Arizona K-12 School Finance Statistics: Why does Arizona Rank #48 in Per Pupil Spending?

You’ve heard the mantra, especially from newspaper editorials around Arizona, accusing the Legislature of "disgraceful, seemingly willful abandonment of our public schools."   (See Payson Schools facing Tough Competition.)   Arizona’s news editors don’t want you to know the "rest of the story," if it doesn’t fit their Leftist world view.  What are the facts?  

The Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA) has put together an 8-page document titled Arizona K-12 School Finance Statistics: Providing Context to a Complex Measurement, that provides factual information relating to the reasons and fallacies surrounding the commonly argued narrative that Arizona doesn’t fund K-12 education adequately. 

Summary

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Report on the 11/14/2013 EPA Hearing: Navajo Generating Station

by Patrick O’Malley
Precinct Committeeman (LD12)

At the EPA Hearing on November 14, the EPA asked those who wished to speak to come up and take a seat at the front table two at a time for efficiency. So I’m making my comments and the guy sitting next to me is with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Is he supposed to be the balance to my conservative comments? No, we are both there trying to convince the EPA to leave Navajo Generating Station (NGS) alone. Or at least leave something in operation after they make their final ruling, because we both clearly see the damage changes at NGS will have on Arizona’s economy. It’s not just a federal authority out of control or state’s rights issue. This agency is messing with our everyday lives.

There were about 200 people at the hearing and about 100 of them made statements. It broke pretty cleanly into the Sierra Club wanting quick, drastic changes that will close NGS, and everybody else. Everybody else included legislators, union workers, Central Arizona Project, farmers, Indian Tribes, and average citizens. Rep. Warren Petersen and Joy Staveley from Canyoneers wanted the EPA completely out of our business and to back off completely from NGS. They have the right principles for the long term fight with the EPA, but I’m afraid it’s too late for principles to triumph on NGS.

The Technical Working Group (TWG) Negotiates a Surrender

In June of this year the Technical Working Group (TWG) got together and proposed a negotiated surrender as opposed to having the EPA force them into an unconditional surrender. TWG consists of Salt River Project and the Department of the Interior as major owners of NGS; Central Arizona Project (CAP) as the biggest customer of NGS; Gila River Indian Community as a major customer of CAP; the Navajo Nation because NGS is on their land, and they supply the coal to make it go; and two environmental groups, Environmental Defense Fund and Western Resource Advocates. The Sierra Club was originally part of TWG, but walked out when the plan wasn’t severe enough to satisfy them.

So why didn’t the State of Arizona get a seat at the TWG table? Technically because the EPA is dealing directly with the Navajo Nation and it’s not an Arizona issue, but it’s safe to assume the other members of TWG were afraid a State of Arizona representative couldn’t be trusted to surrender fast enough.

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Pelosi and the Democrats want to Destroy the Navajo Nation

Thanks to Andy McKinney for the following post.  

Dear Friends,

Nancy Pelosi is attacking the Navajo nation with a fury not seen for over a century.  She and her Democrat Party allies have set their sights on the economic and social destruction of the Navajo nation.

Fifty percent of the economically active people on the Navajo reservation are unemployed.  The nation participates in three interconnected operations providing $100,000,000 for the Navajo people. These are the Kayenta coal mine, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) and the railroad that connects the two.  Losing the NGS means the loss of this entire economy, not just for the Navajo people, but also for the people who benefit and depend on it for their own livelihoods.

Pelosi wants to close the generating station on utterly bogus environmental grounds.  

 She and her Democrat Party Pals want to crush the economic life out of the Navajos.  For her, Navajos shouldn’t be allowed to have high paying railroad, mining, or power generating jobs. For her, food stamps and poverty are all the Navajo people can aspire to.

Fortunately, the Navajo coal miners are represented by the United Mine Workers of America UMWA).  Perhaps the Democrat Party will not throw their allies in big labor under the bus in favor of their allies in the environmental wacko movement.  Ninety-eight percent of the UMWA members at Kayenta are Navajo.

Save the Navajo.  Stop the Democrat Party.

 

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Rep. Paul Gosar Rallies Thousands to Fight for Energy Jobs

The issue of jobs in Arizona is critical, as Patrick O’Malley has explained in two articles:  The War on Coal, and The War on Coal: Take Action.  Mr. O’Malley also illustrates the devastating effect that the EPA’s actions will have on raising the cost of water and electricity to all Arizonans.  Under the Obama Administration, the EPA has taken charge over our lives.  We no longer have a well behaved Rottweiler under control in our household.  The Rottweiler has taken control.    

As you can see from this press release issued by Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, he’s helping us fight off the EPA’s belligerance.  But he cannot do it alone!  Patrick O’Malley has provided two sample emails that you can send to the EPA, copying him, so he can physically and publicly hand them to the EPA at the hearing on November 14.  The carbon letter must be emailed by Nov. 8.  The NOx letter must be emailed by Nov. 14.  Please copy Patrick O’Malley on both of these emailed letters.  His email address is pat.o@azcitrus.com. 

Here is Rep. Gosar’s Press Release:

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The War on Coal: Take Action!

by Patrick O’Malley
Precinct Committeeman LD12

On October 21 we talked about the EPA’s War on Coal and the power plants they are targeting in Arizona. The Sierra Club is bragging that they’ve closed down 150 coal power plants since 2010, and they want to make the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Page, AZ number 151. That’s the plant that supplies 90% of the electricity used to operate the Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal.

Those of us outside of the Page area won’t be part of the economic disaster that will take place in the Navajo Nation if NGS is shut down. They are the ones who will lose good paying jobs at the power plant and the coal mine. But everyone in Arizona will be affected, because, long term, somebody will have to pay to replace a perfectly good power plant with decades of life left in it. And that will be all of us paying more for electricity and water.

There are two EPA issues coming up right away that affect coal fired power plants in Arizona. The first is carbon capture with a deadline for the public to comment by November 8.  You can comment by email.

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EPA’s Secret Deals with Environmentalists: Sue and Settle

The EPA is under investigation for a practice called Sue and Settle. Environmentalists in government and private organizations have found ways to create new regulations by fashioning lawsuits tailored to have courts institute policy changes. Both parties involved in the lawsuits secretly decide in advance what the outcome will be and how much taxpayer money will be transferred to the environmental group in the settlement. In other words, they are exploiting the courts to change laws, and in the process, helping to fund radical environmental groups without legislative or taxpayer consent. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been given to these groups.

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The Economic Impact of the Super Bowl

If you listen to the Super Bowl Hype-a-Thon, big business interests, and the media, you would believe that everybody in Arizona will receive a huge economic boost from hosting the Super Bowl in 2015.  If Governor Brewer hadn’t vetoed SB1062, the Super Bowl wouldn’t come to Arizona!!!  (The articles on this disaster are easy to google.)

Pearl-clutching gasp!

 

 Well, what about that "economic boost"?  I for one have some questions.  For example, how much has it cost the taxpayers to build the Stadium that meets the requirements of the NFL?  How much will it cost the taxpayers to refurbish it?  How much will the taxpayers pay for additional police and fire protection?  Street maintenance?  Advertising?  

Did you know that SRP wasted $1 million of their customers’ money on a Super Bowl  advertising campaign that did nothing to improve energy efficiency or serve its ratepayers?   Also, SRP isn’t in competition with other utilities and doesn’t even need to self-promote at the Super Bowl.  Stated Diane Brown, executive director of the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), "When SRP promotes the Super Bowl, the arts or human services, no matter how valiant the program, the correlation to the purpose of providing electricy and water fails to exist and ratepayers are left with a tab they didn’t order." 

What about all those economic benefits?  

According a Sports Illustrated article titled "There is no Blip: Super Bowl could be Super Bust for host cities, study finds":

"A look at six Super Bowls dating to 1979 — three in Miami, two in Tampa, one in Phoenix — found no increase in sales revenue over previous years without the big game, said Philip Porter, author of the study.

"One reason may be that the estimated 140,000 fans who attend Super Bowl events in tourist-oriented Florida, Arizona or California displace the usual visitors from colder regions, he said.

"’There ought to be a spike that sticks up like a sore thumb," said Porter, an economics professor at the University of South Florida at Tampa. "It doesn’t exist. There is no blip. You don’t find anything.’"

"We are being suckered," Porter said. "People who want us to do something for them are selling us snake oil."

That was then.  What about now?  Take a look at this January 2014 article "It’s the Local Economy, Stupid"  

On one side, you have the NFL. Last week, the league, as part of its non-stop hype-a-thon for the First Super Bowl Outdoors In Cold Weather Isn’t Snow Just Romantic?, reported that the New York/New Jersey economy would see a $600 million boost as a result of Super Bowl spending. "Thanks to the Super Bowl, we’re seeing more hotel rooms booked and restaurant tables reserved and even more excitement than usual for this time of year," U.S. Rep Carolyn Maloney told reporters.

On the other, you have the nation’s sports economists, who say the actual number is a fair bit lower. Like, maybe, zero. "There still remains no ex post evidence of an economic impact," says University of South Florida professor Philip Porter, almost audibly sighing over email since, as someone who’s been studying this topic for more than a decade, he gets the same question every year at this time. "Super Bowl attendees simply don’t buy much that the local economy sells."

One of the researchers quoted in the above article was Victor Matheson.  The abstract from his indepth study titled Economics of the Super Bowl states: 

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