Stealing money from a baby? Not so fast.
by David SafierI noted 6 weeks ago that Republicans took $7 million from the First Things First fund to help balance the 2009 budget. Now, according to the Republic, The First Things First early-childhood-education board filed a lawsuit Monday to block the state from taking $7 million from a fund created by Arizona voters three … Read more
An AZ GOP poll
by David SafierFrom the Arizona Guardian: A majority of Arizona voters support a temporary tax increase to rescue the state from its deepening budget crisis, according the results of a statewide poll released Tuesday by the Arizona Republican Party. About 66 percent of the 607 likely voters surveyed said they would back a 1 percent … Read more
Putting the voucher discussion to bed
by David SafierThe State Supreme Court has spoken: vouchers are unconstitutional in Arizona. Yet we continue to argue about them here at BfA. Well, no more. Or not for awhile anyway. My sense is that vouchers will sit on a back bench in Arizona for awhile. Though voucher advocates have two basic avenues they can … Read more
Update II: The Party of No (New Ideas)
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: H/t to BarbinMD at Daily Kos: This story just gets better and better – from The Washington Independent: While reporters hooted at the comically simplistic charts and lack of details in the House Republican leadership’s budget plan, the green eyeshade types at Citizen’s for Tax Justice crunched the numbers (PDF). They conclude … Read more
A liberal learns “The Blaine Game”
by David SafierI had some other items I wanted to blog about today, but Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute has kept me pinned down on this voucher thing. As Al Pacino said in Godfather 3, "Just when I thought I was out . . ." When I wrote about the State Supreme Court ruling … Read more
Geek update
by David SafierThe person who complained about the weird spacing and fonts on my posts was right. And the reason is, I was using Mac's native Safari browser to write the posts. It was causing me all kinds of headaches, but I didn't know why. Now I'm using Firefox, which posts more easily and without … Read more
The Citizen goes after vouchers
by David SafierToday's Citizen editorial (which may be one of their last) has the subhead, Vouchers aren't just unconstitutional, they're flat-out undemocratic. Here are some of the reasons they give: • Public schools are held accountable. Indeed, under No Child Left Behind, they constantly have to demonstrate student performance on many subjects in multiple grades. … Read more
