Ask Bee, “Where’s the Pork?”

Bee has an interesting theory about Arizona’s finances. He thinks we can solve our budget woes by eliminating ‘pork’ from the budget.

Link: Nogales International.

Bee said that he disagrees with Congress wanting to raise taxes in order to take care of the budget. "We’re going to solve our budget problem here in Arizona by reducing government spending and cutting more pork out of our budget," he said.

Recalling the famous ad that crossed over into our political discourse in the 1980’s, I ask our Senate President, "Where’s the pork?"

Arizona is nearly dead last (49 out of 50) in per pupil funding of education, which is by far the state’s largest expense. Nor do we spend money at all lavishly on anything else: in fact, Arizona is 48 out of 50 in per capita state expenditures, and is dead last among our the regional Western group of states. It stands to reason, therefore that we also have one of the lowest per capita tax burdens in the United States. There may be flesh on this pig, but it’s all muscle, and very little fat.

For a comprehensive overview of Arizona’s fiscal performance download GradingAZ.pdf by the Eller School.

What fat there was, we should thank Governor Napolitano for eliminating. The Governess instituted an efficiency review process her first year in office and every year since. The first year alone, $38 million in excess spending was identified, and more has been eliminated every year. We’ve already wrung as much waste out of the system under the Governess’ critical eye as we’re likely to find. If there is more (and I’ll conceed there certainly is likely to be some) it is an order of magnitude less than the billion dollars we need to balance the budget.

Despite our penny-pinching and penury, or perhaps because of it, our state still has over $400 million in deferred infrastructural maintenance costs. That means, quite simply, that the Republican legislature has been systematically raiding our future to pay for our needs today. Our roads, bridges, and other public infrastructure are crumbling because the GOP majority has been too cheap and short-sighted to maintain it properly. They are slum lords whose ghetto is the whole state.

Where is your billion dollars of pork President Bee? Show us the pork.

Bee seems committed to leadership by content-free sound bites and aphorism. If he can’t respond to the challenge of Arizona’s budget crisis with anything but hoary conservative buzz-words that aren’t even on speaking terms with reality, how can anyone expect to look to him for leadership in Congress?

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