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President Barack Obama gets off Air Force One before being greeted by Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, second from left, and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, upon his arrival at Phoenix International Airport in Phoenix, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013. In Arizona the President is expected to tour a construction project and speak about housing, before heading to Los Angeles where he will tape an episode of the ai???The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.ai??? (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
There wasn’t any finger pointing this time when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer met President Barack Obama on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
A smiling Brewer exchanged a handshake with Obama on Tuesday after the president stepped off Air Force One en route to make a speech about housing and the economy at Desert Vista High School.
Brewer famously wagged her right index finger at Obama during a contentious runway meeting in January 2012.
Andrew Wilder, the governor’s spokesman, said Brewer pressed the president on her disaster declaration request for the Yarnell Hill fire near Prescott.
Nineteen firefighters died battling the blaze on June 30, and Brewer has been waiting for a response from Obama to her request since mid-July.
“She reminded him that it’s been nearly a month. He assured her that he would look into it,” Wilder told The Arizona Republic.
Approval would bring long-term federal recovery programs to Yavapai County to help survivors and businesses that didn’t have adequate insurance. It also would allow a federal team to do flood prevention work.
Wilder added that Brewer described her meeting Tuesday with Obama as “cordial and positive all around.”
Obama also shook hands on the tarmac Tuesday with Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz.
Stanton hand-delivered a letter to the president from Tony Valdovinos, who is among the 300,000 young people now able to work in the U.S. as a result of the Obama administration’s “deferred action” initiative.
In the letter, Valdovinos thanked Obama for helping people live without fear and becoming productive members of society.
Outside of Desert Vista High, protesters were spotted with signs reading: “Secure Our Borders,” ”No Amnesty” and “No A.C.A,” referring to proposed comprehensive immigration overhauls and the president’s health care program.
Inside the school gym, about 1,000 spectators including high school seniors packed the risers on one side and the floor in front of the stage for Obama’s speech that noted the Phoenix metropolitan area is in the middle of one of the nation’s most rapid housing recoveries.
Just two years ago, the Phoenix region was in the throes of one of the worst housing collapses in the country, with prices down nearly 60 percent from their June 2006 peak and banks foreclosing on 70,000 homeowners a year.
Sensing a bargain when the median price hit $111,000, investors swooped in and prices were rising by early in 2012. Regular buyers who had been sitting on the sidelines then re-entered the market, and the boom was on.
The current median price of a home in the Phoenix market is $185,000 ai??i?? up more than 60 percent from the lows. It still remains well below the $260,000 that single-family Phoenix-area homes reached at the market’s height.
However, Brewer said the turnaround has little to do with the Obama administration.
“Given President Obama’s recent interest in job creation and economic recovery, he certainly came to the right state at the right time,” Brewer said in a statement. “The Arizona Comeback is in full-swing and this was the President’s opportunity to witness firsthand a true economic success story.”
“However, I am disappointed that the president used his visit as an opportunity to lay out a plan for even more big government programs, while also trying to share credit for Arizona’s housing and economic recovery. 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This Tuesday when President Obama visited Arizona to talk about the Economy and the Housing market on one of the hardest hit states you have to wonder what he was thinking when Governor Brewer not only suggested that neither the President nor the Federal Government had anything to do with Arizona’s Housing Recovery but then also wanted the world leader to look into how her request for Federal money was coming for those affected by the Yarnell fire.
First, in 2011 the President authorized $1.6 billion federal dollars to be used to aid states hardest hit by the housing crisis, $268 million of which was allocated directly to Arizona. However, Governor Brewer and our state legislature failed to utilize those funds to help troubled homeowners. As of last year Brewer had only spent 6% of those funds to help Arizonians. The rest of the $ was used to pad the state’s budget and fund prisons while at the same time slashed funding for Preschool, support for disadvantaged children, all day kindergarten.
Second, considering how Brewer misused the last check Obama signed for her you must ask yourself why he would send the state more money? How does the President or the victims of the Yarnell fire know that the money won’t be spent elsewhere too?
I suggest that Obama tell Governor Brewer he has already given her money to help Arizonians. She just needs to actually spend it on them if they are to get the help they need.