The Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots political group that lobbies for lower taxes, decided to spend some money to find out if there’s any public support for Gov. Jan Brewer’s call for a $1 billion temporary tax increase to help balance the state budget. It’s turn out that the people questioned don’t really want to do anything to solve the budget crisis.
In the polling survey of likely voters in Phoenix and Glendale, a majority opposed just about every idea on the table at the state Capitol. That includes tax increases, relaxing voter-mandated protection for key spending programs, and selling off state buildings and other assets such as the Grand Canyon Airport.
The only option that the poll respondents did support was allowing slot machines, blackjack and poker at the horse and dog tracks. I certainly don’t have a problem with that, but the poll question didn’t mention that changing state law to approve such gambling would immediately free the state’s Indian tribes to offer any kind of gambling they wanted with no outside limits. That’s why there’s no chance the Legislature will relax the current rules for the racing tracks.
So, voters don’t want to increase revenue or to reduce expenses to solve a deficit that makes up about one-third of the General Fund budget. I guess the only choice left is to borrow into oblivion just like the federal government is doing.
Based on the poll’s result, AFP-Arizona director Tom Jenney did have some advice for state lawmakers: Voters are going to hate them no matter what they do, so they might as do the right thing and hold their heads high. Of course, to Jenney, the right thing means cutting the budget as much as possible and under no circumstances entertain the notion of raising taxes.
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I took the time to look up Americans for Prosperity. Using the phase ‘grassroots’ is being liberal with the word. According to the website, the AZ chapter has one staff member listed. I also read the exact wording on the poll questions, and the poll is worth the paper it was printed on.
Having a single paid employee is almost the perfect description of a grassroots organization. By definition, anyone else involved with the group is either a volunteer or a funding donor. The true misuse of grassroots comes when it used to describe groups like moveon.org that are used by a few wealthy activists to carry out their personal agenda through a intermediary organization with hundreds of paid staff members.
Well, maybe apathy is what is really being demonstrated here. Everyone is so busy worrying about their own problems, they don’t have much patience for poor ole legislators trying to balance the budget.
After all, money just grows on trees nowadays, doesn’t it?
George Santayana said that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Tax increases never meet revenue expectations because they inherently drive taxpayers to avoid the activity being taxed. Tax cuts actually encourage taxpayers to pursue the activities with lower taxes, thus generating more revenue than was estimated to be lost. Funny how things like that work out.
Is anyone down at the Capital listening?