Frank Antenori, a Republican from Tucson, wasted no time during the first month of his freshman term at the Capitol, instead playing an active role in budget discussions by fighting for state-run health care and veterans programs.
An Iraqi War veteran, Antenori was awarded a Bronze Star for Valor. Antenori compiled his memories of the Battle at Debecka, which occurred early in the war, in his internationally published narrative “Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-Team at War.”
Antenori, who made a campaign promise last year to vote against any legislation that would result in increased taxes, said he hopes to convince other legislators considering increases to instead refer the question to the ballot in November 2010.
You have often referred to yourself as a “traditional Republican.” What do you mean by that?
Well, I think in the last couple years with the invention of compassionate conservatism, the Republican Party lost its way. We believe that people, if left alone and given the basic foundation of law, will succeed. This country was built on that. When you continue to meddle in people’s lives or people’s businesses, you create the problems we are seeing today with the economy and everything else that is going on.
For example, with Fannie Mae the government demanded that we give out all these “ninja loans.” There was no reason for these loans. The banks did not want to give these loans out. They knew that they were bad loans, but they gave them out anyway because they knew the government would back them up or bail them out. That is what created this problem. I believe firmly that if you are in business and you take a risk and you fail, that is the way the cookie crumbles. I am sorry. It sounds cruel, but if you continue to bail people and business out, you get the mess that we have today.
I was also very upset in the last couple years with regard to the spending the Republican Party was doing at the national level and some Republicans at the state level. It was appalling. When I ran, I wanted to get back to the basics. Let’s keep government out of people’s lives, let’s protect their individual liberty, let’s create that level playing field were everyone can succeed or fail on the same level keel. People must fail; failure is a part of life. I let my kids fail, I let them cry, I sit them down, I educate them, I dust them off and I send them off. I am not one of those parents that coddle their children. And when my kids go out into the world, they are going to be ready for it. They are not going to get hit in the face with the two-by-four of life, as I call it, and be one of these other self-absorbed, over-entitled kids who can’t cope with life. This is a parent’s duty, and I also believe it is the government’s duty to instill these basic principles. That is what a traditional Republican is.
Do you feel that leadership agrees with you on the values of the party?
Sure, absolutely.
You made attempts during the fiscal 2009 budget cuts to maintain funds for physician training, but the funds were still cut —
I wasn’t happy about that. It was one of the battles that we lost. The fiscal crisis of this state sadly is going to have a lot of casualties as we prioritize what is essential and nonessential. A large group of people, unfortunately, consider that nonessential with regard to state spending.
Do you consider it nonessential?
No, I don’t. I got a pre-med degree. I know the med school that was created by the University of Arizona here in Phoenix was probably not the smartest way to invest. Without the graduate medical program to provide a residency program — the data I have been given shows that many of the kids who graduate from that medical program leave the state. We don’t get much return. We graduate a lot of doctors, but they go somewhere else to get their residency. With regards to doctors who come here to do their residency, I think about 70 percent of them stay in the state.
Do you think UofA should shut down the Phoenix medical campus?
If I had my druthers, I would get rid of the UofA medical school in Phoenix and save that money to put in the residency program to bring more physicians in.
Is there anything else the state can be doing to recruit more physicians?
I would also like to get rid of or reduce the punitive damages with regard to malpractice suits in the state. I really think there is a fundamental issue with the perception that Arizona is not friendly to physicians. I had cardiologists in here yesterday. They conveyed to me that there is a looming threat to their practice with lawsuits, particularly now that we are getting more and more litigious as the recession kicks in. There are more people out there fishing for money; looking for anything to find their instant windfall. They have seen an increase in complaints that are not really well-founded and an increase in lawsuits. They believe it is related to the recession.
Arizona is one of the few states that has no limit on damages. Texas a few years ago adopted a tort reform that limited punitive damages to $250,000, whereas actual damages are still unlimited. If you incur an injury, the doctor will pay to totally repair for whatever that mistake was plus the pain and suffering and loss of wages. All of that will still be unlimited. What would not occur anymore are punitive damages, where you are awarded $2 million to punish a doctor.
I also think we need to raise the burden of proof a little bit for lawsuits against physicians. Another tort reform I would like to see is basically something that would show actual malice on the part of the physician. Medicine is not perfect, and people like emergency physicians have no idea what the patient’s history is. There is no reason the emergency room physician should be sued for that. There are standards of care in this country, and unless there is a clear violation of those standards, there shouldn’t be grounds for a lawsuit. I think this would encourage more physicians to come here.
Were there other programs you fought for during budget discussions that were still cut?
I burned a lot of political capital in the last two weeks fighting for several other things. I have just run out of political capital. We fought for the veterans benefits counselors, to keep them in there.
You succeeded in stopping that cut, correct?
Yes, we got that one. We fought for the $3.8 million in sweeps from Pima County. We fought for about $300,000 being swept from Santa Cruz’s part of the Prop. 204 tobacco settlement equalization fund. We got that.
Mr. (Rep. David) Gowan and I fought, well he mostly took the lead, to get organ transplants back in under coverage for AHCCCS. But from what I understand now, it was put back in but the money that was with it didn’t go with it. There were a lot of things that occur that you don’t realize until after you vote when people come up to you and you think “Oh crap, I thought that was in there.”
We took a stance on a lot of things and fought for a lot of things. We won some and lost some, but there is only so much you can fight for.
Are you happy with the budget revisions as enacted?
Well, it had to be done. We could not continue on the path of rollovers and loans and rosy projections to justify. We had to have some realistic projections of what the revenue stream was for the state. The previous governo
r had the tendency, and the JLBC guys confirmed it, to always choose the rosy numbers. She took the best-case scenario for projections and based her budget and spending on that. In the business world, when I am at work, I always go with the worst-case scenario, and then I add 10 percent just in case I am wrong. That does two things: One, it keeps me from overspending and my boss getting mad at me; and two, at the end of the year when I have money left over I look like a financial genius. Our governor did the exact opposite. She took the revenue projection that was only slightly possible and then added 14 percent in spending on top of that. That is not sound fiscal policy.
This budget was tough. I made a lot of tough decisions. It was hard to vote 100 percent for this budget, but I would say 98 percent of it I support.
What don’t you like?
I don’t like the cuts to K-12. That really bothered me. That is why I was such a hawk looking for sacred cows. I stepped on a lot of toes because I went to slaughter those sacred cows. I did what I had to do to keep the cuts to K-12 at the absolute minimum. I actually didn’t want any cuts to K-12, but Mr. (Rep. Rich) Crandall and I were just outnumbered. But when we found out there were these other sacred cows that had millions of dollars in them, we went after them. I went after them with venom.
Can you give me an example of one of these programs?
Well, like the 21st Century fund. This was a $25-million-a-year gift from the taxpayers to a private foundation for them to distribute the money as they saw fit. It went to mostly businesses. It reduced the research and development costs of these companies by 50 percent. As a guy who does research and development, I fully understand the costs. If I could find someone to help pay for research and development, I would be pretty happy because it would give me a huge competitive advantage.
But back to the traditional Republican definition, it is not the government’s job to pick winners and losers in business. Who the hell are we to say in the world of the free market that we are going to give this company a competitive advantage over this other one? That is just wrong, and we fought that on that principle.
A lot of people who are a part of that fund got really pissed off. But I can tell you that if you are asking me to cut into education, and you’re asking me to cut benefits for home-bound seniors — buddy, there are no sacred cows. The priorities are clear: public education, public safety and those basic health and human services programs to protect the most vulnerable people. Everything else gets put on hold.
You made a campaign promise not to raise taxes, but do you think that is really possible considering the state’s deficit?
One of the things I proposed to Mr. (Rep. John) Kavanagh is to let the people decide if they want their taxes raised. I think we should put an initiative on the ballot, and ask them if they want their residential property taxes raised. Some people are sending me e-mails saying they don’t mind if they pay $7 more a month in property taxes because they think it is worth it. Fine, let’s put it on the ballot. I have a sneaky suspicion it would fail miserably. I feel the people of this state want us to get this budget under control without raising taxes.
If it gets to such a grave point where we realize there is no way to do it without some sort of tax increase, I would at that time support a temporary tax increase that would only get us through this little hump. I would much rather put it on the ballot.