americans cannot afford four more years of Democrat failed policies. We’ve heard time and time again that Kamala is from a middle-class family. However, Harris continues to be oblivious to the consequences of her failed economic policies that impact our families at the grocery store, gas stations, and electricity bills. It seems she’s the only self-identified ‘middle-class’ person who is immune to the inflation crisis that she and President Joe Biden have created.
Here are the inconvenient facts for Harris and Walz. Inflation has cost the average Arizona household nearly $27,000. Everything from energy to food has dramatically increased in price. Our electric bills are up 30%, and gas prices are up 46%. Putting food on the table is increasingly expensive as grocery prices have spiked 21% since President Donald J. Trump left office. Under Biden-Harris, nothing in our lives is immune to inflation, which is a hidden tax on every American. And for growing families, everyday baby essentials have skyrocketed, with a pack of diapers increased by 32% and baby food up by nearly 12%.
While men and women are paying more for just about everything, we are also taking home less after inflation. Families around the nation have had to take out additional lines of credit just to make ends meet. Now, nearly four years into the Biden-Harris failed economy, those credit cards are maxed out, with debt reaching a record high of $1.14 trillion. Thanks to Kamalanomics, one in five Americans’ credit cards are maxed out.
Arizonans are at their breaking point, and the 2024 Democrat ticket will only make these economic crises worse. A Harris-Walz agenda is a page out of the socialist playbook. Between their costly Soviet-style price controls and a tax on small businesses that is higher than the tax rate in China, the Democrats’ agenda puts America last.
Don’t take my word for it; it was Tim Walz himself who once said, “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” He also told business leaders, “We’re not taxing people–we’re taxing businesses.” Walz clearly doesn’t understand basic economics. When you tax a business, they pass that cost onto consumers.
These price controls and record-high tax rates will decimate what’s left of the American economy. But it’s not just our pocketbooks that are at risk. Walz, like Kamala, is a far-left radical socialist.
Together, they are the most liberal presidential ticket inhistory.
Tim Walz has a long record as Minnesota Governor that shows us how he would assist Kamala Harris in their shared mission of destroying our country. At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, Tim Walz will help usher in his Electric Vehicle mandate nationwide, requiring Americans to drive unaffordable electric cars that cost on average $56,575, which is over the average yearly salary in Arizona.
Tim Walz has a history of implementing unconstitutional mandates and socialist policies. Walz mandated lockdown long after Covid-19 ended, keeping children out of schools, and promoting the vaccine for children as young as six years old. During the lockdowns, Tim Walz even created a hotline to snitch on people who defied his ‘stay at home order,’ an authoritarian move that took officers from fighting crime to making criminals out of church services, and business owners who did not strictly follow masking rules – a power trip that turned Minnesota into North Korea.
Walz is no less radical on immigration and border security. As Governor, he signed legislation to provide free taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal immigrants, and he celebrated issuing driver’s licenses and car registrations to over 81,000 illegal immigrants in his state. Going even further, Walz granted illegals access to free college tuition. It’s clear that he puts illegals above American citizens. In response to President Trump’s border wall, Tim Walz said he would invest in ladders so that unvetted illegal migrants could still come over. It’s hard to believe that this current crisis at the border could get much worse, but it definitely would under the Harris-Walz Administration!
Additionally, Walz and Harris’ radical defund-the-police ticket should concern every community in Arizona and around the country. Just a handful of years ago, Walz essentially stood by while his own cities burned down and businesses were looted and violently destroyed, and then Kamala Harris helped raise money to bail the criminals out of jail. They make quite a team in these and many more areas. Americans be warned: this is what would be heading to our Arizona cities if this weak, failed, and dangerously liberal ticket has its way.
Americans can’t afford to send the most radical socialist ticket in U.S. history to the White House. With days left until election day, we must vote for a strong economy, safety in our communities, and a secure border. To do that, we must send tested and proven leaders to the White House—Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance. Let’s make the right decision for the future of our great nation!
Congresswoman Debbie Lesko represents Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. She is currently running for Maricopa County Supervisor in District 4
American elections were once comparatively modest affairs. They were conducted in the autumn every fourth year, beginning about Labor Day until Election Day, when everyone voted.
We went to a designated polling place and cast our confidential votes under the watchful eyes of fellow citizen volunteers. The ballots were transported under strict chain-of-custody procedures to be counted by election officials.
Accommodations were made for those physically unable to vote, but most Americans didn’t regard voting as especially onerous. We were grateful for the privilege and willing to overlook minor inconveniences. There were racial and gender barriers to voting for too long, but those are now thankfully corrected.
Elections are the process, in our democratic republic, by which we choose our governing officials. But they also play an important role in ensuring the unity of citizens by providing a process for fairly reconciling our differences.
Americans have always had strong, often contrasting opinions about how they should be governed. It once took a catastrophic war to resolve our differences but normally elections serve well to determine our way forward. Ideally, all sides get their say, nominate the best candidates they can find and then we vote. The results are conclusive and binding until the next election.
Customs change, rules evolve, and elections today look very different than a few decades ago. Yesterday is never going to come back, but it’s worth remembering that not all changes represent progress. Our elections could use a thorough overhaul.
Campaigns simply last too long. The presidential campaign is now continuous, with candidates beginning to compete by the previous Inauguration Day.
As one result, campaigns have become horrendously expensive. They are endurance contests in which the most successful fundraiser is favored. Insiders can’t get enough of the “horse race,” but ordinary citizens become bored. Considerations of ongoing policy decisions are filtered through their possible effect on the campaigns and the ever-present polls.
Perhaps this extended attention could be justified if the result was more carefully examined and higher-quality candidates. But recent elections have featured generally weak choices. This year’s candidates are widely considered to be laughingstocks, the least qualified candidates in memory. Each is fortunate to have the other for their opponent.
More importantly, Americans have lost faith in the integrity of our election processes. Fully one-third of all Americans believe Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020. In another poll, 81 percent believe democracy to be threatened.
“Not my President” buttons sprouted after Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, and left-wing pundits freely disputed the legitimacy of his presidency. Four years later, rule changes attributed to the COVID lockdowns resulted in looser security procedures and widespread suspicion of fraud. Almost half of Americans and a clear majority of Republicans believe fraud may have been extensive enough to alter the result of the elections.
This level of distrust is toxic to a government “of the people.” Whether or not you believe fraud is widespread, “innovations” like vote counting long before election day, poorly monitored drop boxes, ballot harvesting, slipshod or absent identification procedures, citizenship verification by affirmation only, and voter rolls puffed up by automatic registration at welfare offices leave many non-partisan observers skeptical. Election officials deny any problems and brand those with honest doubts as “deniers.”
The gaping hole in our defense against slipshod practices is bulk-mail voting. There is no possible way we can mail out millions of unsolicited ballots to poorly maintained voter rolls, addressed to people who presumably once lived there, and then count all the ballots that are mailed back and pretend we have a reasonably secure system.
Signature matching, far from perfect, is our main defense against cheating. Yet no signature can possibly assure the vote inside was made without undue influence by a mentally competent person for whom the ballot was intended.
Reliable data is unavailable for logistical reasons, but in a recent survey about one-fifth of bulk-mail voters admitted to some illegal behavior in their handling of the mailed ballots – and those were the ones willing to admit it.
Your precious vote only counts if it is not canceled by fraud. We need Easy to Vote, Hard to Cheat.
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.
We all know that math scores have been scandalously trending downward for many years, but the folks in the government should at least be able to count.
We’re finding more and more evidence that the statistics the government is releasing to the public are increasingly suspect and unreliable. It seems like the errors are not random but perhaps manipulated for political advantage. Judge for yourself.
Let’s start with crime statistics. Former President Donald Trump said in the debate that crime is out of control, and Vice President Kamala Harris countered by citing government statistics from the FBI indicating that crime rates are falling.
But Jeffrey Anderson, former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, finds a surge in urban violent crime since 2019. He writes in The Wall Street Journal that “the violent crime rate in 2023 was 19% higher than in 2019.” The urban violent crime rate was up 40%, and urban property crime rate rose 26%.
How can the Left keep saying crime is down? A big reason is the FBI figures are only measuring “crimes reported to the police.” More than half of violent crimes are not reported, thanks to what Anderson calls a new era of “lax law enforcement policies” in urban areas. Police in big cities also have an incentive to undercount crimes to make their performance look better.
Next, we have jobs data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics admitted last month that it has overstated job growth by more than 800,000 positions. And in just the last year the government has also overstated job growth by almost 500,000 from the original monthly headline numbers. This is an overcount of over 1 million. In 10 of the last 13 months, the errors were in the direction of announcing too many jobs.
So President Joe Biden gets the gangbuster headlines, and the whoopsie daisy comes later when no one is paying attention.
Those aren’t just random errors. Was the Biden Labor Department finagling the data? Maybe.
Then there was the decennial Census Bureau population count. The numbers from the 2020 census were wildly wrong, as the bureau admits.
In an analysis issued in 2021 called the “Post-Enumeration Survey Estimation Report,” the Census Bureau reported which states recorded overcounts of their population, and which saw undercounts. Florida, Texas, Tennessee and other red states were undercounted by some 1.5 million residents. The overcounting was in mostly blue states like New York and Minnesota. Again, was this just an accident?
The miscount may have cost Republicans three electoral seats. This means the presidential election and control of the House of Representatives may be decided because of an error in counting heads.
These government agencies are supposed to be politically independent, and historically, they have been filled with professionals devoid of bias. But when we see the errors all bending the data in the direction of benefiting one party, one has to wonder if this is deliberate misrepresentation.
I hope I’m wrong and that these are innocent errors. But we live in an era where everything in Washington is hyper-politicized. Elections have become a blood sport. The saying is that “all is fair in love and war.” And now add politics to that.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.He is also an economic advisor to the Trump campaign. His new book, “The Trump Economic Miracle,” coauthored with Arthur Laffer, will be released later this month.
The Republican Party of Arizona (AZGOP) released a new billboard design on Thursday exemplifying a theme of unity. The new digital billboards featured across the Valley of the Sun prominently feature an image of President Donald Trump backed by the Arizona Flag’s rays of red and gold sun above the blue sky and flanked by former Democrats, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as well as Republicans Vice Presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), former Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and ‘X’ owner Elon Musk. Although Musk has been supporting Trump, he has historically declared himself a “registered independent” and “politically moderate.” Thus the billboard represents real political unity representing Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.
According to a press release from the AZGOP, the new billboard is “part of its ‘Team Unity’ campaign, featuring President Donald J. Trump and Vice Presidential nominee Senator J.D. Vance alongside a coalition of prominent American heroes dedicated to restoring our great country.”
“The ‘Team Unity’ billboard is part of a broader effort by the AZGOP to energize voters ahead of the 2024 election. The AZGOP is committed to reaching every corner of the state with this message of hope, optimism, and most importantly, unity.”
The state party Chair Gina Swoboda hailed the billboard’s launch and emphasized the immense need for political unity in America:
“This billboard embodies the spirit of unity that our nation desperately needs,” said Swoboda. “The Trump-Vance ticket represents a powerful coalition of voices that will fight for America — protecting freedom of speech, addressing the health crisis, restoring prosperity, and ensuring security for all Americans. This campaign is about bringing together Arizonans and Americans who are united by their commitment to restoring our nation’s values and standing strong against those who seek to divide us.”
Dating back to his inaugural address in 2021 and throughout his term so far, President Joe Biden has often touted his administration as being one focused on “Unity,” but the message has largely fallen flat with voters, given that any “bipartisan” measures are only superficially so, typically representing the furthest left and most anti-Trump Congressmen and Senators siding against their own party, as well as the increasingly divisive and vitriolic rhetoric the Biden-Harris administration has employed against President Trump and his supporters.
During his inaugural address, Biden said, “We come together as one nation.” He claimed, “Democracy has prevailed,” adding, “We have much to repair, much to restore, much to build, much to heal, and much to gain. But we cannot do it while divided against ourselves. My whole soul is in this—bringing America together,” he said. It is time to end our “uncivil war.”
Although he attempted to pivot, claiming, “Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.” He quickly fell back to the divisive rhetoric, telling supporters, “There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.”
Joe Biden is going to give an Oval Office address tonight on the importance of national unity.
The same Joe Biden who has viciously attacked half the country throughout his presidency. pic.twitter.com/WXXYBVGzDy
He added, “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”
However, as the 2024 Election loomed, a resurgence of the new “Unity,” began to spring from the Biden-Harris administration. Yet, even then, he readily maligned President Trump and his supporters, and Vice President Kamala Harris through her campaign has continued to do so.
The clear dichotomy presents the Trump campaign versus the effort to install Harris, as the only ‘true’ example of unity across the political spectrum.
“I am not a charter school fan,” Joe Biden declared in his 2020 presidential campaign. That’s disappointing, but not surprising, coming from the self-declared “most pro-union president” in history.
His would-be successor, Kamala Harris, claims to still be equivocating, as is her wont, over her position on charter schools. But she has the enthusiastic support of the teachers’ unions, so that’s a bad sign too.
Her dilemma is that the teachers’ unions, the political partners of the Democrats, are dead set in their opposition to charter schools for two reasons. They expose the education failures of the union-dominated district schools, and most charter school teachers aren’t unionized and therefore don’t pay union dues.
Charter schools, first created in the 1990s, are publicly funded but independently administered. They don’t charge tuition and aren’t allowed to “cherry-pick” the best students.
Charter school opponents once could claim that charter schools “don’t work” to improve academic outcomes. But we know now that this is simply not the case.
Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) released a 2023 report tracking charter school outcomes over 15 years. The study covered 2 million charter school students in 29 states with a control group in district schools. It is arguably the most comprehensive, credible study ever done of charter schools.
The conclusion was decisive. Most charter schools “produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population.”
CREDO’s first study in 2009 showed no improvement in student outcomes from charters, a result still cited as evidence that charters fail to help those deemed “uneducable” by some. But each subsequent CREDO report has shown improvement and superior performance overall.
New York charter school students gained 75 days reading improvement and 73 in math each year compared with traditional schools. In Washington state, the numbers were 29 days in reading and 30 in math. In Illinois, it was 40 in reading, 48 in math.
The recent study also showed that black and Hispanic students achieved disproportionately large gains. A section in the CREDO report described several “gap-busting schools” which educate students from underprivileged backgrounds to perform at the same level as white peers. So much for the myth of “uneducable” students.
The overall statistics would be even better if not for the 15% of charter schools that underperform their local district schools. The telling difference is that failing charter schools can be and are closed. Failing district schools just keep on failing year after year.
There is even more good news. Charter schools benefit even those students who do not attend them. According to an analysis by the Fordham Foundation, at least 12 studies indicate that the scores for all publicly enrolled students in a geographic region rise when the number of charter schools increases. Moreover, neighboring schools which don’t experience academic improvement often showed progress in school attendance and behavioral problems due to competing with charters.
The reason is obvious. The mere presence of choices for parents breaks the district school monopoly. Competition brings more accountability and a “customer orientation” that benefits everybody.
It’s no coincidence that, while traditional public schools have lost students, charter schools have gained over 300,000 students over the last five years. But the institutional opponents of the charter schools are unmoved by the good news. The growth of charters would undoubtedly be even greater if not for the relentless opposition of the teachers’ union/Democratic Party axis.
Ironically, for charter school opponents, charters are highly popular with the working class, ethnic minority constituencies they claim to champion. A poll this May by Democrats for Education Reform found that 80% of black parents and 71% of Hispanics had a favorable view of charters, as well they should.
But the teachers’ unions don’t give away their formidable political support, and they clearly dominate educational policy making with today’s Democrats. The Biden/Harris administration has continued a program of budget cuts and onerous regulations for charter schools, including a proposed reduction for the Charter Schools Program, which provides grants and was even supported by the Clinton and Obama administrations.
The Democrats – and all of us – have a clear choice to make between the needs of students versus the demands of the teachers’ unions.
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.
