God help us… the Arizona Lege is back in session

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Senator Hubert H. Humphrey once observed that:

"It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped."

The GOP insane clown posse of the Arizona Legislature view these vulnerable groups as a good place to start throwing people overboard from the sinking ship of state. They view their task as preserving the wealth and privilege of the wealthy and privileged. The lifeboats are reserved for them.

This is why the Accidental Governor has proposed scaling back AHCCCS coverage to eliminate the requirement to provide services for the state’s seriously mentally ill who don’t qualify for Medicaid. Brewer budget plan would shrink AHCCCS, mental health coverage (Arizona Guardian, subscription required). The massive retrenchment would eliminate mental and physical health care for hundreds of thousands of Arizonans just to save the state an estimated $900 million by next year.

Behavioral health cuts [can] be put in place by lawmakers, eliminating housing, treatment, job training, transportation and all other services except medication for about 14,500 people who are deemed seriously mentally ill and earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Another 3,000 Medicaid-eligible SMI patients also could lose coverage under the proposed AHCCCS cuts.

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The proposal also appears to eliminate general mental health and substance abuse programs and children’s behavioral health services, other than medications. It’s not clear whether the crisis system, which includes rapid-response teams and hotlines, also would be axed.

This is why House Speaker Kirk Adams (R-Mesa) has proposed tax cuts for corporations and shifting the property tax burden to their employees. House GOP calls for tax cuts, job training to spur economy (Arizona Guardian. subscription required).

The legislation, to be introduced on the Legislature’s opening day Monday, is based on recommendations from economist Elliott Pollack, a member of the state's Finance Advisory Committee who was retained by the House GOP last month.

At a news conference at Mesa’s Boeing headquarters, Speaker Kirk Adams said rolling back corporate and personal income taxes, repealing the statewide property tax and reducing business property taxes will help bring new jobs and the tax revenue that comes with them.

He refused to provide details of legislative plans to reduce the current $1.5 billion budget shortfall or a 2011 deficit estimated at $3.4 billion. The tax cuts would be phased in, beginning in January 2012, when economists estimate that Arizona will still be climbing out of the current recession.

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The House bill also will include revival of the state's job training program, suspended by budget cuts last year, and a rebate program for businesses that create a set number of new jobs, including new or existing firms, by refunding half of the company’s payroll taxes.

The House passed a tax package in late July that included the sales tax referral and $650 million in property and income tax cuts. Adams did not have estimates Tuesday for how much his bill would cost and brushed aside concerns by some members of his own party that 2012 is too soon for tax cuts.

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A cut in the business-property rate would push the burden onto residential rates, said House Minority Leader David Lujan (D-Phoenix).

This is more of the same ideological blind faith in supply-side economics which has been entirely disproved and discredited over the past decade. All this achieves is to continue the transfer of wealth upwards to the wealthy and privileged. It will only add to Arizona's structural tax deficiency and the deficit. Anyone still promoting supply-side economics is unserious and unfit for public office.

The Arizona Constitution requires the Arizona Legislature to balance the state budget and to impose new taxes to accomplish this this if necessary. Arizona Constitution, Article 9, Section 3:

Annual tax; purposes; amount; tax laws; payment of taxes into state treasury

Section 3. The legislature shall provide by law for an annual tax sufficient, with other sources of revenue, to defray the necessary ordinary expenses of the state for each fiscal year. And for the purpose of paying the state debt, if there be any, the legislature shall provide for levying an annual tax sufficient to pay the annual interest and the principal of such debt within twenty-five years from the final passage of the law creating the debt.

In defiance of the Arizona Constitution, the GOP insane clown posse plan House GOP plan would slash taxes for AZ businesses unveiled last Tuesday would:

• Slash the corporate income tax rate paid by the state's largest companies from its current level of slightly less than 7 percent to 4.5 percent — a 35 percent reduction.

• Cut income tax rates for individuals and most small- and medium-sized businesses by 10 percent.

• Permanently repeal the statewide property tax.

• Reduce assessment ratio used to determine how much businesses pay in property taxes to cities, counties and schools — a move that would shift more of the tax burden to homeowners.

At one time businesses paid property tax on 25 percent of the value of their land, buildings and equipment. The rate has already dropped to 22 percent, and lawmakers have approved cutting it to 20 percent in two years.

The new proposal would take the ratio down to 15 percent by 2016.

Local governments would have to raise rates for homeowners, whose assessment would remain at 10 percent of their property value, to make up what businesses would no longer pay.

For twenty years the GOP has been reducing Arizona's tax base to the point that the tax base can no longer sustain basic government services mandated by the Arizona Constitution. During the same period of time, Arizona's population has doubled, imposing greater demand on such government services. The GOP insane clown posse plan proposes to continue to reduce Arizona's tax base, making the state's structural tax deficiency even worse and adding to the deficit.

These ideological extremists who have sworn their allegiance to their dark lord and master, Grover Norquist, to shrink government to the size that it can be drowned in the bathtub, are within reach of their goal. Vulnerable populations are about to be thrown overboard to drown as the ship of state goes down, while the wealthy and privileged steal away in the lifeboats.

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session." - Mark Twain (1866).