Arizona’s future is at stake if voters reject a three-year sales tax increase on May 18, Gov. Jan Brewer told a gathering of some 200 community leaders last week.
Speaking to an annual conference at Mesa Community College sponsored by the East Valley Partnership and the East Valley Chamber of Commerce Alliance, Brewer said the 1% tax hike is needed to get Arizona out of its severe fiscal woes.
Without the additional revenue, the state will no longer be able to provide basic services, according to the Republican governor.
“We are so far into a hole that if we want any kind of quality life, and to assure our future, there is absolutely no other way,” Brewer said. “Businesses won’t come here. Businesses that are here will leave. People won’t want to stay in Arizona because their children aren’t getting educated. Felons will be on the streets.”
The increase in the sales tax is expected to generate $1 billion a year. If voters approve the measure in May, it will expire in May 2013. The additional revenue will be dedicated to public safety, education, and health and human services.
Brewer signed a 15-bill, $8.9 billion budget package on Thursday that closes a $2.6 billion revenue shortfall in fiscal 2011 with revenue from the proposed tax hike.
She said the budget package represents “the most significant streamlining of state government ever undertaken.”
“It is an extremely difficult task to unwind years of unsustainable decisions by the previous administration that have resulted in one of the largest state budget deficits in the United States,” Brewer said at the bill-signing ceremony, referring to the Democratic governorship of Janet Napolitano, who is now secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration.
“I will continue to hold accountable those who were involved in approving the big-spending budgets that have left our state financially damaged,” she said.
