No ‘silver bullet' for budget deficit

Solving Arizona’s current budget and economic crisis, unfortunately, is a complex problem that will take much more than election-year sound bites, rigid ideology, and revisiting the same policies that brought us to where we stand today.

Working through a crisis of this magnitude – almost 300,000 jobs lost, about 9 percent state unemployment, and a budget deficit of at least $1.4 billion this year and about $3.2 billion next year – will take a balanced and thoughtful approach and true bipartisan leadership.

That we must attract new business and industries to provide sustainable, high-wage jobs is beyond debate: We’ve seen the results of economically relying too heavily on growth-related industries like construction and tourism. The debate before us, however, is how best to bring those employers to our state.

Using public money to incentivize private businesses to relocate to Arizona, then providing their owners’ tax breaks once they arrive, are not bad ideas.

However, they do little to address the other and more pressing challenges we face as a state, and they are certainly not timely given the steep budget shortfall Arizona faces at present and how far the majority of lawmakers has pushed our state down the wrong track.

Businesses will not move to Arizona based solely upon a favorable tax climate; they also need a pool of skilled, educated potential employees. It is not only unconscionable to be giving massive corporate giveaways at a time our already-anemic education budget is being cut, it is also exceptionally counterproductive. A robust, well-funded education system is the most important step in ensuring our children have the best opportunity to obtain and excel in high-paying jobs.

Additionally, the currently proposed tax cuts will primarily benefit the richest Arizonans, a misguided prospect considering the burdens facing middle-class families today. It is a wrong-priority approach that has been tried again and again in Arizona for almost two decades, and it is an approach that has done little to help us weather the current recession.

Rather than further public-money giveaways to those who don’t need it, we could immediately dent the existing deficit by closing the loopholes that some abuse to avoid paying their fair share.

Instead of a property tax shift that would further burden hard-working Arizona families, just to offset massive corporate giveaways, we could rebalance our current tax system that bizarrely affords tax breaks on country club memberships and spa treatments but continues to levy taxes on school supplies and clothes.

Perhaps none of these countermeasures are a “silver bullet” to resolving the current economic and budget mess, but they are ideas that should be discussed and considered. That’s something that hasn’t happened in the current rush to cut taxes amid record deficits and dramatic cuts to social services.

As soon as everyone at the Capitol is open to constructive debate and bipartisan dialogue, then we’ll all be open for a balanced solution to today’s challenging – but solvable – problems.

And we’ll all be ready for that.

For more information, please visit our Web site at www.strongerarizona.com.

Rae Waters represents Ahwatukee Foothills, Chandler and Tempe in the Arizona House of Representatives, and serves on the Kyrene School District Governing Board. Contact her at rwaters@azleg.gov or (602) 926-5550.