Arizona voters were headed Tuesday night toward approving a temporary sales tax increase championed by a Republican governor who, despite angering conservative supporters, embraced it as the only way to avert sharp cuts in education and other services.
Although the spotlight has been on the state over a get-tough immigration enforcement bill that the governor, Jan Brewer, signed last month, the state’s fiscal crisis, among the worst in the nation, has loomed large. The one-cent increase in the sales tax, to 6.6 cents per dollar for the next three years, is expected to raise nearly more than $900 million in the first year.
Ms. Brewer, the former secretary of state who took office last year after Janet Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, has found herself struggling to close a gaping hole in the budget wrought by a 30 percent decline in revenue in a state among the hardest hit by foreclosures.
Had the tax failed, a contingency budget approved by the legislature would have cut money for schools, health care, state police officers and other services.
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Several states have raised taxes to cope with budget shortfalls but Arizona is one of the few to successfully put it to voters.
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There's more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/us/20arizona.html?hpThis is news. It is obscured by all the other stories. A lot of other states need to do the same thing.
Brewer doesn't get a pass for signing the heinous "Papers Please" law. However, she certainly broke one the major tenets of conservatism by not vetoing the increase. They think LOWER TAXES was a phrase at the bottom of the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain.