A community resource for monitoring, navigating, surviving, and dismantling the prison industrial complex in Arizona.
UPDATE: May 20, 2019
To all my AZ friends/family:
Thanks so much for your and likes and hope and encouraging words via FB these past 4 1/2 years. You helped me survive some of the loneliest days and hardest nights I've endured yet by keeping our connections alive across 2000 miles.
My 55th birthday is June 13, 2019, and I plan to celebrate it in PHX (details to be announced). I'm leaving Michigan (god willing) by May 25 - and should land in an undisclosed location in the Deep Southwest soon after.
Here's my PAYPAL link for anyone who wants to shoot me $10 bucks or throw a big impromptu anarchist talent show and pass a hat or something to help me make it home. Once I land I'll be back to work on my art again, and will send a homemade gift to everyone I can...
And don't forget to pick up PJ Starr's 2016 documentary film about the life and death of Marcia Joanne Powell:
SHARING IS CARING,
so please share with all our friends!!
THANK YOU and MUCH to all, near and far.

Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...
This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.
Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.
Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.
I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.
In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail, Jessie B.
I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.
I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends. If you are in need of additional assistance fighting the prison industrial complex in Arizona - or if you care to offer some aid to the cause - please contact the Phoenix Anarchist Black Cross at PO Box 7241 / Tempe, AZ 85281. collective@phoenixabc.org
until all are free -
MARGARET J PLEWS (June 1, 2015)
arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com

Friday, February 26, 2010
Congratulations Winslow; Condolences, Tucson.
February 26th, 2010
AZjournal.com
By Sam Conner
The Winslow City Council met on Tuesday to hear reports from City Manager Jim Ferguson and Finance Director Regina Reffner. Ferguson reported that the Corrections Corporation of America had informed him that although they remain interested in Winslow as a possible site for a private prison, they foresee bidding to put the entire 5,000-bed facility near a larger metropolitan area, namely Tucson, when the state issues its call for requests for proposals.
Perps on the CCA Payroll: More at Otter Creek.
Mountains That Take Wing...
ASU Tempe Campus – Neeb Hall (http://www.asu.edu/tour/tempe/neeb.html)
Sponsored by Local to Global Justice (www.localtoglobal.org) and The School of Social Transformation (at ASU)
ABOUT THE MOVIE:
Features conversations that span 13 years between two formidable women whose lives and political work remain at the epicenter of the most important civil rights struggles in the US. Through the intimacy and depth of conversations, we learn about Davis, an internationally renowned scholar-activist and 88-year-old Kochiyama, a revered grassroots community activist and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee's shared experiences as political prisoners and their profound passion for justice. On subjects ranging from the vital but largely erased role of women in social movements of the 20th century, community empowerment, to the prison industrial complex, war and the cultural arts, Davis' and Kochiyama's comments offer critical lessons for understanding our nation's most important social movements and tremendous hope for its youth and the future.
H. L. T. Quan (Ph.D. University of California-Santa Barbara) is an Assistant Professor and an Affiliate Faculty in African/African American Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies a ASU. Her research centers on race, gender and economic and political thought. She is currently writing a book about savage developmentalism and its tendentious propensity to secure order and capitalist expansion. This study investigates foreign policy conducts by Japan in military Brazil, the United States in occupied Iraq, and China in Sudan amidst humanitarian disasters. She is also working on a collaborative project on the historical and political development of Black capitalism in the United States, a 17-city comparison.
Professor Quan is also a co-founder and member of QUAD Productions, a not for profit production company that produces media for progressive community organizations and activists. She and C. A. Griffith (Associate Professor, School of Theatre & Film) are co-directors and co-producers of the "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation" and "América's Home" (working title).
C.A. (Crystal) Griffith
Associate Professor, School of Theater and Film, ASU.
Professor Griffith was raised in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Stanford University (B.A.) and University of California, Santa Barbara (M.F.A). Ms. Griffith's credits include Juice (1992), award-winning PBS and BBC documentaries such as A Litany For Survival: The Life & Work of Audre Lorde (cinematographer), Branford Marsalis: The Music Tells You (camera operator), Depeche Mode 101, Eyes on the Prize I & II , and music videos including Tracy Chapman, Public Enemy, and The Rolling Stones. She was awarded a 2004 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Media Arts, the Panavision/Kodak University Outreach Program Grant and the Vision in Color Award of the New England Film/Video Festival.
Ms. Griffith also received a grant from Digital Media's Avid Feature Film Camp for her film, Del Otro Lado (The Other Side). Shot on location in Mexico City and screened extensively at U.S. and international film festivals, Griffith directed, co-edited and co-produced this Spanish language, independent feature in 1999.
With H.L.T. Quan, she is co-directing "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation", a documentary on women of color cultural workers. C.A. Griffith's publications appear in Filming Difference (forthcoming), Black Feminist Cultural Criticism: Classic Readings, Black Women Film and Video Artists , Herotica 4, The Wild Good, the journals Meridians, Signs and Calyx. Ms. Griffith joins Arizona State University 's new Film Program from Columbia College Chicago (2000-06), Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1997-00).
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Prosecuting Innocence: Resistance is Futile...
The sentencing committee meeting was canceled again today, by the way - I have no idea when it's rescheduled for. I hung out at the Capitol awhile anyway, handing out copies of Tenacious to the women legislators I could find, since it was "Women's Day at the Legislature" today, and I didn't think they'd made any arrangements for state prisoners to participate or talk to their legislators. I also left one for Governor Brewer, with an article done by a woman who had cancer while at Perryville a few years back. She's now with an organization that helps women in prison. I'll post her story here when I get permission.
I hope those legislators I gave the zines to actually bother to read them. I don't know when or how they're going to hear a woman prisoner's voice address their conditions otherwise. Maybe we should try to get them to hold hearings out at the prisons themselves. Given the Arizona Republic and Lumley Vampire reports on the physical condition of the facilities alone, they should have organized an emergency oversight committee to check it out in person. The legislature is responsible, after all, for compromising the safety of state prisoners and corrections employees in the first place. They've now been duly warned that they'll be held liable for failing to follow up on it.
Anyway, the following article is very pertinent to the work of the House Sentencing Committee - and most of the issues I have with Andrew Thomas' office. In fact, this is a very good reason why we don't want that man to be Attorney General. He'll be putting ten times as many innocent people away, while letting the really guilty ones walk by making questionable deals - like the one that put the Scott Sisters away. The innocent don't have anything to fear, they think, nor do they have anything to trade. The guilty, on the other hand - the "triggermen" - can trade them.
There's nothing guaranteed to get you a more severe punishment in America than insisting that you're innocent and losing to the prosecutor at trial - and they make sure you know that when they make their offer. Their job is to prove guilt, not to find truth - don't make any mistakes about that. They're out to get convictions, by and large - not to protect the innocent. Victims are just useful tools to win their cases with, and to use to promote their own tough-on-crime image.
There are a few remarkable exceptions to that rule, of course. Some DA's have been very committed to investigating reports of wrongful prosecutions/convictions. I hope that's the beginning of a trend towards more ethical, responsible prosecutorial conduct. I have yet to see evidence of that happening in Arizona, though.
What is Wrong with the Plea Bargain System in our Courts Today?
Frontline Interview withJohn H. Langbein
John Langbein is a professor of law and legal history at Yale Law School. In this interview, he describes how the plea bargain system pressures people to buckle and accept a plea-even if they are innocent-and how prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys have a role, a stake even, in seeing that this happens. He also talks about the Supreme Court's indifference to the pressures on a defendant in the plea process, and why he believes the rampant growth of pleas is rooted in the trial system's failures.
(I have condensed this interview for the sake of this forum. You can view the entire interview on the link I provided below)
Q: "What is wrong with the plea bargain system in our courts today?"
Plea bargaining is a system that is best described as one of condemnation without adjudication. It is a system that replaces trial, which is what our constitution intended, with deals.
Second, those deals are coerced. The prosecutor is basically forcing people to waive their rights to jury trial by threatening them with ever greater sanctions if they refuse to plead and instead demand the right to jury trial.
But every defendant has a right to go to trial; it's a choice they make to plead guilty.
The problem with choice arguments is that they neglect the main dynamic of plea bargan which is the pressure that the prosecutor puts on you to do it his way.
Plea bargain works by threat. What the prosecutor says to a criminal defendant in plea bargaining is, "Surrender your right to jury trial, or if you go to trial and are convicted of an offense, we will see to it that you are punished twice. Once for the offense, and once for having had the temerity to exercise your right to jury trial." THAT is a coercive system.
And the prosecutor has many devices which increase the level of coercion: multiplying the counts, threatening to recommend the most severe end of the sentence range, keeping you locked up in pretrial detention if you're poor - most people who are in the criminal justice system are poor - prosecuting your wife as well as yourself, and things of this sort. The prosecutor can pile it on if you don't play it his way. It is therefore a deeply coercive system. Yes, you have a choice, but your choice is constrained by coercion.
Q: What is the role of the defense lawyer?
Sometimes defense counsel does a very good job for people in the plea bargaining process, and gets you a good deal. But there are many other outcomes.
In the public defender system the defense counsel is representing a hundred other people; the defense counsel can not take every case to trial....
Defense counsel in some circumstances is not very competent and is delighted simply to take his money and run, so to speak."
"So there's no particular reason to think that defense counsel is any serious answer to the intrinsically coercive nature of plea bargaining."
Q: Whom does the system benefit?
The main winner in the plea bargaining process is the prosecutor. I describe plea bargaining as a system of prosecutorial tyranny..."
What has happened is that a single officer, the prosecutor, now is in charge of investigating, charging--that is, bringing formal charges--deciding whether to prosecute, evaluating that evidence, deciding whether or not in his or her judgment you're guilty or not, and then basically sentencing you.
"....what we have now is a system in which one officer, and indeed a somewhat dangerous officer, the prosecutor, has complete power over the fate of the criminal accused."
Q: You let the defense attorney off lightly.
I think defense counsel is to some extent at the mercy of a bad system. There's not a lot you can do when the other guy has all the chips. And the prosecutor has an awesome pile of chips in our plea bargaining system, because the prosecutor can threaten ever larger sanctions if you don't do what he wants.
So I believe that by far the worst failure in the plea bargaining system is the prosecutor, and I think that's in part because the prosecutor is not always as noble as he would like you to believe he is."
"It's a lot easier to coerce somebody into waiving all his defenses than to actually investigate the case thoroughly..."
But, again, the trial is there for anyone who chooses that option.
It is true that one always has the right to go to trial, but the prosecutor can make that right so costly that only a fool will exercise the right..."
Part of the reason why we in this country have criminal sentences that are so much more severe than in the rest of the civilized world, is the need that prosecutors have to threaten people with these huge sentences in order to get them to waive the right to jury trial...."
".... most people (in the system) are too poor to afford bail, and these people are particularly likely to yield to the demand that they confess whatever it is they're being charged with rather than wait for some kind of trial, because they'll be sitting in jail for months and months and months, and therefore there is a very evil interaction of prosecutorial power with poverty, with indigence."
It is very sad that the Supreme Court, which has been so anxious to protect various rights of persons who go to trial, has been so cowardly about seeing the evils of the plea bargaining process."
"...the Supreme Court has been indifferent to the pressures on accused in the plea bargaining process, as exemplified by the famous Alford case, where the fellow actually stood up and said, "I'm innocent, but I'm pleading because the disparity of outcome that they're threatening me with is too great". It's terribly sad."
"...the prosecutor is allowed to coerce people out of trial."
"...what happens is that prosecutors don't have to prove their cases; they're simply allowed to coerce people into waiving their rights. Judges are spared the difficulty of conducting trials and the danger of being found to have erred; they (plea bargains) can't be appealed from .."
"...what actually happens is you're coerced into confessing yourself guilty, whether you are or not."
"The saddest things about plea bargaining is that it is not widely understood. Most people have the television model of Perry Mason or somebody similar contesting for a verdict of a jury."
"Plea bargaining is sometimes justified on the ground that we are giving a lighter sentence to someone who is showing contrition or remorse for the offense. But that's a pack of lies. What is in fact happening is that the accused is being told by the prosecutor, "You accept guilt and confess and bear false witness against yourself and we will then see to it that it gets characterized as contrition or remorse."
The point is that the coercion, which eliminates trial, eliminates our ability to know you were in fact beyond reasonable doubt, guilty or not. And therefore it makes the remorse talk just window dressing by apologists who want to keep this existing system which is convenient for them."
Q: Do you have a solution?
I think the solution is very complex. I think it requires facing the underlying failure of this adversary criminal justice system. The idea that having one pack of lawyers and investigators saying, "You did it," and another pack saying, "We didn't," and nobody actually looking for what actually happened, nobody having an interest in investigating the truth, is a bit mistake."
"No knowledgeable student of comparative criminal justice is likely to fall victim to the notion that our is an admirable system.
It is an appalling system.
We have ten times as large a percent of our population locked up in jail by comparison with the European countries. We have sentences which are draconian. We've just had a 12 year old put in jail for life in Florida. Things of this sort are unheard of in the rest of the world.
There are many causes, but the failure of our adversary system is central, and the political nature of our prosecutorial system is also central"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/interviews/langbein.html
PUENTE Detention Protest Thursday,Noon-1pm.
Local Activists Demand “Dignity not Detention” and Call for an End to Human Rights Abuses in Arizona
PHOENIX – Local activists and community members will participate in a solidarity action in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in central Phoenix where they will deliver a letter calling on the federal government to end all immigration enforcement agreements with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office(MCSO). The action will take place from 12:00pm to 1:00pm ending with a press conference at 1:00pm.
Despite DHS announcements made last fall regarding plans to reform the immigrant detention system, there is little evidence of change. In addition to detaining 3,000 immigrants in Arizona daily, and over 33,000 nationally, the Department of Homeland Security continues to work with MCSO through a 287(g) agreement in the county jails.
Who: Puente, American Civil Liberties Union-AZ
What: Action in front of ICE Office in Phoenix, Delivery of Letter calling on the federal government to end all immigration enforcement agreements with the Maricopa Country Sheriff's Office.
Where: 2035 N. Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ
For more information about Puente please contact Carlos Garcia at carlos@puenteaz.org or call 602-314-5870
The Catholic Resistance to Detention, CCA.
Arrest to be made in CCA Eloy prisoner murder
Arrest expected in prison slaying
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Fascist Architecture of the AZ Legislature.
Or maybe this is exactly what they intended. After all, they have their own investments in seeing the private prison business take over for government, and making sure they keep us all under control. This is one more mechanism of asserting their control over our ability to resist - threatening us like this. I can't believe state employees would let them get away with it.
Bill would restrict political activity of government employees
The House Public Employees, Retirement and Entitlement Reform Committee approved a measure Feb. 23 that would prevent government employees from lobbying lawmakers, participating in protests and rallies and conducting political activity during work hours. The bill would apply to all levels of government in Arizona, including school districts.
The bill, H2344, mirrors a similar federal law known as the Hatch Act, said its sponsor, Rep. Frank Antenori.
“It does not prohibit free speech,” the Tucson Republican said. “What I’m talking about is someone who comes up here (to the Capitol) on government time for their own, personal political purposes.”
However, David Mendoza, a lobbyist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said the law isn’t needed. State government employees are already prohibited from engaging in political activity while on the clock, he said.
“If the intent is to save taxpayer dollars…then why should we have lobbyists representing agencies on the taxpayer dime? Make it even,” he said.
Antenori said legislative staff was unable to find a similar provision already in law, though they didn’t examine rules adopted by the Arizona Department of Administration.
Rep. Phil Lopes, a Tucson Democrat, said he didn’t think the new law was needed. Employees who are conducting political activity while being paid by the government need to be reported and disciplined, he said, but this proposed law aimed to solve a problem he isn’t sure exists.
“I don’t think we need this kind of hammer to kill an ant,” he said.
The bill approved the bill by a 6-3 vote, with the panel’s three Democrats opposing it. It now heads to the House floor via the Rules Committee.
Antifa Party Tonight!
Life Liberty Freedom
Special Guests:US Senate Candidate
JD Hayworth,
Senator Russell Pearce,
County Attorney Andy Thomas
&
Don Goldwater
Charmian of the Pachyderm Coalition
February 24th 6:30 PM
Held at Heidi's Event & Catering
2095 W. 15th Street
Tempe, Arizona 85281
Please note that ticket purchases are being handled by Sir Barratt Enterprise's, Inc on behalf of Life Liberty Freedom. If you prefer, you can purchase your tickets by phone at 480-892-5154
Pearce alert! Fascists and Cowards for SB1097!
Maybe it will still have to get a whole lot worse here before it gets better.
You know they're trying to do away with their term limits, too? They aren't going to cede power without a fight - not even if we're white (I believe our sympathies just makes us white trash - or some kind of terrorist - so we might as well throw in with everyone else they're screwing over at the state house these days.)
Get how he gives us the down low on supporting this fascist legislation, then signs off in the name of Freedom. How is it that chasing little children out of one of the few safe places they may have in our communities makes anyone more free? Little kids, now. That's who he's targeting.
There's something seriously wrong with this man's thinking. That's just mean - he's doing that to prove he can screw the schools all he wants, not because there's any real public safety need for this legislation. Now they're going to sneak in this REQUIREMENT that public schools extract tuition from families if they aren't considered Arizona residents?
My understanding of civics is that this is the country that I get to help create, too - it's not all up to people like you - no matter how much money or power you may have.
My grandfather was a Republican: he'd never treat people the way Pearce does - what makes him a Republican, anyway, other than the fact the the real Republicans are too scared of him to throw him out? Look at this guy: he is not of substance. He goes after children. Only cowards go after children and their teachers like that. Fascists and cowards running scared, holding school children hostage, do not get re-elected to high office. They eventually get exposed for what they are and run out on a rail...
Some image for an American legislator. Not unexpected when one hears it comes from Arizona, but sooner or later Arizonans are going to stop bragging about that and realize it means the rest of the world thinks that we're bigots and idiots because we repeatedly elect people like Sheriff Joe and Russ Pearce to represent us. I frankly don't know what other explanation there could be, than that the majority of the public here really is so ignorant or disturbed that we'd want those guys parading themselves around the country even one more day in our name...
This is too much like South Park Hell.
SB 1097 (Student Data Collection):
Arizona Legislators will meet during a committee meeting this week to vote on bills mandating that all school districts gather information on the citizenship status of students, including the number of students who cannot prove lawful status. This information will then be given to the Department of Education. Any school district that fails to comply may have their state funding withheld.
To see the bill either click on the link below or cut and paste it in to your browser
http://www.azleg.gov/
If you are member of www.lifelibertyfreedom.com just select the Senate Education Committee to send your email in support of this Bill.
For Freedom.
Russel
Friday, February 19, 2010
CCA: No prison in Camp Verde.
*What prison? Talks end abruptly
Camp Verde Bugle
By Steve Ayers, Staff Reporter
2/18/2010 3:53:00 PM
CAMP VERDE - It was just last week that representatives from the Corrections Corporation of America met with Camp Verde officials to discuss building a prison in the town.
Now it is reported that the discussions are done.... (read the rest here)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
NO: Pearce and Constitutional Carry in COW
This is what I mean about him being so anti-democratic. He's not trying to fight fair here. He's not out for The People to win; he's out to win for his people, that's it. And soon they'll all be carrying concealed weapons wherever they want without even having a permit.
Are we nuts or something? God I hope no one really votes for this.
If they do, I'll swear that Pearce just has dirt on everyone - like Hoover did. I just don't believe that many Republicans are so blind or corrupted...but the past thirty years have really corroded their collective soul. Even my grandmother got out once Bush began demolishing the world and our economy - she became a democrat at the age of 92...
My Bill, SB 1102, is the Senate version of Constitutional Carry that eliminates the prohibition and penalties for law-abiding adults who carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
A short while ago, the Senate placed SB 1102 on their Committee of the Whole (COW) agenda on Thursday, February 18, 2010. It is critical that you immediately contact the Senate members and urge them to support SB 1102 during the COW debate. Life Liberty Freedom members, you know what to do.
Also in the Senate COW on Thursday is SB 1153, which establishes that state law preempts local rules and ordinances concerning the regulation of knives and knife making components. I need your help in letting the Senate know that you support both of these bills.
I know many of you have become members of Life Liberty Freedom, and the guys at Life Liberty Freedom have told me that many of you are using the FREE tool they provide to contact the legislators at the capitol.
For those of you who have not registered to be a member at Life Liberty Freedom, I urge you to do so now at www.lifelibertyfreedom.com
Russell
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Prescott Valley Private Prison Resistance.
Good job, Prescott Valley Resistance.
------------
Racist SB 1070 Clears Senate.
Ariz. Senate approves sweeping immigration bill
by The Associated Press
Posted on February 16, 2010 at 6:48 AM
Updated today at 7:42 AM
******
PHOENIX -- The Arizona Senate has approved a sweeping bill to strengthen immigration enforcement laws.
The measure passed the Senate 17-13. Scottsdale Republican Carolyn Allen joined Democrats in opposing the measure sponsored by Mesa Republican Sen. Russell Pearce. It now goes to the House.
Pearce's bill would ban police departments from adopting policies that prevent officers from asking people about their immigration status.
The bill also would make it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally or to transport or conceal an illegal immigrant. And it seeks to curb day-labor employment by making it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work in a public place or for anyone to hire someone from a vehicle.
Archaic System for Detention: AZ CCA
has done a lot of good work on detention issues. You can find a few resources there on prisoner rights, women in prison, etc.
Mail Art 4 Mumia Campaign!
Brewer should Veto Tax Cuts: $940 Million Revenue Loss.
That gives us just five years to turn the entire legislature over and seize the governor's office, then strip the state laws of all the damage done by these people over the past ten (or thirty) years. I'll say it again: I really don't want more self-absorbed, self-interested, rich people moving here who are willing to just brutalize the rest of us, and who do it with pride while waving the Red, White, and Blue. That's sick, it's un-American, and those are the kind of people who should be criminalized.
This legislature should be ashamed of itself. As should the Governor.
Arizona House OKs series of tax cuts
Capitol Media Services/East Valley Tribune
The study by the staff of the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee says the biggest hit would come from a 10 percent across-the-board cut in individual income taxes. That has a price tag of $360.8 million.
Eliminating the state property tax would take away another $301.9 million. And a 28 percent cut in corporate income taxes reduces collections close to another $200 million.
But House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, who pushed HB 2250 through his chamber, said the study is, in some ways, misleading.
Most notably, he said, it does not consider how much new business the changes in tax policy will generate in the state. And Adams said something major like this clearly needs to be done to deal with the fact that the number of people now working in
The report, though, will just add fuel to claims by Democrats that the Republican-controlled Legislature is busy shifting the tax burden from businesses to residents. They point out that the sales tax proposal that voters will decide on May 18, if approved, would raise about $1 billion a year.
He said the tax hike, which would last for three years, is designed to get the state through the current fiscal crisis. Adams said the package of tax cuts — along with other measures in HB 2250 designed to promote economic development — will help
That leaves the question of whether the legislation makes economic sense to lawmakers.
He acknowledged, though, if his legislation becomes law it will cut tax collections by some figure.
But what is also missing,
In his report, budget analyst Hans Olofsson acknowledged that the figures are based on a “static” model. That takes current conditions, makes a few assumptions about population growth and computes the effects of the measure based on that.
So figuring out how much the state would forfeit by cutting corporate income taxes amounts to applying that 28 percent rate cut to anticipated corporate earnings in the 2017 fiscal year.
“But we know that states that have these policies in place do much better than we do,” he said.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said that’s pure speculation.
She said there is evidence that targeted tax breaks, like special incentives given by lawmakers last year to lure companies that manufacture solar equipment to the state, do convince firms to locate and expand here.
“But just randomly cutting some things across the board, there’s no evidence whatsoever at the state or the national level that shows that you bring in more jobs or more revenue streams to the state,” she said.
The report does not consider the impact to local governments and schools caused that would be caused by another provision in the measure which reduces the way business property is assessed for tax purposes. But the analysis says there won’t be any actual lost dollars if these local governments simply shift the burden to owners of residential property.
Sinema also took a swipe at Adams who earlier in the session promised that the House would not vote on the legislation until legislative budget staffers analyzed the fiscal impact of the measure. While that report came out Friday,
For the moment, though, the legislation is stalled. Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said he will not bring it up for a vote in his chamber until lawmakers fix not only the deficit in this year’s budget but also adopt a balanced spending plan for the coming fiscal year.
Monday, February 15, 2010
JD Hayworth: Tried and True.
I am hoping and praying for a "change" in
The political revolution that started in
I'm writing to you about a very special friend of all of ours, who on Monday will be announcing his candidacy for the United States Senate. His name is J.D. Hayworth!
If you don’t know, J.D. is a tried and true patriot who believes in securing the border, reducing the size of government, restricting its intrusion into our economic and personal lives and protecting
J.D. helped write the tax cuts that John McCain voted against. J.D. opposed the big government bailouts that John McCain voted for. And don’t even get me started on Amnesty, the Gang of 14, or McCain-Feingold.
Many of us have been asking J.D. to run this race and he has accepted our challenge. Now we must do our part to elect J.D. Hayworth to the United States Senate.
How do we send a message to Washington that the people of Arizona don't support amnesty, government subsidies for illegal's and won't tolerate the guns, drugs and gangs flowing over the border into our state any longer?
...by joining me today and making an online contribution to JD!
How do we make sure
...by joining me today and making an online contribution to JD!
Conservatives across
Please join me and donate TODAY!. And when the campaign is in your area, please join J.D. at a campaign event. Visit his website at www.JDforSenate.com to learn more, and thank you, in advance, for supporting J.D. Hayworth for Senate.
God bless you and God bless
Russell