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Last week we highlighted the dramatic speech by Rep. Ray Barnes highlighting excessive administration costs in education. Coverage of the Barnes’ speech crowded out what was the best speech of the special session for substance and vision. Rep. Frank Antenori offers a clear and workable solution to the budget crisis, get more businesses to move to Arizona and get people working again. It is such a simple answer we are surprised more is not happening on this front.
Hurray! Frank is for the State of Arizona and Tucson and has Common Sense- a rare commodity.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I didn’t hear a “clear and workable solution” to the budget crisis anywhere in this speech.
Let’s say that we did cut business taxes right now. Slashed em’. Even if the US economy was red hot, (and Frank’s theory was right) it takes a few years for companies to ‘flock’ to the latest new spot. In the meantime, we’d have less corporate income tax revenue coming in (and this is a small amount of our general fund already…less than 9%) and we’d STILL be facing a $3 billion plus deficit.
Antenori is also working against basic economics here. Arizona HAS been lowering not just the corporate income tax rates, but the individual rates as well for the past decade…and we haven’t seen a corresponding uptick in new business either. We’re already well on the ‘low tax’ side of the Laffer Curve and it isn’t exactly pulling business in.
Why aren’t businesses flocking here? Education — it is a nationally known fact that we invest far less than every other state in the union. We are letting our schools operate on $3,000+ less per student than even the average state, and even the most conservative national reports (ALEC, etc.) chart our educational decline. If you don’t think businesses weigh this heavily, think again. Our ability to secure both a viable workforce and a customer base is the main reason we decide to locate in any given location.
Business regulation – you need a half dozen permits to get anything done here and every small business owner will tell you that there is no rhyme or reason for some of the regulations (try just putting a small sign up – eh!) What is our state doing to address this?? Cutting back on the very departments that handle these regulations….but not the regulations themselves. This makes it double as slow and even the Motor Vehicle cuts will slow down all of the many businesses that need to register vehicles in this state. Many small businesses fold when they are forced to wait too long for planning approval, etc.
I am here in Arizona with a large corporation and we have recently decided to downsize our business here. It has absolutely nothing to do with the tax rates or the state equalization tax….those are miniscule concerns in light of the fact that we can’t find enough highly qualified employees here to run our business. We are also noting that civic structures are languishing…everything from the aforementioned government departments to parks and recreation. We have a hard time convincing some of our best talent to relocate here; people want to live in a place where there kids will get a good education and they can enjoy services that other cities provide.
Frank Antenori’s words may sound lovely, but he’s just one of the many legislative Pied Pipers who are leading this state off a cliff.
I couldn’t agree more! This state is near the bottom in all categories when it comes to education! We need to have a referendum to fix the amount of taxes collected that has to go towards education … I would say mandate it to be 25% of all revenues collected in State taxes.
However, money alone won’t get the job done … we need to take a serious look at issues like illegal immigrants participating in our school system; student learning out comes; accountability not only for the schools, but also our kids; and, sharing data between all levels of education (P thru 20). I would recommend that everyone look at what the P-20 Council is attempting to do … it is worthy of serious attention!
Citizen Bob,
Right now, 52% of revenue goes to K-12 ans 11% goes to the University system, so we’re already commiting 63% of the general fund (Tax Revenue) to education. I don’t think many people would like to see education cut to jsut 25%.
P-20 is a left over Napalatano nanny state scheme (an integral part of the progressive “cradle to grave” approach), that does exactly the opposite of what you want to do. They just want to grow the public school system burocracy (aka big government) so they can justify more spending. Want real accountability, do like New Zealand did and make all schools charter schools and put the parents in charge and not the AEA (Teachers Union).
I think you misunderstood me Sonoran Sam, I said all State Taxes … that is income taxes, corporate taxes and etc… Total Revenues for the State of Arizona was over 11,000,000,000 for FY09 and 14,000,000,000 for FY08. All one has to ask is where is the money going too? BTW my reference is http://www.azdor.gov/Portals/0/AnnualReports/FY09%20Annual%20Report_web.pdf