Pima Rs now complaining about cuts they voted for
Republican Vic Williams spins.TUCSON -- Legislative Republicans from Pima County continue to whine about harmful budget cuts they voted for, even if indirectly.
Pima County is now losing $3.8M in healthcare funding due to Republican votes to pass a horrid FY09 budget 'fix' in the middle of the night on Jan 30-31. I and all Democrats, and two GOP Senators from Maricopa County voted against these recklessly rushed and unnecessary cuts.
The Star has one-sided coverage today which lacks important perspective from Democrats who voted against the cuts and warned local Republicans about how these cuts would hurt people.
I appreciate the all of the sudden 'concern' of some local GOP legislators, but must question how sincere it is. If my friends Rep. Vic Williams (R-LD26), Sen. Jonathan Paton (R-LD30) and other Republican legislators want to blame someone for the drastic budget cuts now harming Arizona's middle class families, don't blame AHCCCS, just look in the mirror, and at the untrustworthy and callous Republican legislative leadership they've been bowing to.
If local Republicans want a fair and responsible Arizona budget to support, they should join forces with the Democrats.
UPDATE, 3/30: Sen. Paton contacted me saying he also raised concerns on a similar issue in 2005 with cuts under the Napolitano administration.
Comments
I live in a very ***red*** little town in LD-5, and people are really starting to get upset about all the budget cuts. The January budget cuts spared schools with less than 500 students but it's unlikely the next round will. At the same time a lot of the families here are fairly large (this is a majority LDS town) and the budget cuts to the universities and the resulting massive increases in tuition have a lot of families upset that they may not be able to send their kids to college even if they get into an Arizona university (cuts to student aid the past few years already created a lot of anxiety about that.) Of course as a parent of 12 year old twins (both almost straight A students) I share that concern. Even a lot of grandparents here are unhappy about it since they are now likely to be the source of last resort to help pay the tuition for their grandkids.
My response, is very simple: You can't just vote Republican with impunity. Your vote stands for something.
Republicans have been saying for years that they favor smaller government and spending less. So the real fools aren't the Republican legislators who did what they said they were for, it is the voters who heard them say it, probably thought that sounded good, and now that Janet has left the state and it's here they are screaming bloody murder about the cuts.
I've heard from a couple of voters that they voted Republican for other reasons (mainly social agenda-type reasons) and thought all the rhetoric about downsizing government was hot air. Well, guess again. It's real.
Like I said, votes have consequences. It's not Democrats I hear regretting their vote for the legislature, it's Republicans.