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submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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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[-] Psychodelic@lemmy.world 82 points 6 months ago

Lost revenue from switching up the tax plan to cut taxes for the rich seems like a very predictable outcome.

I wonder if anyone has thought to ask the people that proposed/passed it what they expected to happen. Better yet, I wonder if the people that voted for them have given it any thought whatsoever

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

So depending on who you ask you get different answers because there are a few different groups working together, and at least half of them are using the other half.

So originally you had two groups. The first group for lack of a better term were the 1%, their goal is to destroy the government and install oligarchs that will allow them to write the laws to be whatever is most beneficial to them and allow them to more efficiently funnel all the money into their pockets. Their first order of business was to reduce or eliminate their taxes, followed by eliminating regulations.

In order to convince everyone else that they should be allowed to do these self serving things that harm everybody else they came up with the lie of trickledown economics and pushed that message hard using Reagan.

That brings us to the second original group which was the economic conservatives that were concerned by the US running a deficit for so long. They didn't want to raise taxes so they decided the problem was too much government spending and/or inefficient government spending, and that if we just cut back things here and there or optimized spending to be less wasteful it would fix everything. The lie of trickledown economics was crafted to appease this group with the fake promise that government revenue could be increased by reducing taxes on the rich.

Fast forward a little ways and the first group is still around with the same policies and goals, but now the goal posts have moved for the second group. The first group has successfully convinced the second group that the government is broken and that there are large groups (mostly minorities and the poor) that are running some kind of con and stealing money from the government (the irony of course being that it's almost entirely the first group doing exactly that). They've been convinced that government provided services are actually the problem and need to be eliminated.

They spent a decade or so trying to convince everyone that government programs should be shut down using various arguments, but because everyone else aren't morons they were largely ignored. Ultimately they arrived at their current plan which is to just keep cutting taxes to the point where the government can't afford to function and is forced to shut down.

So the current situation is actually the goal, they want the government to essentially go bankrupt, the first group because then there's no one to tell them things like that they're not allowed to dump toxic waste into everyone's water supply or that they have to treat their workers like actual humans and not cattle, and the second group because they're living in a delusion.

[-] bear_pile@kbin.social 2 points 6 months ago

Trickle down economics didn't start with Regan it was a thing for at least 100 years beforehand and was known as horse and sparrow theory.

The idea was that if you fed a horse enough oats, some would pass through for the sparrow to eat too.

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Yes, it was an old discredited economic theory, but Reagan dusted it off and pushed it as his core economic policy. Before Reagan it was largely unknown and forgotten by the US public, but he put a huge spotlight on it, all as an excuse to justify cutting taxes on the rich. Unfortunately a large swath of the public believed his lies and we're still dealing with the fallout from that today.

[-] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 63 points 6 months ago

Classic Republican shitshow that democrats get blamed for and are responsible for cleaning up

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 36 points 6 months ago

Flat tax = let's make the poor pay for services instead of the rich who can afford it.

[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

Yup, stupid Republicans continue to do the same stupid thing in the hopes that the same stupid thing will garner different results and then Democrats have to fix their stupid mistakes, Republicans will go into propaganda mode and bash Democrats for attempting to fix their mistakes going this is fine as the state burns around them, the electorate will buy into their propaganda because, well Americans are honestly overall stupid with no critical thinking skills because of Republican's successful assault on education, see vouchers, and elect Republicans back into office where they'll fuck up all of things that Democrats did to partially fix the Republican's dumbass repeat of history and move things even further into regressive territory.

[-] JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee 18 points 6 months ago

We need great public schools. School vouchers to institutions that radicalize toward christo-facism should be ended. We need books, not guns.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

You got Duceyed

[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Well, y'know, it's that damn big govt making all the problems. This is all their fault. Somehow.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Living in a Red State has got to be the closest thung to living in a cult. Who the fuck rationally thinks cutting taxes to the only motherfuckers with money will fix anything? Hey, you're fucking thirsty, right? Well here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to remove all of the lakes and sources of water! Isn't that fantastic? Once the water is all gone and safe in my reservoir it will be much better for us to drink! Fucken rubes.

[-] Introversion@kbin.social 5 points 6 months ago

“Welp, time to cut more ‘woke’ from the schools.”

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago

Maybe if they cut science and history they’ll save money.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 4 points 6 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


PHOENIX (AP) — A steep budget deficit caused by plummeting tax revenues and escalating school voucher costs will be in focus Monday as Democratic Gov.

Arizona subsequently saw a decrease of over $830 million in revenues from income taxes, marking a nearly 30% decline from July through November.

The voucher program lets parents use public money for private-school tuition and other education costs.

Concerns are growing in Arizona about shortages from the Colorado River system, which provides the state with about 40% of its water, and about shrinking supplies of groundwater and regulation in rural areas.

Calling drought the “challenge of our time,” Hobbs has limited housing development in parts of metro Phoenix over water concerns and canceled state land leases that for years gave a Saudi-owned farm nearly unfettered access to pump groundwater.

Worries about a record number of migrant arrivals on Arizona’s southern border could also be a potent issue for state lawmakers in an election year.


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this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
163 points (96.6% liked)

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