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Arizona faces a $1 billion deficit as the state Legislature opens the 2024 session (apnews.com)

submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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A steep budget deficit caused by plummeting tax revenues and escalating school voucher costs will be in focus Monday as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature return for a new session at the state Capitol.

The Legislative new year officially begins in the afternoon with the governor’s annual State of the State address The goal is to wrap up the legislative session within 100 days, but lawmakers typically go until May or June, especially when there are difficult problems to negotiate like a budget shortfall.

The state had a budget surplus of $1.8 billion a year ago. But it now has a shortfall of about $400 million for the current fiscal year and another $450 million shortfall the year after.

A tax cut approved by legislators in 2021 and signed into law by Hobbs’ Republican predecessor, Gov. Doug Ducey, replaced the state’s graduated income tax with a flat tax that took full effect last year. Arizona subsequently saw a decrease of over $830 million in revenues from income taxes, marking a nearly 30% decline from July through November.

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[-] ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Economists who have researched this topic for decades have found that the rosy economic impacts teams promise rarely pan out. "Though findings have become more nuanced, recent analyses continue to confirm the decades-old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams and stadiums," the Kennesaw State University professor J.C. Bradbury and his coauthors concluded in a February 2022 review of more than three decades of studies on economic impacts of stadiums. Even when adding in social benefits from stadium investments, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of how much the government spent to obtain it. Put simply, the authors found, "the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments."

[-] agitatedpotato@lemmy.world -4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You're repeating general findings and applying them to a deal with specifics you refuse to understand or even respond too. 200 million barely covers the restoration of the landfill, and more of this offer was privately funded than any other stadium offers period. There simply has not been a better deal for the cities in any major american professional sport than this one, so if you really dislike stadiums seeping public funds maybe support the ones that use less of it. Still waiting to see how much it's gonna cost taxpayers to clean and reclaim that land on their own burden.

Rich people are not going to stop building stadiums, the government will not stop subsidizing rich peoples anything. This whole debacle says 'dont bother sweetening the deal, stick with what was working because if they're gonna say no, they will say no.'

[-] ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024

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