Arizona: Utah

by David Safier
Here's the story. The U.S. Census Bureau says Arizona doesn't spend as much on education as other states. No news there. The only new bit of data is that, relative to our state's personal income, we climb up from 47th in education funding to 34th. In other words, we're a low income, low education state. And if we want to guarantee our status as a low income state, we should just continue underfunding education.

Howard Fischer goes to some experts to analyze the data. Here they are, in order of appearance: Tom Horne, Ed Supe; Matthew Ladner, Goldwater Institute; Justin Olson, Arizona Tax Research Association (In case you don't know the

by David Safier
CNBC has its 2008 rankings of states for businesses. We come in number 12 overall.

How do our neighboring states rank? Texas is number 1, and Utah is number 3. New Mexico is at 38, and Nevada is way, way down at 45.

Arizona, then, ranks pretty well, despite the howlings of the Rs about our business taxes are driving companies away.

Let's see how we can improve our rankings.

Our lowest ranking is in Education, at 43rd. Bring that up a dozen notches by funding education better, and we should look a whole lot more attractive to businesses. Our Quality of Life is 36th.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You are all probably aware by now that on Friday a bipartisan group of six senators sent a letter to the White House asking to slow down the process towards health care reform. This bipartisan group of senators consisted of Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Ron Wyden (D-OR). Obama warns Congress not to 'slow down'

Ron Wyden? He's one of the white hat good guys in the Senate. Why would he add his name to a letter signed by the perpetual whiners of the Senate?

I reviewed the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times for some clue.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to impose tough new restrictions on the credit card industry, which had spent years successfully avoiding regulations. Senate approves tougher credit card rules in 90-5 vote

The bill bars firms from hiking interest rates on cardholders unless they are 60 days late in payment, bans “double-cycle billing” and seeks better notification for consumers. The bill goes a step further than rules the Federal Reserve issued in December, but that won't take effect until July 2010. The Senate bill would take effect nine months after it is signed into law.

* * *

Five senators voted against the bill, including Republican Sens.