Let’s see how this pans out

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by David Safier

More than 200 people attended a public forum on the state budget held by Democratic members of the state Legislature on Monday evening in the Tempe campus Memorial Union.

For some reason, LD-26 Republican Rep. Vic Williams was there as well. What he said surprised me:

In an interview before the meeting, Rep. Vic Williams, R-Tucson, said the cuts to the 2010 budget could be lower because the Legislature has more time to look for alternate sources of funding. The former governor and Legislature, he said, did not work quickly enough to overcome the projected shortfall in 2009.

“We were caught having to fix a poorly crafted budget,” Williams said. “We did not have time to have effective revenue enhancements.”

Let me make sure I've got this straight. Williams expects the Republicans will look at "alternative sources of funding," including "revenue enhancements" when they're putting together the 2010 budget.

I read "alternative sources of funding" to mean things like borrowing. "Revenue enhancements" sounds an awful lot like new taxes.

Williams says proudly that he has not taken the No New Taxes pledge, so he could actually come out in favor of new taxes without eating his words (though he's one of the sponsors of the bill to wipe out the education equivalency property tax). But does he really believe we're going to see "alternative sources of funding" and "revenue enhancements" in a Republican budget for 2010? Or is he just talking to hear himself speak?

4 thoughts on “Let’s see how this pans out”

  1. Methinks he speaks with forked tongue. While he may not have taken the no new taxes pledge, he has been very clear about his primary priority being to “remain relevant in his (Republican) caucus” – his words, not mine.

  2. Umm…I was at that meeting at ASU. I can’t say for certain that Williams wasn’t somewhere in the crowd (I don’t know what he looks like), but I can say, unequivocally, that he did *not* participate in the forum.

    Even though Republicans had been invited to do so, none chose to be on the panel.

  3. williams read the writing on the wall. The business community really came down hard on the repubs recently.

  4. The AZ Guardian has a new story with Brewer criticizing GOP lawmakers who didn’t understand the affects of the budget they put together yet at the same time claiming agency heads made the most painful cuts to garner sympathy. Didn’t she sign these budgets and don’t the agency heads report to her? I think the AZ GOP is really starting to implode under the weight of its stupidity.

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