The Accidental Governor signs the Jan Sham Budget

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Accidental Governor, Jan Brewer, put her signature to 12 budget bills yesterday, including the draconian FY 2011 budget that she proposed earlier this year and which was modified only slightly by the GOP insane clown posse leadership, and proposes fixes to the FY 2010 budget that Republicans have failed to balance in violation of the Arizona Constitution since July 1, 2010.

As I posted earlier, this budget is a sham based upon delusional assumptions. The GOP insane clown posse budget is based upon delusional assumptions

The budget Brewer signed on Thursday is built on a bunch of presumptions of what voters and courts will do. Brewer signs bill slashing AHCCCS rolls:

The biggest of these is the proposed 1-cent-per-dollar increase in the state sales tax, to 6.6 percent, which will appear on the ballot in a May 18 special election. Estimates show that would raise about $918 million in the first year of its three-year existence.

But lawmakers and Brewer also are counting on voters agreeing to scrap the First Things First program in November just four years after they had approved it. That would give lawmakers access to proceeds from the 80-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes that was part of the initiative to fund new programs for early-childhood development, a levy that raises about $150 million a year.

It also would let them take an estimated $325 million already accumulated.

Also on the November ballot is a request to voters to let lawmakers take more than $123.5 million set aside to buy open space around urban areas. That approval is needed because the fund was mandated by voters in 1998.

And the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association is planning to challenge the provision that cuts AHCCCS eligibility.

The requirement to provide coverage for everyone below the federal poverty level was part of a 2000 initiative.

Republicans who have a problem with democracy and respecting the will of the voters assume that voters will repeal voter-approved citizen initiatives that were enacted because the voters disapproved of the Republican Legislature's failure to act in the public interest. It's not going to happen.

Democrats say the budget will be subject to multiple lawsuits that will prevent many proposed cuts from taking effect. Budget for 2011 signed by Brewer:

"These phony cuts will only trigger lawsuits and ultimately save the state nothing," said Rep. David Lujan, D-Phoenix, the House minority leader.

One aspect of the budget expected to be challenged is a cut of $385 million to the state's Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. The move effectively rolls back an expansion of AHCCCS that was approved by voters in 2000.

The 2011 budget is available at azleg.state.az.us/jlbc.htm.

Hours after she signed her draconian budget, Brewer appeared at a news conference to urge opposition to federal health-care reform. Asked by reporters what the hundreds of thousands of Arizonans set to lose coverage this year should do, Brewer said they should use community health clinics and emergency rooms.

No really, she did. Brewer said the state had no choice but to dramatically chop the health-care rolls, even though doing so will increase the number of people in the state without coverage. Brewer signs bill slashing AHCCCS rolls:

"We do not have the money. We are broke," she said. "It is painful," she responded to questions about the number left unprotected. "We cannot take care of everybody, every day, for everything."

Brewer said she expects those denied public-health benefits will show up in hospital emergency rooms and clinics, which is exactly what the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and hospital officials have told lawmakers will happen.

They said a large increase in the number of people who can't pay their bills will force hospitals to increase costs to everyone else. And that, they said, will drive up insurance premiums for employers, potentially forcing them to stop providing coverage for their own workers and increasing the number of people without coverage.

Brewer dismissed the possibility.

Brewer was joined at the press conference by the GOP insane clown posse. Ariz. GOP lawmakers join Brewer in slamming health bill.

Economists have estimated that this Jan Sham Budget will cost Arizona over 42,000 jobs, yet Arizona's unemployment rate is 9.2%. Governor Brewer called this a "major step to recovery."

We are witnessing a corporatist elite plutocracy declare war against the vast majority of Arizonans. This is legislative malpractice and malfeasance in office on a grand scale. These Republicans serve only the corporations and the very wealthy. They answer only to their dark lord and master, Grover Norquist, to whom they have pledged their allegiance.

In fact, the bogus-named House jobs creation bill — an across the board tax cut for corporations and the wealthy and the shifting of the property tax burden from corporations to residential homeowners — is awaiting action in the Senate (it has already passed the House). The Accidental Governor has not agreed to Terry Goddard's call for a pledge to reject using the temporary sales tax increase on the special election ballot in May to fund this corporate tax giveaway.

I predict voters will reject major portions of the Jan Sham Budget, in particular, voters will not repeal previously approved citizen initiatives only to enable this corporatist elite plutocracy to enjoy more tax cuts.

The GOP insane clown posse leadership has already indicated that should voters reject these ballot measures in November, that they plan to call a lame-duck special session to engage in a budget cutting bloodbath after the election. I expect that Democrats will control one or both chambers of the Arizona Legislature and the governorship after November 2nd. The current Arizona Legislature and governor, the worst failures in the history of Arizona, should be precluded from calling a lame-duck special session to engage in a budget cutting bloodbath after the voters have held them accountable and turned their sorry asses out of office. This would pose a constitutional crisis in Arizona.