Thursday, June 4, 2009

Rot

If you want to know how bad things can get when there is one political party who squats in power, look at Arizona. The State Legislature is populated with bullies--who happen to be Republican. I could easily make this a slam on Republicans, but I believe this is more about a group (it can be any group) that has been in power so long that they forget that there are others out there who do not share their opinion--or they don't care.

We are facing a $3.1 billion deficit for the new fiscal year that the current legislature is hollering has come because of liberal spending, blaming it on the past Governor. Ok, let's go with that and say that the Governor vetoed bills and made other legislation difficult. Now that she is gone this group is making the changes (i.e. cuts) that they think should have been in place all along, starting with education. I know that education is a huge chunk of any state's budget and I will even go as far to say that with this economy it would be ever more ridiculous not to make cuts to education. But the depth of the cuts will reverberate through schools for decades to come. Teachers are magicians, trying to make something out of barely anything--books and other materials--but now my hands have been twisted and tied that I can't even help myself.

Instead of working to create a fair budget, the legislature has dragged its feet and played games. Last night they worked an all-nighter. Democrats who were excluded from meetings and left in the dark for hours ended up leaving. One Republican tried to leave, but...

Sen. John Nelson, R-Litchfield Park, was a late-night holdout, snagged by
Senate leaders as he was trying to leave via a back staircase. After about an
hour of closed-door meetings with Burns, as well as Adams, Nelson threw his
support behind a budget that, he said, resulted from a deeply flawed
process.

So shady. So sick.

I hope Governor Brewer vetoes this budget. I hope she has the balls to really push the one-cent tax proposal. No one wants to hear tax hike, especially now, but how is cutting going to help us any?

Speaking of balls, I hope Arizonans have enough to vote out these incompetent idiots. All of them. I don't care if they are red or blue, they are a part of the problem.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Peterson

Too often, our political leaders are just enablers, co-conspirators in a
disingenuous and greedy silence. Our children are unrepresented. The future is unrepresented. The moment is long overdue for us to become moral and worthy ancestors.

Pete Peterson's My Turn in Newsweek