GOP VEEP Candidate? Drum Roll, Please...

Those doubters who said McCain would never pick Romney and Romney would never accept are obviously too young to remember the Reagan-Bush Sr. relationship during the primaries. Pundits said it would never happen, but my mom said "Never say never". Lo, and behold, the two became running mates.

It looks like history is repeating itself. McCain and Romney are now jet-setting all over the west together with Romney now a prominent McCain campaign cheerleader. Look for the relationship to be confirmed shortly after the national convention.

The New Democrat Party

Our very own Gabby Giffords wants to double the number of H-1B visas that are supposed to allow American businesses to bring highly technical people into the country to take jobs there aren't enough Americans to fill. One problem: The visas don't go to American companies.

According to Business Week's table of biggest H-1B users, It's mostly cheap labor countries operating in the U.S. that are getting the bulk of the visas. 80% go to foreign outsourcing companies that bring workers in from India and rotate them through to give them experience before sending them back after a couple of years to handle U.S. outsourced jobs. According to the article, even the few U.S. companies on the list actually have most of their operations in India with the exception of Microsoft and Intel which represent a tiny percentage of the total.

In the meantime, highly skilled U.S. workers continue to get displaced by H1-B visa holders and complain about job postings that are worded to keep Americans out and ensure companies get approval for H-1B visas holders along with the cheaper labor the visas provide.

Since it's not a highly unionized segment of the workforce, we don't hear much of an outcry from Democrat union leaders. But then, the years of the Democrat Party as the "farmer-labor party" are long gone. The new Democrat Party is evolving as the cheap foreign labor party.

Trent Humphries on Inside Track Radio Show

Emil Franzi will feature Trent Humphries, candidate for District 26 State Representative, this Saturday, March 29 at 2 p.m. on Inside Track broadcast on KVOI 690 AM. The podcast of Inside Track will be available at Insidetrackaz.com.

Inmates Running the California Asylum

While homeschoolers should be taken to task for being asleep at the wheel in California, it appears that the California legislature is competing with Arizona for the fiscal irresponsibility award. Granted, homeschoolers are an easy target for bullying. Private schools with uncertified teachers get a pass because most of them are parochial schools with their own standards and they're not afraid to tell the state to take a hike if the state ever tried to mandate teacher certification. Likewise, the state is smart enough to keep their hands off the wealthy who hire their own tutors, certified or not, because they know this group has the power and money to resolve the problem in court and make elected officials look bad. The average homeschooling family, however, is on its own to fight the establishment unless it joins with other homeschoolers as a political block, which, in California, doesn't appear to be the case.

So, why would California's education elite suddenly decide to pick on homeschoolers? Is it because of the vastly inferior education these poor kids get at home? Anyone who knows anything about education in our country is aware of the consistently superior test scores and educational accomplishments of homeschooled children, so this is clearly not the issue.

So why is it that of tutors, private school teachers, and home schoolers, only kids participating in the latter approach are now considered truant from school? It's simple. the education establishment is looking for an easy power grab that will produce more per pupil dollars from the state coffers in the short term. But the number one fiscally troubled state in the country shoots itself in the head by yanking tens of thousands of kids into the public schools. Now, instead of those tens of thousands receiving superior educations at no cost to the state, the state will have to pick up the tab. And it costs the state thousands of dollars more per pupil per year to educate them. The state has been receiving a windfall from homeschooling for years and now they're letting a few greedy superintendents pull the plug.

Of course, the reality is that most homeschoolers will simply register as private schools, which have no restrictions on them, in order to slip past the law until the problem gets resolved. Already, the state superintendent of public instruction is backing down and congressmen are squeezing the state to get its act together. Eventually, the problem will be resolved, but the rest of the country will be left with one more laugh at California's expense.

Where's the Little Red Hen?

Governor Napolitano calls Treasurer Dean Martin a Chicken Little about the budget and criticizes him for grandstanding. But who got us into this mess and continues to slap her face on billboards and taxpayer-funded printed material at every turn? Last year's budget, I recall, was passed by Democrats and a minority of Republicans, and promoted by and signed by Napolitano resulting in today's $1.2 billion deficit. With the deficit growing daily, the governor vetoed the spending freeze and accused Dean Martin of overreacting because "he doesn't know the numbers". Heaven forbid he should overreact to a mere billion dollar deficit cascading to $2 billion by next year. Unfortunately, the Little Red Hen who should be busy fixing this problem appears to be on vacation leaving us with Janet who seem oblivious to being second only to California in debt.

Spate of Pima County GOP Resignations Continues

Sources tell us that the latest in a series of resignations from the Pima County Republican Party executive committee is Randy Graf. Reasons for the resignation have not been made public, but it appears that the resignation is effective today.

Previous executive committee resignations have occurred primarily as a result of health and relocation issues.

Fairness in Taxation at the State Legislature: SB1254 & HB2641

There are two bills in the State Legislature dealing with fairness in taxation that need our help. SB1254 is stuck in the Senate Rules Committee and HB2641 is stuck in the House Rules Committee. These bills deal with the inequity for folks who live in unincorporated areas of Arizona of having their tax dollars subsidize cities and towns. These bills simply give a state income tax credit of 15% (equal to what is skimmed off the top of our state income tax payment and delivered to incorporated communities) to those who live in county settings.

This archaic system known as “Urban Revenue Sharing” is unfair and Senator Bob Burns should be commended for bringing this bill forward. Here is a link to the summary of SB1254, a tax credit to folks who live in unincorporated areas of the state.
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/48leg/2r/summary/s.1254fin.doc.htm

The bill is currently being held by Senate Rules Committee Chairman Jay Tibshraeny. You can send an e-mail to Chairman Tibshraeny at jtibshraeny@azleg.gov and urge him to hear SB1254. State Senate President Tim Bee also sits on the Senate Rules Committee. A call or e-mail (tbee@azleg.gov) to his office urging the same could prove useful.

HB 2641 is the House Bill equivalent which is bogged down in the House Rules Committee. Bob Robson is Chairman of the House Rules Committee and is running for the Arizona Corporation Commission. A Comment to Mr. Robson's office at brobson@azleg.gov would be more than appropriate to give this bill a hearing.

All you need to do is ask for a hearing by the appropriate Committee Chairs. Asking for fairness in taxation by our elected officials is our responsibility.

Sen McCain is looking good, Obama misunderstood. . .

Senator McCain has had a good week or two at the expense of media-crowned Barack Obama, according to the latest numbers from Zogby.

His double digit lead that he held over Hillary Clinton just last month has shrank to 3%, but more importantly, John McCain has opened a 46 to 40 percent lead on the former community organizer from Illinois.

The bleeding for Obama started from an unfair, vicious attack by the known agitators at Saturday Night Live.

Then came the obvious mis-characterization about Canada and NAFTA. Obviously you cannot just go by what Obama says in his speeches, as he has a long, extensive, full record of accomplishments to fall back on. Look there for inspiration.

And finally, there was the mess with Obama spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright. I believe Obama at his word that the Rev. Wright was a spiritual giant who was simply misguided on political matters. That is why it made all of the sense in the world to see that the retired minister was made a part of Obama's political campaign. I can understand this as I try to add at least three people who I have deep and irreconcilable political differences to my campaign staff before breakfast each day.

The problem is that 60% of Americans have not FELT Obama yet. That is bound to happen.

A Bleak State of the State

"Recession" is the label the U of A's Eller School slapped on the state of Arizona's economy a week or so ago. Last weekend, CNBC topped that by releasing the biggest three debtor states finding Arizona second only to infamous California. At 1.2 billion bucks and rising, Arizona's deficit beat out New Jersey for the number three slot.

Second and third place finishers have something in common—they both have Democrat governors. The big difference is that New Jersey's governor is talking about cuts in spending while Arizona's Janet still champions big dollar projects such as light rail as if there were no tomorrow.

Recession, big taxpayer debt, big government spending... It's all getting too familiar and close to home for Arizona voters to tolerate. More than likely, voters will drive a reversal in Democrat fortunes in state races this year with Republicans taking back more than a couple of seats lost in '06.

You read it here first

We may have been a little slow lately, but AZace nailed the latest breaking news on the head over a month ago.

Charlene Pesquiera will not be running in 2008, leaving no current Democratic challenger for the district 26 Senate seat.

To my knowledge, however, the District 26 Legislature will continue to have no shortage of candidates.

Continue to get the latest breaking news on the Democratic side of the race here at Arizona Eighth.

Ron Paul Wins!

While everyone was looking at Huckabee finally accepting the inevitable, Ron Paul was sneaking up and snatching victory. In his home congressional district in Texas, Ron Paul was last seen trouncing his opponent, Chris Peden, 70% to 30%. With 70% of the precincts reporting, Paul declared victory.

Democrats Keep the Race Interesting

Here are the returns from Ohio and Texas as reported by Fox News:

OHIO
Candidate # of votes % of total # of delegates
Hillary Clinton 1,080,439 56.17% 63
Barack Obama 842,994 43.83% 48
Precincts Reporting: 92%

John McCain 591,230 62.61% 79
Mike Huckabee 307,507 32.56% 0
Ron Paul 45,559 4.82% 0
Precincts Reporting: 89%

TEXAS
Candidate # of votes % of total # of delegates
Hillary Clinton 1,302,460 51.90% 18
Barack Obama 1,207,222 48.10% 12
Precincts Reporting: 84%

Candidate # of votes % of total # of delegates
John McCain 672,267 54.63% 69
Mike Huckabee 492,028 39.98% 0
Ron Paul 66,360 5.39% 0
Precincts Reporting: 90%

Total Delegates for Obama 1455
Total Delegates for Clinton 1369

Delegate counts include Rhode Island, Vermont, Texas, Ohio.

Trent Humphries Kicks off Campaign

Trent Humphries gave up his homeowners association president position, finished painting the community pool fence, and set aside other community service so he could put in the time to run for Arizona House of Representatives. But he still helps people load and unload trucks as they move in and out of the community and performs community service whenever he can.

This Saturday, March 8, Trent is inviting the community to join him as he picks up trash along Oracle Road. The cleanup crew will meet at the Oro Valley Kohl's parking lot on the west side of Oracle Rd. just north of Ina at 7:30 a.m. and clean up trash along the road up to Magee. Trent is giving a free T-shirt to everyone who picks up trash.

At 9:00 a.m. Trent will be making his campaign kickoff announcement at James Kreigh park.

Questions about these events should be directed to Kevin Herring 520-465-8594.

Why Crime Pays for Banditos

Four illegal aliens obtain fraudulent drivers licenses. They steal six expensive SUVs from rental car companies and get caught. What happens to them?

A. The criminals are forced to pay restitution and sent to jail for several years for their crimes.
B. Arresting officers are put away for 10 years and the criminals are granted free passage to the U.S. to commit more crimes.
C. The criminals are given a light sentence of 1-2 years in prison.
D. The criminals are let go and told never to come back and do it again.

If you answered D, you would be correct according to The Rocky Mountain News. Here's the breakdown:
One will serve no time in prison. He gets probation which is kind of like a written warning. He's also supposed to pick up trash for week and we'll pay for his drug rehab program if he decides to stick around a while.
A second will be deported. He has been told that if he comes back within 3 years, we'll punish him. Otherwise, he can do whatever he wants. If he can avoid the law on future car thefts for the next 3 years, he still won't go to prison if caught after that.
A third had his charges dismissed, but he'll be sent to Georgia for crimes he committed there. Apparently, they care.
For all the difference it makes, the fourth criminal was able to get the charges dropped for lack of evidence. Since he had a fraudulent drivers license, it would seem that at least one charge should have stuck. The article didn't say anything about deportation, so he could be hanging around looking for the next car theft opportunity. Hopefully, he's still in Colorado.

Cloudy Skies Ahead for Arizona

According to the economic outlook provided by the Eller school, "most forecasts for the U.S. now show the economy teetering on the brink of recession...we believe that Arizona's economy is already in a recession that will stretch well into 2008. Labor markets are deteriorating and job growth is disappearing."

In fact, job growth is overstated and will be revised downward to near zero for 2007. Projections show a significant loss of jobs in 2008 and fewer lost in 2009. A recent issue of Business Week, provided a chart showing small business jobs to be the worst in years and declining rapidly. Arizona appears to be following the trend.

With Arizona heading for a $1.5 billion deficit, and no champion in sight to save Arizona's economy, it looks like things will get a whole lot worse before they get better. The obvious solution that nobody wants to face is slashing government spending. A systematic multi-year suck-it-up belt-tightening would do it. But Janet would have to rescind her all-day kindergarten, back down on free college tuition for everyone who can pull a B in high school, and resign herself to driving to Tucson instead of riding her flashy light rail system.

Not only that, spending drunkards in Phoenix would have to detox for the next few years not only to the point of eliminating the deficit, but even beyond in order to push taxpayer dollars back to taxpayers where it can do some good for the economy. I'm not talking about Congress' method of stimulating the economy. It certainly does no good to follow the example of our binge spending congressmen who borrow money from China to give us $600 so we can go out and buy more products made in China. So much for stimulating the U.S. economy.

No, the only way we're going to get out of this mess is to make some courageous choices in the legislature and take away Napolitano's credit card. The question is: "Who's going to make it happen?" When asked in a recent interview how she would cut the deficit all Nancy Young Wright could say is she would protect education, increase taxes and push light rail.

So when it comes to saving the economy, my question remains: "Who's going to make it happen?" Right now, I have no answers.