AZ Chamber of Commerce: Don’t roll back AHCCCS

by David Safier

I spotlighted a rare moment of agreement with Tom Horne below, and now I'm going to do the same for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. What a morning.

The chamber cautioned lawmakers not to reduce programs where the state would forfeit even more in federal dollars than it would save in state dollars.

 “If Arizona rolls back AHCCCS eligibility or eliminates the Career and Technical Education program, we stand to lose two to three times as many federal dollars,” Hamer said. “And the chamber cannot support any reductions that would shift costs onto the private sector, such as a reduction in AHCCCS funding that would result in higher health insurance premiums.”
AHCCCS is the state’s Medicaid program.

Of course, our agreement only goes so far.

The Chamber is also for Brewer's 1 cent sales tax increase, which, if it's coupled with a cut in business taxes — one of their recommendations — is their kind of tax increase.

Here are their other recommendations.

• Reforms to the Job Training Program to make it a more useful job retention tool.
• Modernizing the way the state incurs and pays off debt.
• Exploring privatization of certain state government functions.
• Enhancing the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

So we're going to build up the Rainy Day Fund and keep funding AHCCCS and Career and Tech Ed while adding no taxes (the business tax cuts wipe out the sales tax increase).

I know about the Peter Principle and the Peter Pan syndrome, both of which are applicable to many Chamber members. To these, I'll add Tinkerbell Thinking: if all the good little conservative boys and girls cut taxes and clap their hands loud enough, Tinkerbell the economy will take flight once again, and everything will be wonderful in Conservative Never Never Land.