The state budget that the Legislature passed and the governor signed is absolutely appalling! It seems that Republicans are on a mission to destroy the state for everyone except for private prisons and corporate welfare.

Not only did they totally ignore the court order to pay back the money they illegally cut from education in past budgets, they actually cut it again. They ignored the law --passed by a voter mandate to increase education funding by at least the rate of inflation, and they ignored the court order to reimburse the schools for the years they had broken that law -- almost a billion dollars. They are thumbing their collective noses at voters, laws and courts!

Well-educated citizens are a big draw for any high-paying industry to locate in Arizona, but this governor and Legislature seem to take pride in having Arizona near the bottom of school funding stats. Some districts are even cutting back to four-day school weeks.

And for higher education, our state constitution says regarding “the university and all other state educational institutions” that “the instruction furnished shall be as nearly free as possible.” But they cut that funding too!

The sob story given for cutting education and social services is that the state doesn’t have enough money (because of the poor policies of the Republican legislatures). Why don’t we have enough money? It’s because the choice has been made to give that money out in corporate welfare by huge tax cuts (those CEOs need their big bonuses!), and to build another (unneeded) private prison, which has out-of state headquarters.

What a strange sense of priorities! Vote them out in the next election!