Al Melvin’s biggest disappointment

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by David Safier
Freshman legislators always come in with high hopes about what they can accomplish, so they're bound to suffer multiple disappointments in their first years. And this year when legislators see Arizonans losing jobs, watching the value of their investments in homes and retirement accounts plummet and going without adequate health care and other services, the disappointments must be piling up like cord wood.

So, according to an article in The Explorer, what is Sen. Al Melvin's greatest disappointment?

Republican Sen. Al Melvin said "my greatest disappointment as a senator" is "the misinformation about K-12 reductions in the '09 budget."

Misinformation about K-12 reductions. Is his biggest. Disappointment.

This from someone who handed out a flier at his town hall meetings that happily proclaimed:

  • We're 16th in funding per classroom of students [without clarifying that our ranking is due to our large class sizes]
  • We're 3rd in % increase in K-12 expenditures over 20 years [without clarifying that we had one of the highest % increases in our student population over that period of any state in the nation]
  • We're 19th in Total Revenues from State Government [without mentioning we have the 13th largest student population in the country]

His disappointment must be with those voters who worry about what cuts to schools will do to our children's educations and won't shut the hell up. He actually mocks the genuine concern people are feeling:

With this year's cut, "you would think a nuclear bomb hit the K-12 system," Melvin said.

He's probably right. It's not like a nuclear bomb hit. It's more like walking through a minefield while trying to dodge machine gun fire.

When Melvin was asked about reinstating the equalization property tax levy, he said once again, he'd vote against it, because it would have an "adverse effect on small businesses and homeowners."

Lest you think Melvin is dogmatically anti tax, you might remember he was for taxes to fix up our roads. The potholes must have had an "adverse effect" on his backside, which was more important to him than its possible adverse effects on small businesses and homeowners.

If they ever discover a compassion or an empathy gene, I'll bet they'll find it's missing from most conservatives' DNA.