by David Safier
This from Tom Horne.
Arizona faces the prospect of large-scale layoffs of school teachers next year due to the state's budget problems, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said Monday.
He said the ‘‘massive layoffs'' of teachers are possible even though school districts' actual job cuts for the current school year fell short of reductions indicated by early layoff notices. The vast majority of those notices were rescinded, he said.
[snip]
Horne offered his assessment after a board member noted that the state now faces a projected $2 billion midyear budget shortfall and a $3 billion shortfall for the next fiscal year.
The situation is ‘‘much grimmer'' than most Arizonans realize, Horne told the state Board of Education.
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Thane,
Two thirds in both houses is effectively a bar to pretty much anything (even more so in today’s highly charged partisan environment.)
For example, over a third of the Arizona legislature signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to vote for any kind of a tax increase without his express permission. So, adding that to the 1992 referendum it means that one man in Washington D.C. effectively prevents us from increasing revenue whether there is a good enough reason or not. And the matter of a tax referendum is secondary (given that they tried to couple it with more cuts it would have if accomplished only transferred the taxes from Peter to Paul) my point was that it was short-sighted given that you effectively can’t raise them back again to have cut taxes as far as they were in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. At least Napolitano was smart enough in 2006 when they wanted to do away with the equilization property tax to make them agree to make it a temporary reduction, so now it’s back. And I’m a homeowner but that’s one tax I don’t mind a bit paying this year.
As far as the stimulus is concerned, it went directly to the states (including Arizona) which in turn spent it on issues like, oh, schools. Which were pared down but would have been more pared down without it– including the massive teacher layoffs we are talking about. As a parent with two children and two grandchildren in public school right now I’m glad those cuts didn’t happen.
And yes, borrowing from China is a problem and we will need to bring down the deficit in the long run. That’s why I favor letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule and if necessary raise my taxes some more to balance the budget.
Respectfully, I don’t give credit to the stimulus, all that has done is borrow more money, spend it on some government building project or some government program that would have otherwise been pared down.
For everybody who doesn’t work for the government and isn’t employed building government project, every dollar is a dollar that the US government borrowed from China and that China will want back with interest – that is not any sort of win-win for me.
http://www.google.com/search?q=federal+debt
Two thirds is not a virtually impossible bar to higher taxes. If taxes and the purpose they are put to is a good one then what is the hold up?
I certainly don’t think the Rainy Day Fund is to be relied upon in the future.
As for the dry stream bed, since the legislature wasn’t willing to agree to a tax referendum when revenue narrowed and became a trail, this is apparently when government has to decide what are priorities and what spending has to be eliminated.
And incidentally, don’t forget to credit the stimulus (the one Jon Kyl wants to cancel) for the fact that this isn’t even worse right now.
What Horne won’t point out is that this could have been avoided if we hadn’t had the combination of the 1992 referendum that makes it virtually impossible to raise taxes and then years of pedal-to-the-metal tax cuts.
The claims of ‘overspending’ are a canard since Arizona has always ranked in the lower tier of states in per capita state spending. When times were good, there were some modest increases in spending combined with a failure to fill the ‘rainy day fund’ and– you guessed it– more tax cuts.
If your reverse gear is disabled then you should be very careful about going forward, but the AZ legislature for years (whether somewhat restrained by a Democratic or semi-responsible Republican Governor or unrestrained by a Symington or a Hull) has instead pushed forward as hard as they could for tax cuts, and now we have followed their road as it became a narrow path, then a trail, and now just a dry stream bed, and we have practically no way to turn around and get out of here.