Arizona's race for governor sharpened today as Democratic nominee Terry Goddard said he'd use additional borrowing to close most of the state's midyear budget shortfall without resorting to education funding cuts that he charged Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is poised to make after the election.

A proposal from the House to reduce corporate and individual incomes taxes and provide incentives for businesses in an effort to spur economic growth has been scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on April 7.

For the first time in at least six years, the annual release of budget plans by the Arizona Legislature and the governor didn't result in bickering. Of course, it helps that the legislative Republican majority didn't put out anything even closely resembling a budget plan this year.

When lawmakers chose April Fool’s Day as the deadline to submit a plan to privatize the state’s prison system, they unwittingly telegraphed just how dubious the plan was. First, the whole idea of putting state prisons under private control was a difficult sell to the public. Then there was a question about how many of the state’s 10 prisons to auction off.

The state says it's on track to obtain new financing that Treasurer Dean Martin says Arizona needs to avoid having to issue IOUs for state paychecks and other payments in February.