Government Accountability
Back-room deals and closed doors are not the stuff of free governments. Our work is making governments more transparent and accountable to citizens.
A powerful union and a large corporation have something in common: they both want to be immunized against Obamacare. The United Federation of Teachers (a New York City teachers’ union) and McDonald’s have been temporarily exempted from a key provision of the federal health care reform law that would have required them to cancel their current employee health care plans.
The Cato Institute recently issued a report card on the budget and tax policies of all 50 governors in the United States, and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer barely received a passing grade.
The report card assigned a “D” to Governor Brewer because she oversaw the two biggest tax increases in the state’s history. The first was the return of a $250 million state property tax after a three-year suspension. The second was the 18 percent increase in the state’s sales tax rate with Proposition 100.
The annual Goldwater Institute Legislative Report Card scores Arizona lawmakers on their support of principles of limited constitutional government. Each piece of legislation is assessed in one of four categories for whether it expands liberty consistent with the Arizona Constitution, or restricts liberty.
If you’re wondering how the state of Arizona is spending your money, you can now go online and find out. Thanks to a new law that required the state to build a transparency website, openbooks.az.gov came online last week, and offers a treasure trove of information.
After months of secret negotiations, the city finally released a $197 million proposal in December 2010 to pay the Phoenix Coyotes to keep playing at the city-owned hockey arena. A few days later, the Glendale City Council voted 5-2 to approve the deal. Or did it?
The City of Glendale, Ariz. is planning to borrow $100 million so it can send a check for that amount to Chicago businessman Matthew Hulsizer to help him buy the Phoenix Coyotes. That type of transaction is exactly what the Gift Clause of the Arizona Constitution was designed to prevent: furnishing public debt or providing public funds to a private individual or corporation for personal gain.