This week our esteemed Legislature in Phoenix called it quits after 134 days. Sometimes their sessions last longer. It all depends on how long it takes their political donors to make up their minds for them as they quibble over the $11.8 billion state budget.
How fruitful was this session? They should reintroduce spittoons in the Arizona House and Senate. At the end of five months of exercising their lungs, with no foresight and little judgment, at least the spittoons could offer evidence of legislative productivity.
When the state was being created our wise forefathers decided to give Tucson the state’s university and in exchange for that plum Phoenix got the state’s insane asylum and the legislature, two institutions that are wholly indistinguishable save for the fact the gentle asylum inmates produced salable goods at one time as opposed to their babbling peers in the state assembly who are barely capable of manipulating staplers or weaving lanyards.This session I was awestruck as great minds gathered from all over the state to address the great problems of our time, like how to triple their daily allowance without getting strung up like horse thieves. After much debate they decided on a bold plan, orchestrating a nearly unanimous vote at the last minute. Smart move, varmints. Can’t play political whack-a-mole when all the moles are bad.
Republican lawmakers added more hoops for you to jump through than a Hopi Hoop dancer if you want to pass a petition to put an initiative on the ballot. This is because your ideas are dumb and they reflect the will of “The People,” unlike our esteemed lawmakers who are so much smarter than we are and who serve the will of “The People with Pull” who find democracy so annoying.
They legalized nunchucks. The only people happy about this move are the Yakuza of Arizona, plastic surgeons and Deadpool.
They agreed to dump a flat $32 vehicle license fee sooner than later.
They decided to restore all their draconian recession-era cuts to education later than sooner. Will “never” work for you?
They boosted Arizona’s rainy day fund to $1 billion. I think this is smart. We can use that money in the future when every teacher has left this dry gulch for a more civilized dust bowl to buy teaching robots that won’t go on strike or tell students to pay attention to the voting record of state lawmakers.
Only Oklahoma, Utah and Idaho spend less than Arizona per pupil and that’s because kids in those states are forced to share their banjos. I got to give our lawmakers credit. We do invest in billboards at the state line touting our love of education: “Welcome to Arizona! Wher Edacation is Prioritty One.”
The pathetic boost they gave education spending this year would be fantastic if you just hopped out of Marty McFly’s DeLorean in 1985 but, newsflash, tightwads, it’s 2019.
Did our slippery sidewinders invest more money in our school districts? Nope. Did they invest in infrastructure? No way. Early childhood education? Can you spell “no”? Housing and child-care subsidies? For the working poor? Are you kidding? Are there no prisons?
Prisons. An investment those rattlers can sink their fangs in. These shortsighted reptiles make Scrooge look like Mother Teresa.
Give them credit. They expanded the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers. They moved up our primary. And they banned cellphone use while driving. I’d text a thumbs up on that one but I’m driving.
Being we’re ground zero for global warming, Arizona’s lawmakers should lead the way on climate change by fostering renewable energy, but as long as fossil fuel interests pocket Arizona lawmakers the way pack rats pocket nuts and twigs we’ll continue to lead the way on stalling.
All is not lost.
Citizens, take comfort in the knowledge that in 100 years our lawmakers will still be meeting in Phoenix to evade the great issues that confront us, a city which by then will be blessed with 260days out of the calendar year with temps over a hundred degrees. Rest assured our PAC-selected and easily re-elected Profiles in Courage will vote themselves another per diem raise to cover the cost of their pitchforks.
