Sen. Paula Aboud: Republicans ignored alternatives to inhumane budget they approved

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Sen. Paula Aboud (D-LD28) writes in the Arizona Daily Star today Republicans ignored alternatives to inhumane budget they approved:

I am sorry that we couldn't stop the governor's Republican budget from passing out of the Legislature last Thursday night. It was not for lack of trying on my part or that of my Democratic colleagues. I fought to defeat that budget in the Appropriations Committee for 10 hours, to no avail.

I pointed out how the Democrat budget offered solutions that wouldn't throw people and children under the bus. We could eliminate some of the $10 billion in tax loopholes in our tax system and balance the books today. I reminded them that we could suspend $250 million in tax credits instead of cutting services to developmentally disabled populations or our hospitals. We even offered a tax on liquor or candy and soft drinks to help save the children. It all fell on deaf ears.

The governor's budget was not the only option for Arizona's citizens. A clandestine group of moderate Republicans and Democrats created an alternative budget proposal that resolved our deficit more humanely. But that budget, while it could have served as a negotiating piece, was ridiculed by the conservatives, discounted as nonsense and trashed.

What is nonsense is that the conservatives and the governor are dismantling funding to schools and social-service programs that are vital to our state. Cutting 45,000 children's health care wasn't enough; they eliminated the KidsCare program forever, costing the state $54 million in federal matching funds. Throwing 300,000 people off the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System will now send them and 45,000 children into the emergency rooms for their uncompensated health-care needs.

Hospitals will have no choice but to pass on those costs to you and me through skyrocketing insurance premiums. That's a hidden health-care tax forced upon us by this budget.

Gutting AHCCCS and KidsCare cuts the payment to hospitals, adding huge stressors to the one economic sector that is providing new jobs to Arizona's badly hurting economy.

Some 43,000 adults have earned their GEDs at a cost of $300 per adult, which enabled them to earn $9,000 more per year on average in income – all of which helped bring in needed tax dollars to the state. The governor didn't just cut the adult-education funds, she eliminated the program forever!

A young woman from rural Arizona testified before the Appropriations Committee that she'd be on welfare, in jail or worse without that program putting her on a positive track for life. That program represented a smart investment for Arizona. The cut was shortsighted nonsense.

Desperate for money, the governor even took money from the developmentally disabled, swiping another 18 percent of their Supplemental Security Income checks. We no longer put people and children first in Arizona, and that's sad.

Where is the conscience and heart in politics in Arizona? What future are these conservative legislators creating for Arizona?

Please step up and ask for the change that Arizona deserves. Please give Arizona new legislators who will pass a budget that is responsible to the needs of the future for our good state so that people will want to visit or move to Arizona.