Southern Arizona’s GOP Taliban out of control

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The disturbing pattern of authoritarianism from our Southern Arizona Republican legislators continues unabated (see Update re: Southern Arizona legislator questionnaires in the Daily Star, Cigarettes for the poor: No. Religious schools for the rich: Yes,Rep. David Stevens: a throwback to the 19th Century, Frank Antenori has an anger management problem, Cheryl Cage: Melvin Launches Own War on Poverty, Attacks the Poor, Jonathan Paton attempts to kill Citizens Clean Elections).

Southern Arizona's GOP Taliban is out of control. "Repeal the 17th Amendment" David Stevens attempts to do Rep. Frank Antenori's angry "welfare queen" rant from last week one better today: Stevens wants to have access to government data bases to personally search for "welfare fraud" himself. No, I'm not kidding. Panel approves measure to open state records | eastvalleytribune.com:

A House panel voted Tuesday to give every lawmaker – and potentially every Arizonan – access to lists of everyone getting government assistance as the first step to dealing with welfare fraud.

The 6-3 party-line vote by the House Government Committee came at the request of Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista. Stevens said he wants to use his personal ability to work with databases to ensure the information each agency has is accurate. [Stevens said he would do the research on his personal computer.]

HB 2276, which now goes to the full House, starts by opening up the records of three programs: the state Medicaid system, the long-term care system and the Kids Care program that provides health care to children of the working poor.

But Stevens made it clear this is just a first step. Eventually he wants driver license information from the Motor Vehicle Division and information on who has filed state tax returns from the Department of Revenue, though he said that would not include income information.

The bill may not even stop there.

As approved Tuesday, HB 2276 says the names of those enrolled in these programs "are public records and available to the public" in accordance with the procedures of state law.

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Stevens said his background in computers would allow him to go through each database to "flag'' apparently erroneous information.

The next step, he said, would be to compare the information each agency now keeps separate. That, Stevens said, would allow him to see whether the address listed for a specific person in motor vehicle records is the same as it is for tax records and for enrollment in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.

Ultimately, he said, the systems could be coordinated so that each Arizonan has a unique identification number, making it easier for an update to one agency's database to be incorporated into all of them.

Holy crap! Sounds like Stevens has been spending way too much time watching the History Channel on Nazi Third Reich day. At the risk of mixing metaphors here, maybe we should call them the GOP Gestapo. Because searching data bases is exactly what the Gestapo did to locate "undesirables." The undesirables are the poor and "illegal Mex-cans" now. Are we still living in America?

This is the same Republican Party that recently opposed any firearms regulations – make your own guns! ("registration means the government can confiscate my guns") and opposed a national driver license form a few years ago because it would create "a unique identification number." There are old John Birchers out there still opposed to social security numbers for this same reason.

Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, got it exactly right: "If we want to stigmatize people that are participating in these programs, let's just do it and put a scarlet letter on everybody when they go to the office and apply for the program." Or maybe tattoo a unique identification number on their arm.

What the hell is wrong with these insane Republicans?! They all have to go.