Respondents Reject Deficit-Reducing Options, Support Constitutional Spending Limit

PHOENIX – Likely voters in Phoenix and Glendale rejected sales and income tax increases by large majorities, in poll results released today by the Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP Arizona), a taxpayer watchdog group committed to fiscal responsibility and limited government.

Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposed billion-dollar-a-year tax increase fared badly in the poll, with 62 percent of respondents in Phoenix opposed, and 64 percent in Glendale. Opposition to tax increases crossed party lines, with 47 percent of self-identified “strong Democrats” in Phoenix opposed, and 52 percent in Glendale.

Respondents also rejected by wide margins a ballot proposition that would allow the state Legislature to make cuts to areas of the state budget that are currently protected from cuts, including parts of K-12 education and state health care programs for the poor.

“The poll results suggest that there’s no point in the Legislature trying to fix Prop 105 at the ballot,” said AFP Arizona director Tom Jenney, referring to the constitutional provision that makes it nearly impossible for the Legislature to make reductions to voter-mandated spending programs.

The least unpopular of the short-term deficit fixes was a proposal to sell state assets, including public lands, and privatize state functions. Fifty-five percent of respondents in Phoenix opposed the proposal, as did 52 percent in Glendale. The only short-term deficit fix that won approval of majorities of respondents was a proposal to allow gaming at horse and dog racing tracks to generate new revenues for the state.

“Nearly all of the deficit-reducing options are unpopular,” Jenney said, “so our elected officials may as well vote on principle.” AFP Arizona has urged the governor and legislators to hold fast to conservative principles and balance the budget by reducing spending, privatizing state functions, and selling state assets.

For a long-run solution to the state’s recurring budget woes, the poll asked likely voters how they felt about a constitutional amendment that would keep the state government from increasing its budget faster than the rate of growth of the state economy. Seventy percent of respondents in Phoenix and 78 percent in Glendale supported the proposal.

“The spending limit reform won’t fix our current problems,” Jenney said, “but it would go a long way toward preventing a budget deficit crisis in the next recession. At some point, the state of Arizona needs to get off the fiscal rollercoaster.”

Completed Monday night, March 23rd, the polling effort surveyed 300 likely voters in both Phoenix and Glendale on local and state-level tax and budget issues. The poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, a firm with extensive experience in polling Arizona citizens. AFP Arizona released the survey results for local issues yesterday.

For the complete list of polling questions, visit www.aztaxpayers.org.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org

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Dear Arizona Taxpayer,
 
Gov. Jan Brewer is trying to get the Arizona Legislature to send a tax increase proposal to the ballot. 
 
The proposal would increase state taxes by a billion dollars a year for three years. 
 
In the middle of a recession. 
 
At a time when many families are already struggling financially and when many businesses are already laying off workers and cutting back on production.
 
PLEASE CONTACT GOV. BREWER TODAY and tell her you think raising taxes on families and businesses during a recession is a BAD IDEA. 
 
Please send Gov. Brewer a quick email, or better still, leave her a phone message, and ask her to start listening to taxpayers, and to stop listening to the political consultants and fixers who have given her such bad advice. 
 
Contacts for Gov. Brewer’s communications office are:
 
Email: psenseman@az.gov   Phone: (602) 542-4331

Also, use the comment form at http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp
 
PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!
 
–Tom
 
 
More info about Gov. Brewer’s tax increase proposal:
 
Gov. Brewer’s tax increase proposal is part of a pair of ballot proposals that would go to the ballot a few months from now.  The other proposal would ask voters to let the Legislature make cuts to areas of the budget that have been protected from cuts by past voter mandates. 

 
The obvious danger is that if the two proposals go to the ballot separately, the spending lobbies and tax-takers (who are much more well-funded and well-organized than groups representing taxpayers) will pass the tax increase and shoot down the authorization for spending cuts.
 
Even if the Legislature is able to evade the single-subject rule and legally bind the two proposals together (though conditional enactment clauses in both referenda), here is the result:
 
The spending lobbies get a guaranteed tax increase, but taxpayers only get the possibility of spending reductions in formerly protected budget areas.
 
Some have described the double referenda as a “win-win” scenario.  It is definitely a win for the spending lobbies and the tax-takers, because they will get to raise taxes.  And it is something of a win for Legislators, who will be able to spread budget cuts more evenly. 
 
But it is NOT a win for taxpayers.  There is nothing in the package to keep the state from resuming its pattern of rollercoaster budgeting as soon as the recession is over.  Even if the tax increases really are temporary, and really do expire in three years, the state will soon be wracked by an uncontrolled spending binge, just as it was during the past six years.
 
When the tax money comes pouring in again, the politicians will spend every penny that comes in, and leverage that money to spend yet more.  They will raise spending to unsustainable levels in order to please the tax-takers and the spending lobbies, just as they did during the last six years. They will create yet another gigantic budget deficit crisis during the next economic downturn, when the revenue falls off.  Once again, the politicians will come at us with tax increase proposals.  And next time, the “fix” may be a permanent tax increase, rather than a temporary one. 
 
If Arizona taxpayers and fiscal conservatives are even going to begin to consider a ballot bargain package that includes a temporary tax increase, it will have to include the Taxpayer Bill of Rights—the only reform that can stop the spending rollercoaster.  The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) would create a sustainable upper limit to state spending growth, by limiting the growth in state government to the rate of growth of population plus inflation, with immediate refunds to taxpayers of excess monies.
 
See this chart for a visual of how TABOR would have worked, had it been in effect since 1993:
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/files/AzGenFund2003-2012–01-31-09.pdf
 
Bob Robb had a similar take in his column in the Sunday Republic:
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/RobertRobb/47866
 
If TABOR is not attached to the ballot package in a bomb-proof manner, Arizona is better off balancing the budget with the tools currently at the disposal of the Legislature and Governor.  They should start with the $2.2 billion in spending reductions suggested by the appropriations chairmen in their January 15 budget, and find creative ways to save the other $1.5 billion by selling state assets, privatizing state functions, and eliminating entitlement fraud.
 
For Liberty,
 
–Tom
 
Tom Jenney
Arizona Director
Americans for Prosperity
(Arizona Federation of Taxpayers)
www.aztaxpayers.org

[Source: Arizona Republic, June 19, 2008] — One of the recurring controversies between central Phoenix small businesses and their city’s government is the question of flexibility.  Just how flexible is the city when it comes to new uses of older buildings in the central core?  Entrepreneurs are finding new ways to adaptively reuse older, central-city facilities for new shops and restaurants.  Everyone, citizen and city government alike, wants to see that energy happen.  But is the city too inflexible toward businesses seeking to use older facilities in innovative ways?

A guest columnist for the Phoenix Republic edition of The Arizona Republic, Tom Jenney, recently related a parable from Phoenix’s recent history that should trouble City Council members.  Jenney wrote of MacAlpine’s Soda Fountain at Seventh and Oak streets, which in 2003 began offering “swing dancing” events.  They were a smash.  Loud 1940s music.  Poodle skirts and zoot suits.  And lots of dancers.

And, as the owners discovered after a former employee filed a complaint, a violation of a recently enacted city ordinance.  By offering dancing, the MacAlpine’s owners had changed the “occupancy” of their soda fountain from a designation of “mercantile” to one of “assembly.”  And, so, they would have to install a sprinkler system – at a cost of $75,000 – if they wanted to continue letting customers dance.  Bye-bye, swing dancing. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]