Our Opinion: Long delays lead to Ariz.'s irresponsible budget pact
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Notice to every legislator planning to run for re-election this year: You will need to account for your actions in relation to the state budget fiasco.
Notice to everyone wanting to be a candidate for the state Legislature this year: You will need to explain in detail how you will improve the system and end this dysfunction.
The Legislature and Gov. Janet Napolitano had three months to deal with a $1.2 billion-plus deficit in the fiscal 2008 budget.
And late Thursday, they came up with nothing more than a plan that is stopgap and does a great deal of harm.
Not that budget cutting in this way can do any good, but to slash universities by nearly $15 million while leaving other agencies all but untouched is the height of irresponsibility.
Napolitano had said she didn't want to cut funds from any level of education. She shouldn't have backed down.
We also disagree with the decision to withdraw $6 million from a fund for emergency medical services. Hospitals rely on this money to help support badly needed trauma centers. This was a grab born of desperation.
Legislators and Napolitano forced themselves into this distasteful fix by their own inaction. They had more than six months to craft a fair and responsible way to deal with the deficit.
But nothing happened until this week, with only about 10 weeks left in fiscal 2008. That forced a "solution" that is far less than comprehensive.
And accountability for that rests on legislators themselves. Arizona residents must put each and every one of them on notice that he or she will be held accountable come election time.
Napolitano needs to be held accountable, too. She isn't up for re-election, but she will be governor until 2010 and thus needs to explain why she didn't get directly involved sooner. She now must show how she will do so, to the betterment of the state and its people, for the next three budgets.
That includes the looming 2008-09 spending package, on which elected officials have done very little work. And what they did in rolling $272 million in current-year school expenses over to the next year only makes that situation much more difficult.
The solution for this year included a $487 million withdrawal from the state's rainy day fund. That's reasonable, because the fund was created for just this type of budget crisis.
But the fund now contains only about $200 million. That leaves a lot of cuts needed to balance the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.
Obviously, the Legislature will have to go along with Napolitano's plan to borrow money to build schools next year. There simply is no other solution that won't decimate state services.
Budget cutting is serious, painstaking business. Just take a look at what for-profit and nonprofit businesses are going through in the tough economy.
Our state officials should be held to no less a standard.
And they usually turn out to be right, which is why they are in office in the first place.
Patrick ONeill
30 years of the enticement and exploitation of Mexican Illegal Labor is coming to an end, and the financial chaos caused by their disentanglement from our economic infrastructure will be felt for years and years.
The costs of dealing with escalating Mexican Illegal crime rates is staggering, School Systems like TUSD which promoted racist policies and a never ending stream of Mexican Illegals are going bankrupt, grandiose economic economic schemes like "Rio Nuevo" are collapsing on their own weight due to a dependable supply of cheap labor...
In short, 30 years of wacked-out left wing, American hating policies are finally bearing the enevitable fruit, as more and more Americans are declaring: "We're Mad as Hell! And We're Not Gonna Take it Anymore!"
I, Warden the Notorious Mexican Flag Burner told you so, and I'm laughing, right in your ugly, Pendejo faces!
RW
881-0535
But let's try to keep some perspective on the modest budget cuts in the new plan. $15 million is around one percent of the billion-dollar university budget. And that is just the government money for universities--not the money the system gets from tuition, grants, and foundation sources. That is not much of a "slash."
Tom Jenney
Arizona Director
Americans for Prosperity
www.aztaxpayers.org