Wednesday, November 28th, 2007...4:20 pm
The Ever Vigilant Jack Harper Gets to the Bottom of Our State’s Budget Woes
The Phoenix Business Journal recently published an article about Phoenix-area leaders travelling to Ireland to find out about the the phenomenal growth in their technology sector there.
In response, a fellow named Tom Jenney from the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers wrote a letter saying that Ireland’s low corporate income tax is the real secret to their growth. In response, Rep. Chad Campbell, wrote another letter stating that he was on the trip as well and remarked that the Irish government has made smart investments in infrastructure and education, precisely the sorts of things that Jenney argues against.
(Personally, I’m waiting for the Wall Street Journal editorial page to claim that hundreds of years of famine and sectarian strife helped the Irish economy. Such lucky duckies.)
Both e-mails were cc’d to the Business Journal and other legislators. I think that Jenney’s argument is so much supply side hooey, but it was actually on point. Of course, discussion on the actual issue couldn’t continue. In walks Jack Harper, in his inimitable way to add himself to the discussion:
Chad,
Traveling at taxpayer expense to a foreign country is one of the reason [sic] for a state budget crisis. I wouldn’t have admitted that to the Biz Journal.
Rookie!
State Senator Jack Harper
(Never has taken an out-of-state trip at taxpayer expense)
As with most glib factoids generated by conservative chachalacas like Harper, this one (which was also cc’d by Harper to folks at the Business Journal) falls apart with even the shallowest examination. As the article pointed out (and also as pointed out by Campbell and Jack’s fellow Republican Rich Crandall in further dueling e-mails), the trip was paid for by Science Foundation Arizona, a private organization. But hey, Jack, not to worry, much more fun to make your usual off the wall allegations against your political adversaries.
(By the way, Campbell didn’t have to admit to the Business Journal that he was on the trip, since they were there too, along with Jim Weiers and Robert Meza.)
Jack, how is that investigation of Harry Mitchell going?
Give Chad a wee bit of credit for saving thousands in hair care products.
NB - My own partisan dart here: presumptive or, uh, exploring, CD 8 congressional candidate and Senate President Tim Bee apparently thinks that Harper is just the sort of guy we need in leadership in the legislature since he appointed him to a chairmanship. You draw your own conclusions there.
5 Comments
November 29th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Uh, all majority party senators (with the possible exception of freshmen) chair committees in the Senate. This practice was true the last time the Dems had unfettered control of the senate under Pete Rios.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
This was my favorite part of the whole exchange:
Senator Harper,
Wow, I guess we were all wrong. Folks on my side of the political fence attributed the current budget problems to irresponsible tax cuts, while others laid the blame entirely on desperate peasants from Chiapas, but it turns out that all of us were mistaken. It seems that responsibility for the whole crisis can be placed at the feet of Representative Campbell, who apparently took a $600 million trip to Ireland at taxpayer expense.
Thank you, Senator Harper, for your diligence. Where would Arizona be without you?
TOM PREZELSKI
State Representative, District 29
November 29th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Doug is right, nearly every returning Senator from the Majority party gets to chair a committee this year. I guess we really should be asking “why?” Majority leadership in the legislature often defends their practices by making dubious claims about tradition. One has to go back only to the 45th Legislature to see an instance of committee chairmanships being held by members of both caucuses. Additionally, other states, like Texas, frequently have such arrangements.
It should be kept in mind that, bogus tradition or not, there is no requirement under the Constitution that committees have to be organized in any particular way. This just happens to be the way that the current leadership has chosen to do things. Please don’t even get me started on the all too frequent practice of creating a committee just so a given member can have a chairmanship.
The fact is, there are folks in the Republican caucus who should never have been trusted with chairmanships, and there is no reason that they should be in those positions other than, perhaps, cynical political expedience.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Um, you should hear what Jack told The Business Journal regarding this situation. Story will be out on Friday.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
[…] week, I wrote a little bit about an e-mail exchange between Rep. Chad Campbell and anti-tax advocate Tom Jenney. To the credit […]
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