The Arizona Education Association has published a summary of the budget. Here’s something: the sales tax hike is not a billion dollars, only $450 million. And the revenue loss due to their flat tax plan: $450 million. So much for making up for cuts.
Oh, and the it retains punitive language directed at politically active teachers. Nice to see their priorities are straight.
One Comment
You forgot about the detail that the sales tax (if enacted) would be temporary while the income tax cut would be permanent (to go along with $1.5 billion the state is already not getting in revenues courtesy of previous tax cuts since the 1992 referendum essentially made it impossible to ever raise them back again and the quarter billion dollar tax cut from eliminating the equilization tax that is also in this budget.)
In other words, the deal is that IF voters enact a temporary sales tax , then the tax cuts enacted this year will only cost the state $250 million (plus $1.5 billion) but by the time the sales tax runs out the total tax cuts (assuming no more in future years) would be costing the state $2.2 billion in revenue.
Now, what was our deficit this year again?