The Farley Report 9-1-09

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rep. Steve Farley (D-Tucson) is back after a hiatus with the Farley Report:

It's been a month since I last wrote you. On the budget front–despite a whole lot of talk and drama–nothing has happened.

It really is like living in that great movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray keeps waking up to the same day where the same things happen no matter how he tries to change his behavior. Except these shenanigans are much less entertaining — real people (like you and me) are really going to get hurt.

After weeks in Special Session #3, the Republican majority managed to send Governor Brewer the same budget that was on her desk a month ago and was vetoed. Once again, this was without the sales tax referral that she had demanded as the price for her signature.

Last time, the Governor didn't just veto, she verbally smacked those bills down with pretty clear language, calling it an "irresponsible" budget that failed to "protect critical funding for education, public safety, and care for our most vulnerable citizens."

The most recent Republican-only budget package was sent to her about a week and a half ago, and she still has not indicated whether she will sign it. If she does, that 180-degree turn will destroy her credibility.

If she vetoes it, we're left with no budget as we face possible state bankruptcy, worsening credit ratings, IOUs to state employees and contractors, a shutdown of most DPS services, and more, unless we are called back into a special session to finally get a reasonable budget.

In pursuit of that goal, the Democratic House and Senate leaders were finally invited to engage in those elusive 5-party talks over the past two weeks. In spite of good faith efforts to find common ground, Republican leaders have so far refused to budge.

It now seems likely that the Republicans are pursuing sham negotiations as they did the last time they broke off talks with Democrats in July — simply to scare their right wing into thinking that they might do a deal with Dems that conservatives might hate worse than the Republican leadership plan.

So we are here again, in the middle of nowhere. There are two clear ways out of this:

1) Republican leaders must stop playing games and enter serious negotiations with Democrats that include adequate funding for education, public safety, and services for the most vulnerable of our citizens, along with revenue sources that will help stabilize our revenue structure long-term so we are never faced with such a crisis again.

2) While she is right in demanding increased revenues, the Governor must drop her obsessive insistence on a temporary sales tax increase as the only revenue option she will sign.

There are many options for increasing revenues that are fair, stable, and position our state to grow our way our of this recession. Democratic budget proposals throughout the past year have highlighted many of them.

Arizona is more dependent on sales taxes than any other state. During a recession, people buy fewer things, so sales tax revenues decrease dramatically. And people with lower incomes are hurt proportionately more by sales taxes than by any other form of tax. Raising our already high sales taxes will only dig us in deeper and keep us financially vulnerable into the foreseeable future.

If Governor Brewer were to approach the negotiating table by recognizing she and Dems both agree that we need an additional one or two billion in revenues, and then invite us to discuss options, we could get an agreement fairly quickly that would get all Democrats on board. Paired with some carefully chosen business tax cuts, we could develop a package that would attract enough Republican votes to get ourselves a budget.

Right now, this scenario is not developing, but I can't see any other scenario that will work. And we need a budget NOW.

Unfortunately, there are a number of influential Republican legislators who are gleefully embracing the imminent destruction of state government on ideological principles. They are emblematic of the national problem with the Republican Party that has exploded forth in the Republican-inspired sabotage of the healthcare debate using outright lies and fearmongering.

Joe Klein has a great column this week in Time Magazine called "The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists". You can read it here: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1917525,00.html

Aggressively marketed misinformation from folks who simply want to score partisan points at the expense of the future of our state and country must not control our politics and our policies. We've got to stand up for good government for the good of our citizens.

[Tuesday] night you have a chance to stand up to some of that nihilism right here in Tucson. I will be attending Gabrielle Giffords' Town Hall on Health Insurance Reform at Sahuaro High. Please join us — it will start at 6pm, although you may want to arrive early to avoid the expected large crowds. The address is 545 N. Camino Seco in Tucson.

Many angry and aggressive ideologues are sure to show up to try to shout down the majority of us who understand that our current for-profit health insurance system is broken and causing people to get sick and die along the way. Reform is needed and it is needed now. Please join us to make sure that our voices are heard over the shouting of those who would protect the broken status quo simply to hand Obama a defeat.

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(I left out Steve's comments about driving while texting (DWT), which he promises to follow-up on after attending the US Department of Transportation Distracted Driving Summit on September 30-October 1 in Washington DC.)