Well enough to vote
Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-5, catches some rest during a vote on the Republican-backed budget bill. Konopnicki, who was ill, was roused from his Mesa house by GOP leaders to provide the one-vote margin needed for passage.

House Republicans are gearing up for negotiations with the governor and their Senate counterparts after passing a budget proposal May 22 that was voted down a week earlier.
Senators earlier this month approved a separate budget package that was negotiated with Democrats and Gov. Janet Napolitano. House Republican leaders chose to pursue their own spending plan in lieu of acting on the Senate bills.
The primary differences between the two budgets are tax cuts — the House proposal includes $63 million in tax relief compared to $7 million in the Senate — and spending on health and welfare programs, for which the Senate provides $48 million more.
There are also various other differences in transportation, education and public safety funding.
“We’re ready to start immediately to resolve those differences,” House Majority Leader Tom Boone, R-4, said.
Boone said negotiations need to result in a budget that meets the priorities of the House, Senate and the governor. He said legislative leaders intend to meet as soon as possible to talk about the negotiating process.
The House narrowly passed the general appropriations bill, H2781, May 22 by a 31-29 vote after it failed a week earlier on its initial vote. On May 23, the House approved 12 ancillary budget bills; all but one was passed with 31 votes, the minimum number required to pass legislation.
Republicans Jennifer Burns, District 25, and Pete Hershberger, District 26, sided with Democrats and opposed the budget.
Democrats were critical of the House budget during the voting and said Republican leaders should have embraced the Senate budget, which was supported by both parties in that chamber.
“A partisan only [budget] is not good for the state of Arizona,” Minority Whip Steve Gallardo, D-13, said.
But Rep. Steve Yarbrough, R-21, said the House passed its own budget plan because the Senate proposal did not meet the needs of the state or of the House Republican caucus. To just pass the Senate version wouldn’t have been serving the needs of voters, he said.
“I call that the ‘potted plant’ approach to representation,” he said. “I was not elected to be a potted plant.”
One of the more contentious issues passed on the second day of voting was a package of tax cuts totaling $63 million. Democrats decried the legislation and said it would hinder future Arizonans and keep them from receiving basic state services, especially in light of the significantly larger tax cuts approved last year.
“With the effects of last year’s tax cuts still in question, I don’t think it’s prudent to offer tens of millions [of dollars] of tax cuts this year,” Rep. Lena Saradnik, D-26, said. “I think it’s a gamble too great to take.”
Farnsworth: ‘We have a spending problem’
But Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-22, defended H2784, saying the state’s budget woes aren’t because of tax cuts.
“We don’t have a revenue problem – we have a spending problem,” he said.
Rep. Chad Campbell, D-14, said the Republican budget favors “slash and burn” tax policies that are setting the state up for $700 million in reduced revenue in 2009, which will force Arizona to play catch-up to other Western states.
“That’s a big hit for any state, but especially for the fastest growing state in the nation,” he said. “This bill is going to make us go back to the starting line.”
In an attempt to provide a visual analogy of tax cuts versus spending, Yarbrough directed lawmakers’ attention to the display board on the House floor that shows how members are voting. He said that, during the debate, he had looked at the voting board and counted the letters of the last names of all of the members.
With the House budget being approximately $10.6 billion, he figured that each of the 408 letters represented about $26 million; the tax cuts accounted for slightly more than 2 letters, while nearly 406 represented spending.
“Which is too high?” he asked.
But Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-29, said the Republicans were pushing tax cuts under the guise of economic development even as they ignored other ways to boost the state’s economy. He suggested the state focus on building schools and roads to attract businesses to Arizona.
“We don’t want to build anything,” he said. “We have to start actually doing something instead of just cutting taxes to please some lobbyists.”
But Farnsworth contended Prezelski and his Democrat peers were making the argument backward. The state, he said, provides too many services that should be funded on an individual basis through charitable contributions. The wanton spending of the government, he said, will lead to economic problems.