Bill Gates is now a Phoenix city councilman. By a 5-3 vote, he was appointed to the vacancy created with Maria Baier’s appointment to be Arizona’s State Land Commissioner.
Gates is a solid pick. He has been active in the community and is a smart, thoughtful attorney who will bring a strong work ethic and common sense approach to city government. There is no question that he will have an immediate impact on the council.
I’ve had the chance to work with Bill on a variety of issues and known him for many years. This couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Congrats Bill.
Arizona State Senator Steve Pierce is a straight-talking cowboy. He is a third-generation Arizonan raised in a ranching family.
His election to the State Senate last year was a breath of fresh air. After losing Jake Flake, the legislature didn’t have a real cowboy to keep everyone honest. Steve Pierce has stepped into that role, and hasn’t pulled any punches.
He sent out an email that every Arizonan should read.
Dear Friend,
Here is our overall picture of the State’s budget in very simple terms. This is only concerning the small part of the budget the legislature controls. The over-all budget for Arizona is roughly $30 billion dollars and most of that flows from the feds thru the Governor’s office and the legislature never sees any of it or has any direction in where it is spent. The legislature controls under $10 billion in recent years. Today the revenue for 2010 is projected at $7.2 billion and spending is proposed at about $9.5 billion by the legislature and just over $10 billion by the Governor. We have voter mandated issues that were put in place through initiatives and approved by the voters through the years that dictates where money must be spent, specifically Prop 301 has built in increases in both spending and increased Taxes. You can do the math and see how bad things are. We are spending $2.3 BILLION more than we are taking in. Why? Because the will to live within our means is not there. Legislators bow to the crying of the strongest lobbies: education and health care.
Wednesday morning at 7:30 AM the legislature adjourned sine die and the session ended. It ended with the bills the Governor had requested and negotiated over the past 4 weeks. We approved the very bills she wanted and sent them to her to sign, aside from the sales tax referral. There simply aren’t the votes to get it out of committee let alone the full Senate. So because it didn’t have the Brewer tax referral, she vetoed things that wouldn’t shut down the State including all education funding. She said it was because the cuts were too deep in education but for 4 weeks she had agreed with those very cuts and we passed what she agreed to. The vetoes are not good for Arizona, not good for the Governor, and not good for anything.
The Governor has stated numerous times since she took office that she wanted her five point plan addressed that always ended with a temporary sales tax increase. The legislature responded that we could pass a 2010 budget without a tax increase and deal with the tax referral for the 2011 budget. We did this! We did what we had promised on June 4th, after we had already finished two separate budget adjustments on the 2009 budget that amounted to a $2.25 billion shortfall left by previous Governor Janet Napolitano. Governor Brewer tried mightily to prevent the legislature from passing a budget that didn’t raise taxes. She deployed her staff to try to keep Republicans from voting for a budget. She failed.
We did our job. We passed a budget that takes care of 2010. We fulfilled our Constitutional duty. But the governor has told us to start over – to start from scratch. She desperately wants a vote to raise sales taxes. I don’t know why she thinks her veto will garner more support for a tax increase, but that seems to be her plan.
In the special session, perhaps she will resort to bargaining with Democrats. This inevitably will lead to an increase in spending. As I stated above, we are broke. If this is her plan, it will further widen the structural deficit for 2011 and beyond. The Brewer Tax Increase is not necessary for 2010. She’s even admitted as much. I’m asking the governor to sign the 2010 budget and let’s begin the much-needed work on 2011. The debate about tax increases can begin then.
Unfortunately, lost in the battle over the sales tax increase is the fact that the legislature’s budget prevented property taxes from going up $335 million. That provision was also vetoed by Governor Brewer. Arizona taxpayers are going to feel a lot of pain under Brewer’s proposals. We need to rein in spending. It’s that simple. Taxpayers all over the state are tightening their belts and the State needs to do the same. The problem isn’t a lack of taxes, it’s a lack of spending control.
I’ve been highly distracted the last couple days. Just thought you should know.
So at dinner I ask my 7 yr-old daughter what she thinks it means to be tolerant. My wife leans over and whispers something in her ear. Daughter responds, “Taller than an ant.” Now that’s funny.
I’m a Diamondbacks season ticket holder and I have yet to step foot in Chase Field this season. There is something very wrong with this picture. And there is a certain amount of irony to why I’ve been too busy and too out of town to do so.
Wal-Mart announced that it is joining with the Service Employees International Union in support of an employer mandate to provide health insurance coverage. For one thing, doing anything with SEIU (I actually refer to it as SUIE – as in sooooweee! Like when you are calling the pigs since SEIU leadership is like a bunch of hogs at the trough of forced union dues) is a recipe for disaster. Does Wal-Mart actually believe that SEIU won’t try to unionize them in exchange for supporting bad policy on health care? Think again. Sam Walton is turning in his grave. Tevi Troy has a good take on it here.
There are a lot of flowers in our house as a result of my 15 yr-old daughter’s spinal surgery. When they are a few days old, they really start to smell the opposite of what they are supposed to – but they’re still pretty, so I don’t want to throw them out yet.
Given the distractions, my daughter’s surgery and my schedule for the last week, I have paid zero attention to the Arizona budget fight between the Legislature and the Governor, so I don’t know what to think.
Al Franken has officially won the Minnesota U.S. Senate seat, prevailing over Norm Coleman in what has been one of the most expensive post-election legal battles for a Senate seat in U.S. history.
This gives Obama and the Democrats the 60 seats that, if they all hung together, would enable them to push through legislation without worrying about a filibuster. However, with the national environment shifting toward Republicans, there are a number of Democrat Senators up for re-election in 2010 that for anything even slightly controversial, it will be tough for the Democrats to get to 60 votes on cloture.
Franken will be assigned to the Judiciary Committee, which will immediately throw him into the national spotlight with the Sotomayor hearings starting in a couple weeks.
While he is an unabashed liberal, watch for Franken to carve a unique position on a variety of issues. He will be underestimated because of his comedian (although that implies he has ever been funny) background, but he is as smart as the typical Senator, so he will undoubtedly get a glowing profile write up in a major publication shortly after the Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
If I was advising Franken (and I’m among the last of those he’d ever call) I would suggest that he keep a fairly low profile and build a reputation of taking the job very seriously. I would advise that he only speak on the floor when he can speak with genuine substance on an issue. It will be easy to dismiss him if he does some of his screeching, so for his own political future, he’d be wise to try to be a work horse rather than a show horse.
We’ll see if he can keep his ego in check enough to do so. I have my doubts.
Between my daughter having spinal surgery for kyphosis, an out-of-town obligation and just a really busy schedule, I haven’t been able to blog for a few days.
But I’ve been thinking.
It’s always an interesting phenomenon when a big-name celebrity dies. The coverage of Michael Jackson’s death has been nothing short of absolutely ridiculous. As a friend of mine said the day after Jackson died, the person most happy about it is Mark Sanford. Yeah, remember that whole episode? Memories are short.
My wife has been a trooper, staying at the hospital the whole time with my daughter. With me out of town and juggling the watching of kids, I think her patience was thinning. I got home tonight and on my desk was a target (it was a NRA official 50-yard small bore rifle target) with every shot but one in at least the #8 ring (for those of you who don’t shoot, we call this “tight grouping” and it is impressive). It was from my wife’s recent shooting excursion with my son’s scout den. She helpfully wrote a note on it that read, “This is just a warning… DON’T MAKE ME MAD! Just sayin’…”
Alrighty then…
My wife is a celiac, which means she has to have a gluten-free diet. She related a little frustration from trying to find stuff from the hospital cafeteria that she could eat. On multiple occasions she asked the cafeteria worker if something was gluten free. “No, it’s $2.50…”
A walker (you know, the kind old people use? Or 15 yr-olds with spine surgery…) and a 2 yr-old boy are a disaster waiting to happen.
The immediate benefit of my daughter’s spinal surgery is that she is nearly three inches taller. The downside for me is that she is sleeping in my bed, and I’m not.
Glad our playhouse got done…
Isn’t timing in life just so strange sometimes?
I’ve been insanely busy with work projects, my daughter Kinsey had successful back surgery this morning (I’m actually sitting next to her as she sleeps right now), and all this news won’t stop breaking!
SC Gov. Mark Sanford has an affair with a lady in Argentina and a really random turn of events that lead to the press conference announcing it. Farrah Fawcett dies. Michael Jackson dies. Congressional Democrats are pushing through the largest tax increase in the history of mankind with their Climate Change bill. Obama’s health care plan is really, really expensive and it’s going to be harder to pass than most people had thought.
Any one of those issues could warrant multiple blog posts. Alas, the timing makes it tough.
I can’t not at least make some comment on Sanford. I’ve known Sanford since he was elected to Congress in 1994. He was one of the true revolutionaries. He kept his personally imposed term-limits pledge and could arguably be the best conservative Governor in the nation. I have long pined for him to run for President. I have been devastated since his press conference – which was like a car accident – I couldn’t turn away.
I suppose no one really has control of timing – so I’m reserving the right to go back and blog about some of the topics above later.
Liberal Democrats know that they can’t their Climate Change bill to President Obama’s desk, because it will die in the Senate. But Pelosi is so set on satisfying her liberal base, she is going to put dozens of her “moderate” Democrats at risk by putting a Climate Change bill on the floor this Friday.
It will be pretty instructive to see who ends up voting for it. The discussion about getting Farm Belt Democrats on board is interesting, because they are not happy. Pelosi, however, will figure out a way to buy their vote by the time it matters. And you and I will pay for this HUGE tax increasing monstrosity. Even more bizarre, is that Greenpeace and a bunch of other leftist greenies oppose the bill because it doesn’t go far enough!
It’s interesting to see Pelosi trying to satiate her base, and angering almost everyone in the process.
President Obama’s approval is now just above 50%, the lowest it has been in his presidency. In the Presidential Approval Index he is -2 – that is, there are 2% more people who strongly disapprove of his performance than those who strongly approve.
I believe that as more and more people start paying attention to the debate over health care reform his numbers are going to dip below 50% and it will become harder and harder for him to get what he wants on health care. Why? Because what he wants is a fundamental government takeover of health care and the cost of government running health care is going to be unacceptable to most Americans. They are also going to be suspicious of the claims made by Obama and Congressional Democrats about why the government should run health care.
The common theme that you hear from the White House and from Congress is that we MUST solve the problem of the uninsured and we have to get cost under control. The problem for them is that Senate bill spends at least $1.5 TRILLION and only insures 16 million of the estimated 46 million uninsured. And they cut Medicare and Medicade by more than $300 billion. Seniors (and Senators) are not going to react well to having their care cut so the government can take more control over health care.
As I have pointed out before, Greg Patterson over at espressopundit is a really smart guy and has a great, great blog.
But he needs to put the crack pipe down and rethink what he wrote here:
The new schism in the Republican party is not Conservative or Moderate, it’s Conservatives who are part of the establishment versus conservatives who are part of the resistance and it looks to me like McCain, and to a lessor extent even Shadegg and Brewer, are vulnerable in Republican Primaries.
McCain vulnerable in a primary? Maybe. Depends a lot on who it is.
Brewer vulnerable in primary? Uh, oh yeah – you know, the whole demanding a tax increase thing? Yes, Greg, Brewer is vulnerable, very, very vulnerable. No “lessor extent” about it.
Shadegg vulnerable in a primary? What are you smoking? Seriously. Yes, McCain has not been the most solid of conservatives – you know, campaign finance, global warming, and, you know, immigration. Yes, Brewer is following in George H.W. Bush’s footsteps. But Shadegg?
This is a guy that conservatives (you know, like, Mike Pence, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, et al.) begged to stay in Congress when he announced retirement last year. This is a guy who consistently ranks among the most conservative in the U.S. House by Club for Growth, National Taxpayer’s Union, American Conservative Union and Americans for Tax Reform among others.
If the argument is that some elected officials are potentially vulnerable because they are not conservative enough, then I get it. But saying that Shadegg isn’t conservative enough is a little bizarre.
Sometimes it is so obvious why politicians are despised by so many people. I don’t even have the words for my reaction to this.
