Arizona: Senate Appropriations Committee

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Guardian (subscription required) reports that efforts by the Accidental Governor and the GOP insane clown posse leadership's effort to ram a complicated state budget though the Legislature stalled Wednesday night after leaders couldn't come up with enough votes to get the package through the Senate Appropriations Committee. Oops! Somebody couldn't count votes.

A tentative agreement to redo the 2010 state budget hung by a thread late Wednesday, with Senate President Bob Burns conceding that he doesn't have the votes he needs. Both chambers delayed action until today. Sales-tax plan stalls state budget compromise, again

As has been the case for months, the biggest cause for heartburn among the majority GOP was a temporary sales-tax increase sought by Gov.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- House Speaker Kirk Adams, Senate President Bob Burns, House Appropriations Committee chairman John Kavanagh, and Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Russell Pearce -- tried their best to destroy the state of Arizona. But they were thwarted (temporarily) by the veto stamp of the Accidental Governor -- who would herself be the Fifth Horseman (woman?) of the Apocalypse if only she met the height and weight requirements.

Some of this blog's readers who see the world in stark contrasts of only black and white have argued that "So what if the government of Arizona shuts down? Would anyone even notice?" In other words, if the epic failure of leadership of our Accidental Governor and the GOP insane clown posse leadership does not immediately result in an end of the world Apocalypse, "what's the problem?" When one can only view the world in terms of such extreme dichotomy, it is easy to make excuses for the lack of competency to govern and the lack of basic human decency, dare I say, empathy and compassion for one's fellow man.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The man who would be king of Arizona (if not for the inconvenience of those pesky elections) failed to deliver the necessary Republican votes today in his Senate Appropriations Committee on the first of a package of...

A tenuous budget deal between Gov. Jan Brewer and GOP legislative leaders took a step backward this morning, with the Senate Appropriations Committee rejecting a key portion of the plan.
The feed bill, Senate Bill 1470, failed in the committee on a 4-4 vote (a majority vote is necessary for passage). Republican Sens. Ron Gould, Jack Harper and Steve Pierce joined with Democratic Sen. Paula Aboud to oppose the measure, the first in a series of bills that make up the budget package for fiscal 2010.
Following the vote, Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, immediately recessed the committee. Moments later, the committee reconvened to ...

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