I embrace our founding fathers’ principles of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  Liberty is another word for freedom and with the freedom to earn comes the freedom to learn. Education and our economy are a symbiotic relationship.

We cannot have one without the other and expect our state to thrive. Teachers/professors honestly want to educate students and see them find good work. No business would pay to train someone only to have him/her work for the competitor.

Yet Arizona, ranked 45th for least unemployment, is investing in higher education and many instate graduates then go to other states to work because they cannot find good paying jobs here.  After subsidizing a four-year degree, only 56 percent of our graduates stay here to work. We can fix that.    

By transitioning gradually from our state income tax to a consumption fee, we will get revenues from our 44 million visitors, taxes from our 2½ million resident filers will decrease, and total revenues will go up.

Exempting basic food, clothing and gasoline we protect those on fixed incomes. Transitioning School Tuition Organization tax credits to our property tax system we preserve school choice.

Arizona is ranked 48th in K-12 education spending per student. New York is ranked number one, with a much higher standard of living then Arizona and approaching three times more expensive when comparing economic factors like per diem rates or federal Cost of Living Allowances (COLA).

However, if Arizona institutes more transparency in government spending, like New York (www.seethroughNY.net), we will publicly reveal state government spending on all salaries/wages including education. We then might begin to improve our spending per student as the public sees exactly where the money is going. I will work to do that.

Arizona spends more of its budget on education than 2/3 of the others states. By replacing the 4½ percent income tax with a 1 percent consumption fee, we broaden our base of contributors. The expected additional revenue would continue the effect of Proposition 301 extending it past 2021.

This is expected to add more to the general fund when our population increases. More jobs are created as businesses have more capital to reinvest, and graduates are able to find more work in Arizona rather than somewhere else. Free markets and less regulation produce more growth, more jobs and higher standards of living. We can do this. It’s a win-win for education, business and our people

I will fight for you! Not the special interest and not any out-of-touch establishment. A politician thinks of the next election, but a statesman thinks of the next generation. I am a statesman.

We are the people, “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” said Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg where my family, Henry Schmuck, fought. Check out www.TeamSCHMUCK.com. I humbly ask for your vote on or before Nov. 8h to bring integrity, service and real leadership to the Arizona Senate in our beloved Legislative District 18. God bless you and God bless Arizona and America.

-Frank Schmuck is the Republican candidate for State Senate in LD 18.