Doug Ducey

“Civics” means never asking the government you support with your taxes for anything

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AZ Governor Doug Ducey announced, at his State of the State speech on Tuesday, that he would push for a new, high-stakes statewide civics test in the public schools to counter a “96 percent” failure of students on the current civics tests. It turns out that his numbers might have been a bit off:

The survey Ducey relied upon was done for the Goldwater Institute and is widely cited by groups promoting civics education.

But Goldwater spokeswoman Starlee Coleman told The Associated Press Wednesday the institute withdrew the survey results in 2009 after a company that conducted the survey for Goldwater failed to show its basic research met Goldwater’s standards. Another survey done for an Oklahoma group showing similar dismal testing results also has been discredited.

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Ducey’s “incremental” pursuit of Brownback’s policy is still a load of hooey

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

laffer napkin

Kimber Lanning, founder and executive director of Local First Arizona, delivered a fairly thorough smackdown to Robert Robb’s AZ Republic column whining that the Buy Local movement is a bunch of hooey.

Republic columnist Robert Robb is tired of hearing about the “buy local” movement and would like Arizonans to turn a blind eye to the economy and simply shop wherever they feel most satisfied. (“Shop where you want, guilt-free,” Dec. 19)

He claims the local movement is “hooey,” yet unabashedly has no statistics to back this. He just wants you, dear citizens, to throw the concept out the window.

In his article, Robb questions the countless economic studies released since 2002 but does not offer any substantive reasons for the questioning. Instead of following Robb’s simplistic calculations, let’s turn to the professional economists who back these studies, which have all concluded that an average of $30 more out of every $100 spent will stay in the local economy when money is spent with a local company versus a non-local corporate entity.

A Civic Economics study from 2007 showed the state of Arizona’s then-$5 million contract with OfficeMax was causing the state to lose $500,000 per year in economic leakage.

Definitely read the whole op-ed, since Lanning makes a solid case, bolstered with plenty of stats, for choosing local merchants over national chains whenever possible. I especially appreciated her calling out Robb for tossing out a context-free bit of frippery – “economies of scale” – to make himself look so very chin-stroking and serious.

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The “establishment” should have been more careful about what they wished, and worked, for

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

$$$

All In With Chris Hayes on the bind that traditional GOP big donors are in due to new campaign finance rules:

Link to video (because BofA never likes any video I try to embed)

As Hayes and a later panel with guests explained, the post-Citizens United reality means that “bundlers”, the wealthy, connected lawyers, lobbyists, and business types who have wielded electoral power for decades by shaking down multiple contributions, are penny ante compared to billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers, who have the ability to funnel piles of money directly wherever they want.

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To no one’s surprise, Gov-elect Ducey’s Budget Study Committee is a bunch of rich white people

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Arizona’s soon-to-be Governor, Doug Ducey, has assembled a team to advise him on the budget.

PHOENIX (November 17) – Governor-elect Doug Ducey announced today the formation of a Budget Study Committee, led by a team of public and private sector professionals charged with studying the budget and providing expertise and feedback to the governor-elect.

Throughout his campaign for governor, Ducey made clear he intended to go through the budget line by line in order to ensure Arizona lives within its means and invests in priorities for the state with a focus on economic growth and education.

“Before we can address the challenges facing our state, we need to do our homework,” Ducey said. “This team of professionals will provide a diverse set of perspectives on our state finances. It’s important to me to hear from those who have dealt intimately with the state budget, in addition to receiving an outside perspective from the private sector, so we can adopt mechanisms to be more effective, accountable and efficient with our resources. I look forward to working with them to get our arms wrapped around the budget and examine the best ways to balance it while also growing our economy and ensuring there is money in classrooms to help teachers teach and students learn.”

Behold them:

john arnold

John Arnold, AZ Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting

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If ACA subsidies are gutted by Supreme Court, what will Ducey do?

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

ACA

While many legal experts express confidence that the upcoming King v Burwell Supreme Court decision will be in favor of the Affordable Care Act, the Court did cause alarm by agreeing to hear it in the first place. Here is what is at stake:

At the heart of the King case are the tax subsidies offered by the federal government to those who cannot afford their own insurance. These subsidies are critical to achieving Obamacare’s goal of insuring even the least well off. At present, those eligible for subsidies can get them whether they purchase on the federal exchange or a state one. That could change on account of a glitch in the ACA, which can be read to say that you can only get a subsidy if you signed up on a state-managed exchange. If the Supreme Court signs off on this interpretation, the federal government cannot subsidize insurance for the less well-off in any state that has declined to set up its own exchange.

In King v. Burwell, a unanimous decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with the Obama administration, rejecting the challengers’ argument that the provision of the ACA that authorizes tax credits for insurance purchased on an exchange “established by the State under section 1311” doesn’t authorize tax credits for insurance purchased on an exchange established by the federal government. Supporters of the ACA call this a mere “drafting error.” Opponents claim this is a clear case of statutory interpretation: The law says “state” exchanges, and that is what was intended. If this interpretation prevails, more than four million people lose those subsidies.

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