by David Safier Goldwater Institute's Matthew Ladner warns if Arizona's school districts are not allowed to fire experienced teachers, class sizes will rise. The implication is, the best way to keep class sizes low is to fire the most experienced teachers and replace them with first year teachers whose salaries are lower. He refuses to … Read more

by David Safier Once again, I'm in Jim Nintzel's debt for doing the heavy lifting on this one. The Goldwater Institute has been pushing the meme that a 1 cent sales tax increase will cost Arizona somewhere between 9,000 and 13,000 jobs. The problem is, the figure is wrong, for a few reasons. The most … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Now for those of you who prefer more in-depth economic analysis, one of the best economics bloggers is Jon Perr at Perrspectives and crooksandliars.com. Perr has his take down of the All Propaganda (AP) article which ran last week in the Arizona Daily Star and many other national newspapers (without fact-checking) and … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Dave Johnson at OurFuture.org explains the deficit in easy to understand colorful graphs. Dear Deficit Commission, It's Not Hard: Dear Deficit Commission, It's not hard to figure out why we have a huge deficit. It's so easy I don't have to use words. Here are some pictures: Bill Clinton raised taxes on … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: This is a "big effin' deal!" Most Democratic activists have already or will receive e-mail notice of this event that allows you to securely purchase tickets online and to provide the requisite disclosure statement for security clearance purposes. https://secure.azdem.org/page/contribute/heritage2010 What: 2010 Arizona Heritage Dinner When: Saturday, May 1, 2010 Where: Arizona Biltmore … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: I was contacted by a reader who was irate about a mail piece received from Tim Sultan, candidate for the House in LD 28: I just received in the mail literature from a Tim Sultan running for State Representative, and the blue page (not his slick ad) says, "Tim Sultan is the … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Ideology trumps facts and reality for the GOP Taliban. They continue to cling to the entirely disproved and discredited supply-side "trickle down" GOP economic theory because it is faith based — they believe in things which are demonstrably and provably false. They are delusional, and fiscally irresponsible. They are a threat to … Read more