Fact Checking GQP Propaganda On Federal Debt: Republicans Are More Than Equally To Blame

“Budgets are moral documents.” – Often attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” – President Joseph R. Biden. The Associated Press reports, Biden rolls out budget plan, challenges GOP to follow suit: President Joe Biden on Thursday made an … Read more

Robbing public schools to pay for private school vouchers

I had set aside this excellent reporting from Brenna Bailey at the Arizona Daily Star to get around to later on the topic of Arizona’s structural revenue deficit. Tucson educators: 2020 Arizona budget ‘Band-Aid approach’ to K-12 funding crisis: Gov. Doug Ducey and the Arizona Legislature have touted their decision to invest $660 million new dollars … Read more

About Arizona’s unconstitutional state budget

Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to run their Southwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Arizona, recently penned an op-ed for The Arizona Republic aka the “McMedia” (for its daily reporting on the reality TV stars ‘The McCains”), extolling his recently passed state budget. Gov. Ducey: Why this year’s … Read more

Trump tax plan: twice as many corporations pay no taxes

While many taxpayers are scrambling to make last-minute payments due to the Internal Revenue Service on April 15 because of changes to tax withholding in the Trump tax bill enacted by a Republican Congress, “many of the country’s largest publicly-held corporations are doing better: They’ve reported they owe absolutely nothing on the billions of dollars … Read more

So how’s that trickle-down working out for Arizona?

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports that Arizona Legislature’s budget analysts predict 2018 shortfall:

The Arizona Legislature’s budget analysts last Thursday predicted a budget shortfall that could top $100 million in the current and coming year as the impact of corporate tax cuts continues to overwhelm increases in sales, insurance premium and personal income tax collections.

Whaaa? You mean tax cuts don’t pay for themselves and are revenue neutral? (sarcasm).

Chief budget analyst Richard Stavneak told economists and state officials who make up the Legislature’s Finance Advisory Committee that the shortfall will hit $104 million. That’s out of an expected $10 billion in spending for the budget year that begins next July 1. A panel of state lawmakers also attended the meeting.

Excluded from that projection is $90 million in current spending that is labeled one-time but appears to be an ongoing commitment by the Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey, Stavneak said. That puts the expected shortfall next year close to $200 million if that spending isn’t cut. The revenue picture could also brighten, but signals are mixed, he said.

Phased-in corporate tax cuts enacted under former Gov. Jan Brewer in 2011 have cut more than $600 million in yearly revenue since 2014. Rep. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, said it may be time to revisit the corporate tax cuts and predicted a budget battle next year.

“It’s going to be a free-for-all. We’re back to the cutting, I don’t see any other way,” Shooter said. “It’s going to come down to who’s going to bleed the least, what’s going to be the least painful, I guess.”

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