Arizona Needs To Follow California, NOT Kansas Tax Strategy: Tax People Who Can Afford To Pay

Gov. Ducey need not follow the failed example of Kansas Gov. Brownback who learned that a state cannot slash and burn its way out of a budget crisis –not if “Dorothy” ever wants to find her way home.

Our state should have learned from past efforts to replicate here the failed anti-gay,  anti-women, anti-immigrant ideas of Kansas theoreticians who tried to bring their mean-spiritedness here.

It was a year ago that the Religious News Service pointed out that “gay rights are colliding with religious rights in states like Arizona and Kansas as the national debate over gay marriage morphs into a fight over the dividing line between religious liberty and anti-gay discrimination.”

Tim Schultz, the State Legislative Policy Director for the American Religious Freedom Program, called the Kansas bill “a thoughtful and balanced civil rights law,” saying that the legislation would “ensure that Kansans of all faiths continue to enjoy robust rights to the free exercise of religion for many generations to come.”

The ARFP is part of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), a conservative Washington think-tank.

The effort was spearheaded locally by the Center for Arizona Policy, a social conservative group that opposes abortion and gay marriage. The group says the proposal is needed to protect against increasingly activist federal courts and simply clarifies existing state law.

 The same is true with taxes for these slash and burn folks.

The opposite approach was taken by Gov. Jerry Brown of California. He raised taxes on those who could afford to pay them, and took the state from deficit to surplus by spending the way out of the recession.

Jobs are up in California: 16% of US job growth. The state now has a thriving economy –8^th largest in the world.

Meanwhile, in Arizona there is a looming $1-Billion Dollars in red ink in a budget of nearly $10-Billion.  We can’t trim our way out of that because educational spending is nearly half of the budget.

And we owe the state’s schools $1.3-Billion from past efforts to grow big business on the backs of future voters.

Conservative economist Ben Stein on Fox News said, “I don’t think there is any way we can cut spending enough to make a meaningful difference. We are going to have to raise taxes on very rich people.”

Disguise it as “reversing” a 30% cut in the corporate income tax rate. Fudge it by reinstating an expired sales tax.  Call it the new Reaganomics.  We can even be honest and make those who earn more money actually pay more in taxes.