Arizona Tax Revolt Initiative Recruiting Among Minutemen

Ultra-conservatives seek to hobble our state government with a faux-populist ‘tax revolt’ using initiatives here in Arizona. The effort is deeply ironic as Arizona already has one of the lowest property tax rates in the nation, which is clearly reflected by our consistent bottom-of-the-barrel ranking in investment in our children’s education, health and welfare. These anti-government crusaders want to cripple Arizona just as Prop 13 has hobbled good governance in California.

Now these anti-government crusaders are joining hands with anti-immigrant crusaders, as evidenced by the following attempt to recruit support for the ‘Arizona Tax Revolt’ initiatives among Arizona’s Minutemen chapters. The selling point is the claim that 20% of our primary school dollars are spent on educating the children of illegal immigrants, possibly more if one considers ELL costs. Talk about cutting your own throat to spite that brown guy’s face. They apparently believe that by forcing the legislature to finance the revenue shortfalls to our schools with other kinds of taxes that support for stricter border enforcement with rise. These people really do live in own reality.

Here is their pitch. I haven’t corrected any grammar, punctuation or spelling…

"To all our friends in
the Arizona Minutemen,

As the Chairman and
chief architect of the Arizona Tax Revolt – Property Tax LEVY and VALUATION
Rollback initiatives and someone as concerned with the illegal alien invasion
as you I wanted to propose that we join forces. We need the help of our
combined membership NOW to qualify our initiatives and it makes little sense to
continue duplicating our efforts to qualify Russell and Don’s measures separately
from the Tax Revolt when both are such popular issues.

I spoke with Russell
Pierce a couple of weeks ago and I asked him whether there had been any
estimates of the number of illegal aliens being educated in our K-12 schools
here in Arizona.
Russell said that conservative estimates place the number of illegal students
at in excess of 20%. This shocked me as it should you. Though we are apparently
required to educate students they of course should not be in the country let
alone our property tax funded schools. Not only are law abiding Americans being
taxed out of their homes but the education system and our children are
suffering.

For example if the tax
you personally paid to the K-12 schools was $500 than $100 of your hard earned
dollars were paying for illegal aliens and that doesn’t include a premium for
ELL programs. We have 1200 Arizona Tax Revolt members across the state some of
which are already teaming up for signature gathering with Willa Key at various
gun shows. Willa is leading the signature gathering for Russell and Don’s
initiatives. From all our volunteers that I have personally spoken with, not a
one believes that government is doing a good job at border security.

The Tax Revolt
initiatives will significantly reduce the property tax revenue to the schools.
However due to Prop 301 passed by the voters in 2000, the legislature will have
to make up any shortfall in property tax revenue meaning that the legislature
will take the political heat for raising other forms of taxes. We need to start
now creating the linkage that illegal aliens are in a large part responsible
for the double digit increases in our property taxes. By limiting those taxes
the pressure is on government to solve the illegal alien crisis.

I would be happy to
discuss strategy with you folks and figure out how our respective 501(c)(4)
corporations and political committees can work together for the common good. In
addition I encourage each of you to take a look at our WEB site and learn more
about the Arizona Tax Revolt plan to reduce property taxes making them both
predictable and affordable. I understand that LD4 has allowed only our 4
initiatives (2 illegal alien and 2 Tax Revolt) at the Joe Arpaio roast on
December 1^st in Sun City. I will be
there and hope to meet as many of you as can attend.

Sincerely,

Marc
Goldstone, Chair.

www.ArizonaTaxRevolt.ORG

(928)
754-8305

Cell
(928) 727-4090"

Now, I’ll just assume that by having 501(c)(4) corporations and political committees ‘work together,’ Mr. Goldstone is not suggesting anyone violate elections laws or endanger their tax status by engaging in illegal campaign coordination or restricted advocacy, but it certainly wouldn’t be surprising should someone – like the IRS, for instance – suspect such activity could be afoot by unscrupulous or ignorant political operatives.

I’ll be taking a close look at the ‘Tax Revolt’ initiatives, as well as other proposed initiatives in Arizona very soon.