Issues
Education:
Education is the issue that motivates me to get out and knock on doors when it is 110°F outside.
As a graduate of the Arizona Public School system in the 1980s, I know that Arizona can provide our children with the educational foundation and skills they need to make their dreams come true. However, between 1993 and 2003, Arizona fell from around 28th in the nation in most measures of educational success, to 48th.
We will not regain our standing in the nation until we fix the state budget and restore sufficient and sustained funding for our K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities. To achieve this goal, we must first modernize our tax code to provide a broad, equitable, and robust revenue base that is not burdensome to individuals or businesses.
For our children to succeed, we must provide our teachers, administrators and school boards with the support they need to insure that all our districts have the best teachers and administrators and are able to turn our children’s dreams into reality.
Jobs:
Arizona works best, when Arizonans are working. In the past few years we have learned the hard way that we must have a diversified economy and not rely on a single industry. We have also learned that sustainable growth is more important than enabling the boom and bust cycles of “get rich quick” schemes.
I will work to ensure that our business community is able to steadily add good paying, sustainable jobs within our West Valley cities in the coming years. In particular, the Solar industry is rapidly growing in Arizona, and I will work to bring as many of these jobs as possible to the West Valley.
I will fight to provide the resources necessary to provide continuing education that maintains a workforce prepared for the type of quality jobs that enable workers today to live the American dream.
State Budget:
Arizona’s state budget gap last year was 41.4%. The US average was 17.7%. Even the states hardest hit by the bursting of the housing bubble, Nevada and Florida, only had gaps of 37.8% and 22.8% respectively (http://downloads.pewcenteronthestates.org/BeyondCalifornia.pdf).
Why was Arizona hit so much harder than other comparable states? What Arizona has experienced in the last two years is the direct result of fiscal mismanagement from 1993-2003. At that time the Legislative majority and the Governor chose to shift our budget base from reliable and equitable – but highly visible sources, such as income and property taxes, to volatile and highly regressive – but essentially hidden – sources, mostly sales tax (references).
The real tragedy is that the current crisis was predicted as early as 1996 (reference). Yet all warnings were ignored by an increasingly ideologically driven Legislators, who chose personal political gain over exercising fiscal responsibility, and recklessly cut established and vital revenue sources despite known, and dire consequences.
I will work to restore fiscal responsibility and provide much needed tax reform. I will fight to ensure that our taxes stay low, but are fairly distributed among all residents, both individual and corporate. In addition, I will help to modernize our tax code while providing for a diversified and robust revenue stream. Our goal should be for Arizona to provide consistent, nationally competitive, funding for Education, Safety, and Health Services, in a way that provides for a vibrant business environment, in both good and bad economic times.
Immigration:
I am frustrated, as are all Arizonans, that the federal government has not done its job and provided Arizona with the comprehensive immigration reform we desperately need. In the absence of federal action, I know that we all want the State to just do something.
We should focus our efforts on those laws which provide our law enforcement officials with the tools they need to protect us from the most dangerous criminals associated with unauthorized immigration. We must stop the drug and gun smugglers, the coyotes who prey on defenseless men, women and children, and those who use drop houses in our communities as bases for criminal activity. Unfortunately, even recent laws passed by the Legislature do nothing to curb these violent offenses.
We need to make sure that the attention SB 1070 has drawn to Arizona is used to push for real, long-term solutions from our federal government. In the interim, I trust our democratic system of check and balances, and truly believe that justice will be served.
