Recent Blog Posts
By Yes on 100 Team, April 4th, 2010 11:17 PM
Education & Public Safety spending makes up over 60% of the state general fund budget and are two of the MOST CRITICAL components to attracting & maintaining our businesses. If we fail to attract this revenue, future cuts will surely come from these two obligations. Early ballot/Location info here: http://bit.ly/dyPNxg
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By Yes on 100 Team, March 16th, 2010 5:19 PM
Let’s start there, with complete honesty: Few among us want to pay higher taxes. Especially not in an economy that continues to struggle. Not with a mortgage to pay, bills, a family to support.
Why dig deeper into your pocket? Why vote YES ON 100?
Because we need to protect the core services all of us in Arizona - our children, our grandparents, our neighbors – rely on every day.
You will hear a lot of rhetoric and a lot of spin about Proposition 100, the temporary one-cent sales tax that goes before Arizona’s voters on May 18th. This Web site is where you can come to get the truth.
Education. Public safety. Health care.
In the past year, Arizona government has been cut by more than $1 billion. More than 10 percent of the state workforce has been let go. K-12 schools have been hit especially hard. The same with Corrections and services for the sick and poor.
For all those cuts, another $1 billion in reductions will occur soon – even with the passage of Proposition 100.
YES ON 100 is the temporary boost Arizona needs to sustain our schools and give more than 1 million students the chance to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. YES ON 100 will protect our neighborhoods by helping to keep police and firefighters on our streets, and it will provide essential help to those in need.
It’s the truth: Few among us want to pay higher taxes. But YES ON 100 speaks to a higher truth: No one wants to live in state that can’t meet its basic responsibilities.
Education. Public safety. Health care.
That’s why Arizona Republicans and Arizona Democrats support YES ON 100. And teachers, police officers and firefighters. And Chambers of Commerce, small businessmen and mom-and-pop shop owners. And citizens from every corner of the state.
Check back on this site often - whenever you need a dose of honesty in the midst of this election campaign. And, please, vote YES ON 100.
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March 16th, 2010 12:49 PM
The biggest job the YES ON 100 campaign has is telling our story across Arizona. We feel like, if we just get out the facts about the seriousness of the state’s economic crisis, voters will understand that this temporary infusion of tax revenue isn’t just the right thing to do … it’s the only thing to do.
Because we believe in this story, it’s especially gratifying when we see people get it – as the Arizona Daily Star did in their lead editorial of Friday, March 12th. Beginning with a call for those who stand opposed to 100 – like our two US Senators – to come up with a plan to save the state, this nice piece of writing lays out a compelling case for YES ON 100.
The part we liked best?
Notwithstanding McCain and Kyl's opposition, the sales-tax proposal, known as Proposition 100, has brought together some unusual entities as supporters. Education groups have offered endorsements - as might be expected, as schools stand to lose tremendously if the budget crisis continues - but business groups and private companies have, too.
These supporters live in Arizona, do business in Arizona and see what is happening to our state. They see the closed highway rest stops and state parks, they see the effects of education cuts in their kids' schools, and they're affected by the reduced state spending on services residents usually take for granted, such as social services and public safety.
Organizations including the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, the Arizona Transit Association, the Arizona Trucking Association, tribal leaders and myriad public-safety and student associations have thrown their support behind Proposition 100. These are groups that no doubt would disagree on many other issues, but they understand why Arizona needs this temporary sales tax - and that the state is out of options.
It is encouraging to see such a cross section of Arizonans join together in support of Proposition 100. Many of the supporters, including Gov. Jan Brewer, are predisposed to argue against tax increases - but they looked at the situation in Arizona, weighed the evidence and came to the conclusion that Arizona needs the tax increase to get through the crisis.
Arizona is at a perilous juncture where we can build for the future or let this budget crisis decimate the state....
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March 12th, 2010 12:51 PM
Some mornings, the front page of the newspaper is a real bummer. Not that we don’t appreciate the Arizona Republic’s support on Proposition 100, but the Friday March 12th story about Arizona’s university tuition increases struck a chord with us.
A college education isn’t a right – nor is it right for everybody – but you’d like to be believe it’s at least affordable. That belief is being sorely tested in Arizona right now – and it will be completely undermined if Proposition 100 fails.
The Republic reports:
On Thursday, the regents, who oversee the state universities, approved tuition hikes of more than $1,000 a year for all students at the University of Arizona and incoming students at ASU and Northern Arizona University.
Under the new rates, new ASU students will see their tuition and mandatory fees jump by 18.8 percent, or $1,288. That will bring the cost to $8,128 per year, starting this fall.
Current ASU students won't see their costs increase as much but will still face hikes of 11.9 percent to 12.7 percent, or $783 to $817 a year, depending on when they started.
Students at UA will pay the most, at $8,237 in tuition and fees. The regents approved an increase of 20.4 percent, or $1,403, for all undergraduate students at UA.
Freshmen at NAU will pay $7,667 a year, an increase of $1,040, or 15.7 percent. NAU officials said new students' tuition will be frozen at that level for the next eight semesters, although they could pay more in future years via fee increases.
About half of the undergraduate students at NAU's Flagstaff campus are already on fixed-tuition payment plans and won't see a tuition increase this fall.
The tuition increases are necessary, university officials say, because state lawmakers have been cutting their budgets during the tough economy.
Like we said, things will only get worse for college students if 100 fails. How much worse?
"I don't know what we would have to do," Arizona State University Provost Elizabeth Capaldi said, in reference to the university's response in the event of a failed sales-tax vote. "It is possible that we would have to have an additional surcharge, and that would be awful."
The hits just keep on coming here in Arizona. And Election Day is just 67 days away.
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