Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com
No, this isn’t Governor Doug Ducey. It’s President Herbert Hoover. But same shit, different century.
It appears the efforts of Governor Doug Ducey and his communications people to enforce mandatory optimism are working, judging from this recent piece in the Arizona Capitol Times about the governor’s first year in office:
Remaking Arizona: Ducey’s free-market approach succeeds in year one
It would be difficult to imagine a more successful first year for Arizona’s 23rd governor.
Gov. Doug Ducey took office with two severe problems requiring immediate attention: a massive budget deficit and a K-12 funding lawsuit that threatened to drop Arizona even further into the fiscal hole. He set out to find an early resolution to the first and ended his first year by mediating a solution to the second. In the intervening months, he stayed active, putting his conservative, free-market imprimatur on state government.
Since the moment Ducey took the dais for his first State of the State address, the new governor has achieved most of the goals he set for his administration. And, in a departure from the rancor between lawmakers and the executive branch that so often characterized former Gov. Jan Brewer’s administration, he did so with legislative leadership by his side.
With an administration packaged in a slick public relations campaign and slogans like “opportunity for all” and “government at the speed of business,” Ducey set out to remake Arizona.
“Ten out of 10,” was how lobbyist Kurt Davis, a veteran of former Gov. Fife Symington’s administration, characterized Ducey’s first year. “To be able to come in and establish and confront a very difficult budget … and then have to turn around and solve a multiyear education lawsuit and figure out how to pay for that, those are two substantial achievements. And all during that time you’re appointing people to head your agencies and beginning to put your imprimatur on how the government’s going to look.”
Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of rancor between Governor Brewer and the GOP majority lege in her first year either, when SB1070 got passed quicker than crap goes through a goose so give that time, Cap Times. That aside, it’s fascinating to watch the Arizona Villagers insist that everything is just peachy under Governor Hoover, I mean Ducey. That education deal? Ignore how it requires voter approval and even then keeps the state at the bottom of the nation in education funding! That budget? Well, I guess it’s only “harsh” if you are one of those poor children whining about how your family’s assistance got cut. Or how the abuse or neglect you are suffering isn’t being addressed. If you are a disconnected (meaning not employed or attending school) young person between 16 and 24 in one of our urban areas, then you must not have a full appreciation of government at the speed of business, or something.
I know, I’m being such a negative nabob. Just keep repeating “Prosperity Is Just Around The Corner!” and it will be true.
If AZ is so great, why are we dead last in every well-being measure that matters?
If Arizona is so bad, why do you still live here? I am not saying you should leave, I am just saying that if a place where I lived made me feel so bad, I would move. There are many states where a liberal would find themselves in a virtual heaven…why stay in a place like this?
Sorry Steve. Spin doesn’t solve Arizona’s issues. There is a litany of issues all this spin fails to acknowledge.
1. Cities still don’t have their HURF funds back.
2. Counties have had many service responsibilities dumped on them with no money from the State.
3. Child safety services are still a mess.
4. JTED/CTE districts are months away from being gutted.
5. School districts MIGHT get money back still owed them. 49th and 50th we still are. No capital funded for years is the next lawsuit. No facilities money for years.
6. ADOT is still way behind in road projects and maintenance needed.
7. State lands mangeme t way under funded let alone the nonsense about States taking all the BLM lands under their”management.”
8. Budget process a disgrace done in the dead of night before anyone can rally or the public finds out. Arm twisting and threats at 3:00am.
9. Thousands more private prison beds filled with California convicts.
And this is just a few examples that did not get in the cheerleading newsletter.
7. State funded mental health services are a huge mess.
Yes, there are a lot of problems facing Arizonans, but there are some successes that are making things better. The problem with Democrats/leftists is they cannot even grudgingly admit some things have gotten better. If it was a Democrat in charge, you would DEMAND that the successes be acknowledged while playing down the failures.
Name three successes?
Steve, Frances Perkins is clearly well informed on issues and you just don’t like lefties.
Did I get that about right? 🙂
Frances Perkins may be informed, but he is also extremely negative and cynical which taints every facet of that knowledge. There is nothing good that happens in this State that Frances cannot find something wrong with it.
As to my not liking lefties…I do not like or dislike a person based on their politics. Rather, I base on whether or not they are likeable. Sorry to disappoint you.
(1) The 2016 Budget;
(2) Record setting tourism; and,
(3) A rational approach to the K-12 lawsuit.
If this posting and the responses to it prove nothing else, it demonstrates the utter inability of Democrats/leftists to acknowledge anything positive occurring under the care and control of the GOP.
Yep, the analogy is Sam Brownback and Kansas.
If the States are the laboratories of democracy, then Kansas proves that lowering taxes does not increase revenue, in fact, because of MATH, it lowers revenue.
It’s so bad in Kansas, in 2014 the Republicans were telling voters to vote for the Democrat.
And then when it gets really bad, because Ducey and team made it really bad, they’ll say “Look, we told you, government doesn’t work”.
Which is their plan anyway, to dismantle government, they’re just not honest enough to admit it.
And these fiscal smoke and mirrors do not produce the economic development benefits claimed. No data shows this. Truly great preK-16 funding DOES create economic development wonders.
While Treasurer he was crowing about balancing the budget without any gimmicks, even though the Treasurer has little to do with it. Actually they have achieved all this “wonder” by transferring many responsibilities to local cities, counties and school districts without giving them anymore money thus saving the State budget. This “wonderment” continues by promising school district money already owed them, with no assurance the voters will approve, starving JTED/CTE programs, and then forming a committee to discover the miracle of more money to schools by rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. If they told the truth it would be, “we are doing everything possible, squeezing local governments, starving schools, starving road repairs, and screwing the environment, abused children and the mentally ill, to fund tax cuts for our buddies, to achieve our goal of no income tax. Why not just say my hero is Sam Brownback, the bankrupter in chief of Kansas?