Bad Bill Alert: Once again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions!
Today in the appropriations committee we were asked to pass legislation that would have required the Arizona Motor Vehicle Department to pay $5.00 Cash to people who waited in line more than 30 minutes. Now folks, personally I think our time is worth much more than that though I could not vote in favor of such legislation. I do though admire the sponsor of the bill and suggest that next time she offers such legislation she should up the dollar amount....my mantra is "Go Bigg or Go Home!"
Just kidding folks...just another example of misguided legislation.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
State Legislature Wrap-Up
State Legislature Wrap-Up
* With the way the legislature is dealing with illegal immigration, you’d think there was an emergency or something. Oh wait, there is. This week, Republicans demonstrated their continued commitment to action over lip-service on border security.
The House passed House Bill 2701, which forces the governor to deploy the National Guard to help defend the border. Despite declaring an emergency in August, Governor Napolitano has taken no steps to stop the flow of thousands of illegal aliens coming across our border. The legislation now heads to the Senate.
The Senate and House also now each have bills heading to floor votes that would deploy radar technology to help secure the border.
Another action highlighting the effort by legislative Republicans was the passage through committee of Senate Bill 1157. This would make the illegal crossing of Arizona’s international border a state crime of “trespass,” giving local authorities greater opportunities to engage in the defense of the border. Only two members of the Senate Judiciary committee voted against the bill – both Democrats.
* Republicans promised broad-based tax relief and they are delivering. Senate Bill 1545 provides more than $250 million in income and property tax relief to Arizona residents. This measure to help spur the economy and give Arizonans the opportunity to decide how to spend more of their own money instead of a further bloating of government bureaucracy passed the Finance committee 7-1.
* Legislative leaders are engaged in a series of meetings with the governor on English Language Learners. This is an effort by Republican leadership to try and reach some compromise with an executive who has already vetoed three attempts to send an ELL funding plan to a federal judge – vetoes that continue to cost Arizona’s taxpayers $500,000 per day.
The leaders continue to hold firm on the principles of funding the effort to teach English to ELL students on the basis of actual costs. There also must be real accountability so that these children are made proficient in English thoroughly and quickly. Republicans also feel that federal dollars must be used to help meet funding requirements for this federal mandate and that the voters’ desire for English immersion expressed through the passage of Proposition 203 must be served.
Did you know: Senate Bill 1110 protecting private property rights against over reaching local government eminent domain efforts passed the Senate with only four “no” votes. All those voting against the protections for private property rights were Democrats, including the “two-hatted” Senator Harry Mitchell. Confusingly, Mitchell serves as both Senator from District 17 and state Democrat Party Chairman.
* With the way the legislature is dealing with illegal immigration, you’d think there was an emergency or something. Oh wait, there is. This week, Republicans demonstrated their continued commitment to action over lip-service on border security.
The House passed House Bill 2701, which forces the governor to deploy the National Guard to help defend the border. Despite declaring an emergency in August, Governor Napolitano has taken no steps to stop the flow of thousands of illegal aliens coming across our border. The legislation now heads to the Senate.
The Senate and House also now each have bills heading to floor votes that would deploy radar technology to help secure the border.
Another action highlighting the effort by legislative Republicans was the passage through committee of Senate Bill 1157. This would make the illegal crossing of Arizona’s international border a state crime of “trespass,” giving local authorities greater opportunities to engage in the defense of the border. Only two members of the Senate Judiciary committee voted against the bill – both Democrats.
* Republicans promised broad-based tax relief and they are delivering. Senate Bill 1545 provides more than $250 million in income and property tax relief to Arizona residents. This measure to help spur the economy and give Arizonans the opportunity to decide how to spend more of their own money instead of a further bloating of government bureaucracy passed the Finance committee 7-1.
* Legislative leaders are engaged in a series of meetings with the governor on English Language Learners. This is an effort by Republican leadership to try and reach some compromise with an executive who has already vetoed three attempts to send an ELL funding plan to a federal judge – vetoes that continue to cost Arizona’s taxpayers $500,000 per day.
The leaders continue to hold firm on the principles of funding the effort to teach English to ELL students on the basis of actual costs. There also must be real accountability so that these children are made proficient in English thoroughly and quickly. Republicans also feel that federal dollars must be used to help meet funding requirements for this federal mandate and that the voters’ desire for English immersion expressed through the passage of Proposition 203 must be served.
Did you know: Senate Bill 1110 protecting private property rights against over reaching local government eminent domain efforts passed the Senate with only four “no” votes. All those voting against the protections for private property rights were Democrats, including the “two-hatted” Senator Harry Mitchell. Confusingly, Mitchell serves as both Senator from District 17 and state Democrat Party Chairman.
Prudent Spending?
How important to you, the hard working taxpayer, is an Arizona Welcome Center in Yuma? Worth $4 Million Dollars? I am hearing testimony if we fund this project it will be a beacon to entice visitors to Arizona. What say you?
Monday, February 13, 2006
SCR 1024- PROPERTY TAX RELIEF
Dear Friends,
SCR 1024 is the proposed Property Tax Relief legislation sponsored by Senator Gould and myself.
Below is an endorsement/email from the Arizona Seniors Coalition:
SCR 1024
OK you people all over the state here is the opportunity that we have been wanting for for years. This bill is similar to Prop 13 in California that was passed years ago to protect seniors against the loss of their homes through taxation. This bill will limit property taxes to 2% a year. Over the past five years our property tax in Arizona has increased by about 6% a year. Now similar bills have been introduced in the Legislature before and have failed. In order to get this bill passed there has to be a lot of home owners putting pressure on their Legislators to get them to support it.
So get on your phone, send an e-mail, or letter, or talk face to face with your state Senator and house members. It will not take more than five or ten minutes and will benefit you extremely well financially. For example the tax on my house is almost $1900 and I expect it to be about $2200 next year. My house in California, similar to the one I now have, would be about $1440 because the taxes could not increase more than 2% a year.
If you sit on the sideline we will miss and opportunity that may not come along again for years. Send this on to your friends to get them involved also.
Charlie Powell
President - Arizona Seniors' Coalition
cepowell@theconservativepress.org
SCR 1024 is the proposed Property Tax Relief legislation sponsored by Senator Gould and myself.
Below is an endorsement/email from the Arizona Seniors Coalition:
SCR 1024
OK you people all over the state here is the opportunity that we have been wanting for for years. This bill is similar to Prop 13 in California that was passed years ago to protect seniors against the loss of their homes through taxation. This bill will limit property taxes to 2% a year. Over the past five years our property tax in Arizona has increased by about 6% a year. Now similar bills have been introduced in the Legislature before and have failed. In order to get this bill passed there has to be a lot of home owners putting pressure on their Legislators to get them to support it.
So get on your phone, send an e-mail, or letter, or talk face to face with your state Senator and house members. It will not take more than five or ten minutes and will benefit you extremely well financially. For example the tax on my house is almost $1900 and I expect it to be about $2200 next year. My house in California, similar to the one I now have, would be about $1440 because the taxes could not increase more than 2% a year.
If you sit on the sideline we will miss and opportunity that may not come along again for years. Send this on to your friends to get them involved also.
Charlie Powell
President - Arizona Seniors' Coalition
cepowell@theconservativepress.org
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Tipping Point: Wake up, Arizona; heed the warings of a looming water crisis
Tipping point
Wake up, Arizona; heed the warnings of a looming water crisis
JonTaltonRepubliccolumnistFeb. 12, 2006 12:00 AM
When catastrophe finally arrives, suddenly one morning, or maybe overnight while most Arizonans sleep air-conditioned dreams, what will we tell the nation and the world? How did we get to the point where we need a water rescue that dwarfs in cost the savings and loan bailout and many natural disasters?We may remember reassurances as concrete as the Central Arizona Project canal, aquifers that seemed to rest comfortingly beneath every part of the parched land and copious regulations about assured water supplies for new developments. We had expert white papers and agreements with other states. Didn't our leaders tell us Arizona could hold 8 million, 16 million, 30 million people? And the wishful thinking: New technologies to re-use water, make fresh supplies from the ocean and inexpensively expand the CAP canal would somehow drop from the sky just when we needed them. The tribes would sell water to the cities if worse came to worst. Pinal County wasn't replenishing enough groundwater, but that would work out, right? We could handle 350,000 houses in Buckeye - they told us. We could settle things with other states claiming Colorado River water, couldn't we? And fanciful theories: Water could be assured by market forces, where it was commoditized and bought and sold. Surely this would work out better than the deregulation of electricity in California. Maybe some would remember the reluctance of leaders to talk about water issues. To do so might scare away growth. But at the time it seemed like confidence. They knew more than we did, after all.With few exceptions the media, sleepy in a retirement state, didn't see it coming. Most people get their news from television, and night after night they heard about car wrecks, police chases, meth busts and a bright health story. Water is complicated, and the media don't like complicated.The rest of the nation didn't pay much attention, either. Arizona is far away from the government and media capitals, both of which were increasingly distracted with world crises and the latest disappearance of an attractive blond teenager. The increasing destabilization of a world competing for oil and, yes, water resources, needed Washington's attention.Where did we reach a point of no return?We might look back to 2006, when developers proposed building 160,000 houses between Kingman and the state line, as new suburbs to Sin City. The trouble is, Mohave County isn't known for its water supplies. Some people living there must haul their water.Much of the state was not under the groundwater rules that affect Greater Phoenix and a few other areas, requiring a 100-year assured supply. Developers exploited a loophole in rural areas that allowed them to build without water. They did it throughout rural Arizona.Arizona faced a choice. The historic sanctity of property rights and local control seemed to trump all else, including the public welfare. A middle ground was possible: extending the assured water supply rules to the entire state, but giving a great deal of control to localities. Towns and counties in rural Arizona could generate their own water management goals. But the Legislature would not budge.Some said even this wouldn't have been enough. In reality, Arizona couldn't keep growing its population by 40 percent each decade, spreading out in single-family houses and hoping the infrastructure would follow. The only way Arizona could sustainably handle 8 million or more people was in compact, urban living arrangements in areas with renewable water supplies, such as the Salt River Project service area.And even then, we didn't count in the historic drought, which wrecked the assumptions about the snow runoff for the Colorado and Salt rivers, just as drought had destroyed the earlier civilization that lived in Phoenix. Did the Hohokam share our arrogance born of technological mastery? They had every right to, before the timeless, merciless logic of the desert reasserted itself.When catastrophe finally arrives, like the broken gasoline pipeline or the transformer fire only infinitely worse, what will we tell the nation and the world and ourselves?We slept most of all because too much money was being made in the great real-estate boom. It was a force too powerful, determining everything else, consuming every resource, whether the courage of elected leaders or the last phantom aquifer. And like all the booms in the West, like all the speculative manias since time began, it ended badly.
Wake up, Arizona; heed the warnings of a looming water crisis
JonTaltonRepubliccolumnistFeb. 12, 2006 12:00 AM
When catastrophe finally arrives, suddenly one morning, or maybe overnight while most Arizonans sleep air-conditioned dreams, what will we tell the nation and the world? How did we get to the point where we need a water rescue that dwarfs in cost the savings and loan bailout and many natural disasters?We may remember reassurances as concrete as the Central Arizona Project canal, aquifers that seemed to rest comfortingly beneath every part of the parched land and copious regulations about assured water supplies for new developments. We had expert white papers and agreements with other states. Didn't our leaders tell us Arizona could hold 8 million, 16 million, 30 million people? And the wishful thinking: New technologies to re-use water, make fresh supplies from the ocean and inexpensively expand the CAP canal would somehow drop from the sky just when we needed them. The tribes would sell water to the cities if worse came to worst. Pinal County wasn't replenishing enough groundwater, but that would work out, right? We could handle 350,000 houses in Buckeye - they told us. We could settle things with other states claiming Colorado River water, couldn't we? And fanciful theories: Water could be assured by market forces, where it was commoditized and bought and sold. Surely this would work out better than the deregulation of electricity in California. Maybe some would remember the reluctance of leaders to talk about water issues. To do so might scare away growth. But at the time it seemed like confidence. They knew more than we did, after all.With few exceptions the media, sleepy in a retirement state, didn't see it coming. Most people get their news from television, and night after night they heard about car wrecks, police chases, meth busts and a bright health story. Water is complicated, and the media don't like complicated.The rest of the nation didn't pay much attention, either. Arizona is far away from the government and media capitals, both of which were increasingly distracted with world crises and the latest disappearance of an attractive blond teenager. The increasing destabilization of a world competing for oil and, yes, water resources, needed Washington's attention.Where did we reach a point of no return?We might look back to 2006, when developers proposed building 160,000 houses between Kingman and the state line, as new suburbs to Sin City. The trouble is, Mohave County isn't known for its water supplies. Some people living there must haul their water.Much of the state was not under the groundwater rules that affect Greater Phoenix and a few other areas, requiring a 100-year assured supply. Developers exploited a loophole in rural areas that allowed them to build without water. They did it throughout rural Arizona.Arizona faced a choice. The historic sanctity of property rights and local control seemed to trump all else, including the public welfare. A middle ground was possible: extending the assured water supply rules to the entire state, but giving a great deal of control to localities. Towns and counties in rural Arizona could generate their own water management goals. But the Legislature would not budge.Some said even this wouldn't have been enough. In reality, Arizona couldn't keep growing its population by 40 percent each decade, spreading out in single-family houses and hoping the infrastructure would follow. The only way Arizona could sustainably handle 8 million or more people was in compact, urban living arrangements in areas with renewable water supplies, such as the Salt River Project service area.And even then, we didn't count in the historic drought, which wrecked the assumptions about the snow runoff for the Colorado and Salt rivers, just as drought had destroyed the earlier civilization that lived in Phoenix. Did the Hohokam share our arrogance born of technological mastery? They had every right to, before the timeless, merciless logic of the desert reasserted itself.When catastrophe finally arrives, like the broken gasoline pipeline or the transformer fire only infinitely worse, what will we tell the nation and the world and ourselves?We slept most of all because too much money was being made in the great real-estate boom. It was a force too powerful, determining everything else, consuming every resource, whether the courage of elected leaders or the last phantom aquifer. And like all the booms in the West, like all the speculative manias since time began, it ended badly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
