Featured Stories
UPDATE: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to Become Law
January 28, 2009
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Last Friday the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (HR 12, S 181) passed the Senate on a vote of 61-36, surpassing the obstructionist Republicans' attempt at a filibuster by invoking the cloture rule. Wage-equity bill sails through Senate All 16 female senators — including four Republicans — voted for the bill. Arizona's
A face-off with the Goldwater Institute in the comments
January 28, 2009
by David Safier I'm pleased to say that Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute found my first column about some of his assertions (Fool's Gold: Cut teachers, improve schools) provocative enough he was moved to answer me in the Comments section beneath the post. Then I commented on his comment. Then he commented on my comment-on-his-comment.
Budget update from Rep. Steve Farley
January 28, 2009
by David Safier Tuesday's Farley Report hit my email. It's all budget, all the time this week. Here are some excerpts. Speaker Adams just confirmed on the floor that we will likely be calling a special session by tomorrow in which all normal committees are cancelled and we will focus on the adoption of the
Time to join Education Anonymous?
January 28, 2009
by David Safier The NY Times has an article about $150 billion for education in the stimulus plan. Frederick Hess, a conservative educator with the American Enterprise Institute, doesn't like the idea. School districts have to learn to live with less cash for schools, he says. If property tax revenues are down, schools need to
More Fool’s Gold: Schools don’t need money. Kids don’t need pre-K
January 27, 2009
by David Safier Here are more gems from the Goldwater Institute: money doesn't matter much in education, and providing early childhood education doesn't have much lasting educational value. In Dan Lips' words, from a Fool's Gold email blast: · Past experience shows that more K-12 spending does not significantly improve educational performance. · Federal early childhood education programs have not
An Inheritance of Ashes
January 27, 2009
by Karl Reiner The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009 at $1.2 trillion. That amounts to $4,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The rapidly soaring deficit is one of the many unresolved issues the Obama administration has inherited from the
Arizona budget woes make Huffington Post
January 27, 2009
by David Safier Beginning with the headline, Napolitano Departs, AZ GOP Cannibalizes Education to Meet Budget Shortfall, Dawn Teo tells the saga of the Arizona budget on HuffPo in detail, all the way to Paul Eckerstrom's becoming Chair of the AZ Dem Party. She ends the story with this quote from Eckerstrom's speech: As Democrats,
Let’s get real about the Arizona budget crisis
January 27, 2009
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In the 1990s, Arizona enacted a series of income tax cuts and other tax cuts during the Fife Symington administration. State tax revenues did not appreciably decline during this period due to our policy of rapid population growth in Arizona, not the myth that tax cuts lead to growth in tax revenues.
