March 9 , 2009

 

Aren't we glad we have a "Republican" governor?  I have been trying to give Gov. Brewer the benefit of the doubt.  In fact I went so far as to say in my 2/23 report that we were fortunate to have her.  But her actions over the past few weeks have left me wondering.

I had previously mentioned her last minute request to add $18 million to the '09 budget fix for social welfare programs.  We agreed, under the rationale that she was new to the office and hadn't had the time to make a more timely request. 

She has defended the decisions made by the Department Directors (especially Dept. of Economic Security with layoffs of CPS workers) under the lump sum cuts necessitated by the '09 fix and castigated the legislature for not knowing how those cuts would be implemented.  We gave them discretion to do the least harm to the fewest number of people, but they chose those that would generate the most public outcry.

Early last week she presented her plan to restore $24M in child care subsidies, with a request that we go into special session to do this immediately.  She set an arbitrary date of March 14th, threatening to send out letters to those affected saying that the legislature must act or their subsidy would be cut off when in fact there was enough cash to continue the program.  JLBC has revised their assessment to the effect that we can "backfill" this amount from federal funds, not requiring additional state funds.  But there was reluctance from the legislature, especially in the Senate, to make this one of our first priorities.  So in the Governor's address to a joint session, she made this a particular point -- again asking the legislature to move quickly to "restore" the subsidies.

It was in that same speech that she called for a tax increase to close the deficit for 2010, estimated to be $3 BILLION.  We who serve on the Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate have been working for weeks to find other ways to solve the problem.  The Speaker of the House has been in negotiations with the Governor over the same period of time to find out what her suggestions are.  He related that her only response has been, "Everything is on the table."  He learned only on the morning of her address that there would be a call for a tax increase, but no specifics.  And her speech still offered no specifics, only a call to raise $1B in taxes and that the legislature would have to decide what to do.

I cannot speak for anyone else in the legislature, but I am convinced that we have been "thrown under the bus" on the Governor's way to being elected in her own right.  I can tell you that I believe that raising taxes in a recessionary period only compounds that problem.  Our only solution, in concert with accepting the federal "stimulus" money, is to reduce the massive amount of spending that has occurred over the past few years by insisting that departments and agencies stop funding duplicative and/or unnecessary programs and streamline their operations as any private organization would have to do under the same circumstances.  Otherwise, once the federal money has run out, we will be in the same predicament that we find ourselves in now.

There is no easy fix, and it is likely that we will not resolve any of the issues in the next few weeks.  I predict that we will be in session until the last few days of June (again!) and that ultimately we will succeed only in punting the problem off to another year.  A dismal, but altogether likely, prospect.

Until Next Week,

Nancy

Rep. Nancy McLain
602-926-5051
nmclain@azleg.gov

Nancy McLain, District 3, Arizona House of Representatives
nmclain@azleg.gov or
nmclainbhc@aol.com