Arizona Tea Party

All over the US, Americans who prefer low taxes, less government intrusion, and maximum personal liberties are having “Tea Parties,” a political juggernaut launched by the rant of CNBC personality Rick Santelli from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade last Thursday morning.  Arizona will be no exception, and the Arizona chapter of Americans For Prosperity is behind the local effort.  See the AFP website for details on time and location.  The #dontgo movement is strongly involved with tea parties all over the country, and in Arizona, we strongly support AFP’s efforts.  Come out and let your voice be heard!

Hello Arizona

By John McJunkin

So it begins.  The #dontgo movement is now in full swing, one of our goals to remind American politicians that despite the results of the election, we are still a center-right country, filled with people who prefer free markets to over-regulation and over-taxation; people who prefer freedom to tyranny.  In this author’s opinion, Republicans who strayed from conservatism were deservedly punished at the hands of an ill-informed electorate that was easily swayed by the most effective, or at least the best-funded marketing campaign of all time.  This author also predicts that a substantial portion of the Americans who voted for Obama will be truly surprised (and dismayed) to discover that he’s incapable of working the miracles he promised, and that the buyer’s remorse that ensues will create an important opportunity for conservatives to regain strong influence in the Republican party and elect leaders who believe in the Constitution and the foundations upon which it was written.  We believe that some government is necessary, but not very much, and a principal goal for us is to reduce the size of government, even in the face of an administration that has promised to vastly increase it.

 

There are plenty of Americans who disagree with us.  They believe that government is the answer to all problems.  They wish to eliminate disparities in outcomes, not disparities in opportunity as they claim.  And they have a lot of help from the so-called “mainstream media.”  No one with two brain cells to rub together could observe the pro-Democrat cheerleading in which the MSM engaged during the recent election and conclude otherwise.  In fact, it’s arguable that the press at least had the decency in many cases this time around to acknowledge its bias.  Whether they’re honest about it or not, they very one-sidedly support the liberal, pro-government position, and the result of the misinformation in which they engage is plain to see, chronicled by the likes of John Ziegler.

 

My friend Ed Morrissey of Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air blog reported recently that a Pew Research poll has established that the internet has surpassed newspapers as a primary source of news for Americans.  This reinforces the results of the Declare Yourself poll conducted by Frank Luntz during the 2008 election.  I’m not going to put forward the ridiculous notion that the mainstream media are failing due to their liberal bias – that is nonsense on stilts.  Nevertheless, a slow, inexorable shift is currently underway.  It ought to be pretty obvious that the internet is eventually going to serve as the principal medium for all exchange of information in our world, and it’s well on the way right now.  And this shift may not be quite so tectonic as it currently appears.  Major daily newspapers all over the US are swirling around the drain right now.  This failure of the old media presents us with an opportunity.

 

The #dontgo movement wishes to counteract the incredibly biased “reporting” of the MSM, and we have recognized that while it’s important to do so at the national level, it’s every bit as important to get the real story out at the local level as well.  The preponderance of Arizona’s local “reporting” is as skewed to the left as that at the national level.  Radio is reasonably balanced, but Arizona’s newspapers (many of which are headed for financial icebergs) have shifted radically left in recent years, and television “news” is largely an amalgam of puff pieces and sensationalist reporting on car crashes, animal cruelty, and violent crime.  Those sneer quotes are rightfully earned.

 

The #dontgo movement wishes to bring clarity to local politics by providing a trustworthy medium from which Americans can get the straight, honest story on important local political issues.  And I’d like to head off liberal detractors right now by saying, clearly and unequivocally, that we do indeed have a pro-capitalism, pro-liberty agenda.  We’re not going to claim that we have no bias, unlike the mainstream media.  At the very least, our readers will read our posts with the advance knowledge of our political inclinations.

 

We are in the process of establishing a News Platoon in each state.  As #dontgo’s southwest regional coordinator, my home state of Arizona falls in my region, and I will be contributing to the Arizona News Platoon myself.  I have named Intellectual Conservative’s Rachel Alexander as the Arizona State Editor, and she will work with numerous contributors to present the truth in Arizona politics in stark contrast to the biased misinformation from the mainstream media.  We invite all Arizonans who believe in the Constitution and who love liberty and freedom to visit this website every day for an honest, unvarnished look at current events in Arizona.  We also welcome your comment on what we present – an open dialogue is necessary for a healthy democracy.

 

Thanks for coming by today, and we ask you to make your friends aware of what we’re doing.  “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” as US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, and the more Arizonans that are aware of the facts, the more sunlight shines on a government that is badly in need of some disinfectant.  As Governor Napolitano escapes Arizona for Washington, much change will come, and we hope to influence the nature of that change from the grassroots level up.  We’re very certain that most Arizonans prefer freedom to regulation, and free market capitalism to liberal redistribution.  By arming themselves with the truth and taking action at the local level, we believe Arizonans can ensure that these liberties will survive into the future, and we hope to foster that process as much as possible.  Please visit our website each day and tell all your friends.  Help us bring clarity and sunlight to the politics of the Grand Canyon State.  Thanks again.

It’s All Janet’s Fault

By Sean Noble

The Arizona State Treasurer’s office recently announced that there may not be enough cash in State coffers to pay the bills as early as next month. In fact, there is no question that Arizona is going to need to borrow money to pay operating expenses, and it is an open question as to whether any lenders will actually loan money to the state, and if so, under what terms. Because of the current condition of our financial markets, the terms of any potential loan are likely to be pretty steep.

The smartest guy that most Arizonan’s don’t know is an economist named Alan Maguire. Maguire has been a fixture in and around state government for the better part of three decades. He served for years as the right-hand guy to then-State Treasurer Ray Rottas. He has advised multiple Speakers of the House and Senate Presidents. He has developed complicated legislative packages, financing packages, and stuff that I can’t even begin to explain.

And right now, he is like a prophet in the wilderness, trying to warn anyone who will listen, that we are on the very edge of financial doom. Everyone in this state, particularly policy makers, needs to be listening to Alan Maguire.

The numbers are very stark. For the remainder of FY 2009 (which ends in June) there is a $1.2 billion shortfall – which if annualized is the equivalent of a $3.6 billion shortfall. The state budget is about $10 billion per year, half of which is off-limits because it is “voter protected” or federally mandated. So, with $5 billion to work with, the state needs to save the equivalent of $3.6 billion for the rest of this year and another $3 billion for FY 2010.

To give you a sense of the enormity of the problem, you can take the ENTIRE budgets of our Universities, Department of Corrections, Department of Public Safety, Department of Revenue and Department of Administration and still not cover the shortfall for this year.

How did we get here? Well, we were in good economic times for nearly the entire six years that Janet Napolitano has been Governor, and she has pushed an aggressive agenda of higher spending. In fact, state spending increased by an eye-popping 63% from 2004 to 2008! That makes Congress look like a piker.

That kind of growth of government was bound to catch up to us, and it has in spades. Now, Napolitano is high-tailin’ it out of the State and leaving soon-to-be-Governor Jan Brewer holding the bag. The severity of the budget crisis has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, particularly the Arizona Republic. My guess is that they will discover the problem the day after Brewer is sworn in as Governor.

Brewer and her transition team should be aggressively pushing the narrative that this crisis is Napolitano’s making. The way out of this financial hole is going to be very, very painful for hundreds of constituencies across the state. They need to understand that it was the big-government mentality of Gov. Napolitano that got us into this mess.

So, let’s say it together – it’s all Janet’s fault.