Ducey’s story about how he plans to pay for a 20% raise for teachers will probably change, but on April 16 this was it: “Sweep” $2 million in funding from the developmentally disabled, $1 million from healthcare in prisons, $8 million in funding for universities, and $37 million in funds from other agencies, primarily the Department of Environmental Quality. He hopes to collect $8 million in new Keno revenues; assess fees of $35 million from hospitals, and grab $42 million from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (Medicaid) and the Department of Education. In other words, he’s going to “give” this raise by stealing from the neediest in our state and by stripping other educational endeavors.
But that’s not enough to cover his false promise to teachers, so Ducey makes up revenue numbers. “For instance, while budget analysts anticipate $46 million in new, ongoing revenues in the coming fiscal year, Ducey’s budget plans for $156 million,” according to the Arizona Capitol Times. If his fantasy numbers don’t materialize, no problem because we won’t know until after November and he thinks he’ll have pulled the wool over enough eyes to be re-elected for another 4 years of scams.
And none of this is permanent funding. Ducey thinks we’re too stupid to recognize that after his one-time “sweeps” are done, there is no permanent revenue stream to support his election-year promise.
What Ducey won’t do is restore the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy who fund his misleading re-election ads. How easy would it be — if one were really interested in education funding — to ask these folks to go back to paying the rates they were paying in 2006? Was life so bad for the upper-class twelve years ago? Wasn’t the economy clipping along just fine? It was.
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