Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

The power is in our hands as citizens to influence change, and if we use it to contact our elected officials and voice our opposition, we can work toward a future where our health and safety are adequately protected. The beauty of Arizona, and the health of its residents, is being severely threatened. It’s up to us to take a stand. Please join us in this fight and call today.

Prohibitionists refuse to have a legitimate conversation about the costs and benefits of legalizing a substance far safer than alcohol. Instead, they prefer to lie and lie again

Arizona’s schools are starving, and the leadership within our business community is telling them, “Go eat cake.” Starvation won’t kill our schools all at once, but Arizona’s schools are gradually wasting away for want of less than one added penny.

At last, tax reform is taking center stage. After years of waiting and months of trying to read the tea leaves, Washington will now turn its attention in earnest to a real, substantive blueprint that has buy-in from the White House and congressional leadership.

Three petition drives are underway in Arizona to legalize recreational marijuana. They should all fail. Marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to greater social and criminal problems.

Addiction is a complex illness, with biological and psychological components. Medication pacifies the addicted brain’s receptors that produce cravings and rewards, while psychosocial rehabilitation helps the wounded, traumatized individual manage his or her depression and illness. Together, they produce the best outcome.

The issue vexing policymakers and the State Board of Education on the A to F school grade system is defining what one means by a “school.” The diverse education community, with its multiple delivery variables in unique learning communities, holds some dramatically different ideas of what is a school.

AzMERIT scores are in, and schools are being issued grades based on how their students performed on a test taken six months ago that measured math and English language skills. Teachers across the state are running for cover, hoping and praying their students fared well on these high stakes tests. Some will celebrate while others will wonder if they will lose their jobs. But all still must teach.

Unlike other states, Arizona law says KidsCare will be frozen the day federal funding drops below 100 percent. Arizona is one of 12 states in the country whose CHIP program is paid for entirely by the federal government, which was a major reason we were able to get KidsCare reopened. Over 22,000 children from working Arizona families are now covered through KidsCare, showing us just how needed a program like CHIP is in our state.

Over the next few weeks and maybe months, you’ll hear much discussion of this bold proposal. Let’s not let Congress pass skinny tax reform. Any one of these measures would be great but we need to tell Congress to get their act together and pass it all.