Teachers and school administrators can start the summer with a sigh of relief after Arizona taxpayers agreed to a 1-cent sales tax increase in the name of the children.
School administrators say passage of the tax increase shows Arizona voters strongly support education. I don’t think anyone who voted no or thought about it doesn’t support education.
What those who pondered a no vote don’t support is the state continually coming to residents for more money due to its mismanagement of funds. When the economy was booming, the state was spending, and now that things have slowed down the state has found itself with nowhere else to turn.
The easiest tax to pass is one in support of education and the second easiest is a tax in support of public safety — pretty clever on the part of those down in Phoenix. They managed to combine the two into an unbeatable ballot measure any education supporting, peace loving Arizonan couldn’t say no to.
Whether Arizona taxpayers support education was never the question. Whether state representative support education was and remains the question.
