Arizona: where poor kids come to die

I now live in a state where it is public policy to allow sick children to die.

Today, the republican-lead Arizona legislature, along with republican Gov. Doug Ducey, refused to restore a federally-funded health insurance program that is used in 49 other states, and which would not have cost Arizona a dime. So now, 31,000 sick children of lower income working parents have no place to turn for medical help.

I would repeat that to emphasize the point, except that it would only serve to piss me off further.

Known as KidsCare, republicans refused to restore it because, get this, it would “blow up” the state budget because . . . well, since it costs the state nothing, no one really knows. It did prove one thing, though: on the very day in which we have chosen to honor and thank our teachers, the Arizona legislature proved how important math education is to someone who wants to hold public office. 

So let’s do the math for them:

$9.58 billion + 0 = $9.58 billion

See? Ta da! No increase! No explosion! Pretty simple, right?

Still, if Arizona lawmakers are serious about letting loose with items that will actually “blow up” the budget, they need not look further than the $8 million in corporate welfare they’re giving away this year (a tax package, by the way, that will cost the Arizona $17 million next year). Or they can do without the $5 million set aside for Koch “freedom schools” at each of the state’s universities. Side note: neither the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University or the University of Glendale on Olive asked for either the money or the freedom schools.

If you're looking to reach out, then might I suggest you do so to the leader of this republican-lead mess: Senate President Andy Biggs. He seems nice, so just give him a call him 602-926-4371.

This is as shameful as it gets. Just when you didn’t think Arizona couldn’t lower the bar any further (after the last legislative session more than 350,000 needy Arizonans were kicked off Medicaid) the governor and legislature managed to speed up in our state’s race to the bottom.

And before I go, there’s another group that needs to carry some of the blame for this disgrace: the state’s faith-based community. I don’t like picking on other people’s religions, so I’ll pick on mine.

The Diocese of Phoenix uttered nary a word as the fight for KidsCare was picked up by democratic and a handful of republican legislators. Unless the Christian Brothers who taught me were just yanking my chain, the whole idea of helping the less fortunate is, well, sort of the cornerstone of the faith. You know, the Beatitudes and all that.

And yet . . . not an Easter season peep from Bishop Thomas J. Olmstead or Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo A. Nevares. Not a plea from the pulpit. Not a paragraph in its publication The Catholic Sun. Nothing in your church bulletin from last Sunday. Their inaction was, in every respect, antithetical to the words of Jesus his bad self. Their silence, and that of the state’s entire faith-based community, was as cruel and heartless as it was conspicuous and deafening.

So the next time the governor, legislative or faith leaders try to tell you about their overwhelming concern for human life and dignity, remember this: they care fuck all about all that, and their actions today prove it.

And before we go, here's the vote tally on KidsCare from the legislature today (remember this in November):

It was almost better when the Arizona legislature just flat out lied to us

This is the abandoned School of Pripyat in Chernobyl in Chornobyl, Ukraine. If the republican majority in the Arizona legislature
has its way, your local school will look like this in just a few years

They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

This was the week when the legislature finally dropped all pretense of wanting a strong public education system for Arizona’s kids. Both houses voted to expand private school vouchers to . . . well . . . everyone. The practical side effect of this — at least in the fertile minds in the republican majority at the legislature — is that by offering scholarships to everyone, we can pretty much strip the public from our public schools somewhere down the road. Should Governor Doug Ducey sign the bill — and the chances that The Deuce will let this opportunity slip are about the same as an ice cube surviving for more than a 45 seconds on an Arizona dashboard in July — more dollars will be siphoned from Arizona’s already woefully underfunded public education system because . . . FREEDOM!

Lovely.

Of course, they don’t call them vouchers. They call them empowerment scholarships, but a rose by any other name . . . amirite?

And have I mentioned that there is NO accountability attached to these scholarships? That’s right, we’ll toss public dollars into private schools and no one will have to prove kids are learning, and not one of those students will ever have to take a ridiculous state-mandated test because, in the trifling minds of Arizona legislators, private is a synonym for successful (And if you really want to get sick, watch the video of Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Koch Brothers, as she explains why this is a good idea sans any evidence. The Arizona senate isn’t exactly a beacon for intellectual heavyweights, but Lesko, R-ALEC, is the dimmest of all the bulbs in that musty old room. Sweet Jeebus on a SmartBoard).

Why Arizona taxpayers —especially public school teachers and parents — are not howling at this is an absolute mystery.

Vouchers are a disaster, and that’s not hyperbole. There’s a right good battle going on in Oklahoma right now over these same type of scholarships. Vouchers have already proven themselves to be a disaster in Louisiana, where, after just a few years of the free market getting a chance to tee up school kids for profit, student achievement has gone more dixie than a king cake a week after Mardi Gras.

Vouchers are the way republicans, like those who control the Arizona legislature, like to cover themselves in compassion. After all, they tell us, these scholarships will put poor families and children on the same footing as families and kids with great wealth. This is really funny coming from a group that worships at the altar of the free market. Why? Because when you open the market to, say, private schooling to everyone, the cost of that schooling will go up.

Here’s how it works: Say you own a private school. You can enroll 100 kids (so long as none of those children are special needs or require lessons in how to speak English). Right now, based on the interested parents you attract, you can charge $7,000 for a seat in your school. Suddenly, someone — like . . . I don't know . . . the Arizona legislature? — opens the door for pretty much everyone to go to your school. You still only have 100 seats, but the value of those spaces has increased dramatically, so much so that you can now charge $15,000 per seat. Pretty sweet deal for you, eh? The empowerment scholarships cover less than a third of that cost. So who is going to fill those seats? Pretty much the same group of people who fill them now. So screw YOU poor kids and families.

All things considered, last week was a lousy one for education in Arizona.