Legislature should concentrate on 3 things

The Democrats are supposed to be the party of the working folks. The Democrats are supposed to be the party of opportunity. The Democrats are supposed to be the party of hope. Really? Instead, Democrats seem to want to pass the blame on to Republicans instead taking some of the blame.

Let’s start with the budget crisis and go back a few years. In March 2007, the projection was that state sales tax receipts would increase by 8.5 percent over the next two years. And that was considered a pretty conservative projection. Instead, they have gone down by over 16 percent. And the sales tax is the most steady and predictable of the state’s tax sources. The governor’s office comes up with a revenue forecast as does the legislature. Agreeing on a common one is part of the budget negotiations.

State Treasurer Dean Martin went to Governor Napolitano in March, 2008 and told her that the state spending needed to stop and that a revised budget needed to be negotiated or the state would go into the red. Governor Napolitano called Dean Martin “Chicken Little,” and said that he was not fully informed. The governor said that the state has money that the treasurer didn’t know about. Really? That is illegal. Governor Napolitano quickly retracted her statement knowing she could face some legal battles if her statement were true.

There are three areas that the legislatures need to fix, and that means both Republicans and Democrats. Those three are the economy, jobs and the border. Let’s look at how we get our state back on track.

Economy: We need to cut useless spending, and even though that sounds simple, it isn’t. If you lose 30 percent of your income, you cut expenditures, but the problem is that the state expenditures are 30 percent higher. We passed the sales tax proposition that will bring in around $1 billion, but that still leaves about a $2 billion deficit. If we do nothing, the deficit will be around $4 billion by 2014.The state relied for many years on tourism, sales taxes and income taxes for its revenue.

Jobs: Tax incentives, and how the state government targeting on how to use tax incentives to create jobs is essential. If tax incentives create a flow of money into jobs, employed people paying taxes will keep government running. Over 308,000 jobs have been lost in Arizona, so if government is going to live on sales tax revenues, then legislatures must pay attention to job creation.

The Border: Arizona’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers even more than once thought — a whopping $2.7 billion in 2009, according to researchers at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the public interest group that helped write the state’s new immigration law. FAIR’s new breakdown shows that illegal immigrants take $1.6 billion from Arizona’s education system, $695 million from healthcare services, $339 million in law enforcement and court costs, $85 million in welfare costs and $155 million in other general costs. Jack Martin, the chief researcher on the report, says his data, in fact, do include benefits like the estimated $143 million in taxes paid by an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants.

These 3 areas will help improve the state of Arizona for many years to come. This is going to take both Democrats and Republicans working together to make this happen.

Brenda Hermanson is president of the Maricopa Republican Club.

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