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John Loredo of Tequida And Gutierrez and Barrett Marson, communications director for the State House Of Representatives, debate the budgets currently being considered by the legislature.

Jose Cardenas:
Tonight on Horizon, two political types go head to head on the budget in our regular Monday feature, one on one. Veterans are honored by the young authors of a book featuring the vets' stories. And the implications of eating meat are studied at the University of Arizona, next on Horizon.

Jose Cardenas:
Good evening, and thanks for joining us tonight on Horizon, I'm Jose Cardenas. Every Monday evening we feature two political experts going head to head on issues that affect the state. Tonight, talking about the budget and more, are the director of communication of the State House of Representatives, Barrett Marson, and a political consultant with Tequida and Guttierez, John Loredo.

Barrett Marson:
John, it's great to be with you here tonight. It is spring, and that means it's budget time. The house has a budget, the senate and the governor have their priorities, and every lobbyist is out there wrangling for their last-minute projects. As we start going into the negotiations here, the budget out of the house appropriations committee last week, and today the Senate's doing theirs. Now you're going to see a melding of the budgets, after this happens.

John Loredo:
Well hopefully, never a bit too late. They're actually past their deadline. But once negotiations start and the governor gets involved, typically the other chamber gets a little nervous, and I think we've seen some probably not-so-smooth moves happening here and there, but hopefully the big table in the governor's office will have the House Representative and things will starts moving along.

Barrett Marson:
You say that but you look at the last two years-- two years in a row, you have seen historic tax cuts; you have seen record amounts added to education. You've seen the priorities of Arizonans handled with house speaker Jim Wires at the table, helping to negotiate that with the governor. You have seen the man--

John Loredo:
Better late than never.

Barrett Marson:
No it's not better late than never. The only people who care about it are the legislators making their per diem when it gets cut. The final product which moves Arizona forward is what the legislature should be rated on.
Last year, we saw record tax cuts--

John Loredo:
Sure, but process is also important. How long the legislature takes to actually have the will to sit down and negotiate something reasonable and rational is an issue, too. Many times, the house kind of does the same thing over and over again. They refuse to negotiate until the last minute.

Barrett Marson:
Oh, that's not true. Refuse to negotiate? Absolutely not.

John Loredo:
The senate will cut their deal with the governor, and then the house will come on board, and it always puts them at a disadvantage.

Barrett Marson:
I've got to disagree. Look at what the last two years has brought to the state of Arizona.

John Loredo:
Sure.

Barrett Marson:
Again, record tax relief for individuals and businesses, record spending on education, record spending on universities. You have seen an incredible amount done in the last two years when each side was negotiating. There will be now, just as there has been the last several years.

John Loredo:
The longer it takes, it costs taxpayers to keep the legislature in session. In the old days we used to get that job done in 100 days.

Barrett Marson:
Very, very rarely, even when you were a minority.

John Loredo:
Kind of a side note to this, there's been some direction in the house democratic caucus. We've had three members vote with the majority, with Russell Pearce in house negotiations. It caused a pretty big fireball statewide. Ironically, it has solidified the democratic caucus, united them like never before, and it'll make it very, very difficult for anybody on the Republican side to peel off any more democrats, because the price that these three paid simply wasn't worth --

Barrett Marson:
First of all, I don't know what price they have paid. But I think what they have done is what anybody would do. They negotiated for their constituents. Pete Rios, Linda Lopez got more money for education, more money for state employees --

John Loredo:
They got less money.

Barrett Marson:
That is your complete misunderstanding of the budget. There is literally more money in the house budget.

John Loredo:
The problem with education --

John Loredo:
The problem is in the senate, Barrett. The deal is probably out of the senate by the time this airs. But the reality is, instead of negotiating on behalf of their constituents, their constituents are extremely upset right now. So that basically guarantees that they won't stray again. Having only a minimal number of Republicans in the house needed to pass this budget, the speaker has no wiggle room to negotiate here, when you simply can't put the votes together on the floor of the house --

Barrett Marson:
The speakers have been negotiator. I'll put him up on that -

John Loredo:
He must of taken a class in the last three years that I was there. But the reality is that it's going to be very, very difficult for him to get 31 votes. He's not going to have those democrats to pull from, not going to have moderates to pull from. He's going to have to do some really serious negotiating.

Barrett Marson:
Thankfully, he knows how to negotiate. One of the things he will be negotiating, amongst education and other priorities, is tax relief for families and small businesses. You will see right now our tax package has 10 million tax deductions for families to donate to a college savings plan. That's something that -- it's a new concept for Arizona, to make it tax deductible. It doesn't appear in the governor's budget or anything else. That's something that you're going to see the speaker fight for.

John Loredo:
I know you're going to talk about it -- Tuition tax --

Barrett Marson:
But that's for students. But that's for schooling-age students, not for college. But that's not a tax break. That's a misunderstanding again on your part. If a corporation owes $100 in taxes and give 50 of it to a student tuition organization and 50 to the state, it doesn't impact their bottom line. They're still paying $100, it's just they're designated where it goes. That's not a tax break.

John Loredo:
It is a cost to the general fund, making it easier for them to take advantage of and not capping it.

Barrett Marson:
No, but we have -- there's a $12 million cap on the corporate tuition for this year. You know what? Another thing, you take a student out of a public school and put them into a private school, that's a savings on the general fund.

John Loredo:
Unfortunately, that's not what happens.

Barrett Marson:
Look how well you turned out!

John Loredo:
Absolutely. But that's not the way that it works. The reality is that the only people that will go to those schools are people who are there already.


Barrett Marson:
Our legislation says you must have been in the private school to go -- I'm sorry, public school -- to be eligible for the corporate tuition tax credit, to receive portions of that.

John Loredo:
What we are going to see in the next week will probably be more negotiations in the -- on the budget, but the reality will be that it'll probably take another three weeks for folks to hammer it out. Ultimately, after the posturing is done, the hard work needs to be done in the governor's office. You've got to have the leadership in both chambers sitting around that table, doing the give and take and making sure that priorities are kept in place for both caucuses. The sooner that happens, the better. I would imagine they could get this done if they wanted to, starting tomorrow.

Barrett Marson:
And I believe you will see, coming up in the following week, you will see a lot of action. You will see the speaker and the president and the governor sitting down and -- and anybody else invited to the big party, hammering out an agreement. And you could see the legislature in the next week or so.

John Loredo:
Hopefully.

Barrett Marson:
Hopefully. Thank you, John.

John Loredo:
Thank you.

Jose Cardenas:
Over the weekend students at cactus shadows high school held a reception for war veterans. The students have completed volume 3 of a compilation of stories and photographs that show the veterans' stories in wartime. Larry Lemmons gives us a peek at the reception.

Larry Lemmons:
Veterans and students of the cactus shadows High School Arizona heritage project are gathering at the carefree resort. The project allows high school students to collect oral histories from our nation's war veterans. They then compile the essays in a book entitled, since you ask: Arizona veterans share their memories.

Libby Day:
Extremely insightful, I suppose, would be one way to put it. You learn history, but completely different than if you were to learn it in the classroom. You certainly read about it in the textbooks, but to speak to someone who has actually experienced it is a completely different experience. It just gives you a whole new insight into the wars and the personal experiences of the veterans. And often they tell you things you won't read in a textbook.

Kyle Hobratschk:
I think I've gained a greater appreciation for local history, and the need to document it and preserve it. Not only for the veterans who served in different wars, but for the library of congress to keep for our nation's history. I think as Libby has said, I've gained some invaluable life skills in areas of writing and communicating, even things as far as woodworking. We've built an exhibit that showcases veterans' stories and photographs. It demanded we learn how to operate power tools.

Veteran:
At the time of the surrender, we probably had one day's rations left. So general king decided to surrender to the people on batan.

Larry Lemmons:
Veterans often told their stories to the guests and signed the book which featured their experiences.

Jose Cardenas:
Joining us now to tell us about how this tradition began, the advisor for the Arizona heritage project, Barbara Hatch, and one of the students, mark McCullough. Barbara where did the idea of The Arizona Heritage Project come from?

Barbara Hatch:
There was a project in Montana called The Montana Heritage project which worked with the library of congress. And when S.R.P. celebrated its centennial in 2003, they decided this would be a good project for Arizona. There were five projects that first year, and we were one of them. We documented the Cave Creek Christmas Pageant. In the second year we reapplied for a grant and decided to work with Veterans. So that's what we've done in the past three years.

Jose Cardenas:
Tell us a little bit more about The Library of Congress' involvement.

Barbara Hatch:
The library of congress -- in 2000, congress decided to document veterans' stories, and they created the history project as part of the library of congress. And anyone can send -- any veteran can send his information directly. But we traveled there in November, left 92 interviews from the first two books with The Veterans History Project. We'll be sending 53 more stories, so that these stories are preserved for our children. The world war ii guys in particular are dying about 1500 a day, I think it is, so their stories will be lost.

Jose Cardenas:
Mark, tell us a little bit about the student involvement in the process. How many does it take to get something like this done, and what are the kinds of things they do?

Mark McCullough:
Well, the number of students varies. Basically it depends on the participation each student has. What we do is we interview the veterans, then we transcribe their interviews, write the essays. Then we compile it into the three books that we have. Usually we can manage to interview roughly 60 veterans a year. Unfortunately, time constraints limit us in that number. However, we try to plan for the year ahead, make networking, new veterans, line up interviews months ahead of time. That way we never run out with what we can do and achieve.

Jose Cardenas:
Now, you mentioned that you've been involved on or you've been involved with all three of these books. Any changes over the course of those three years, in terms of how the books have been put together?

Mark McCullough:
Yes, the dynamic of the project changes with the outdoing versus the incoming freshmen. It changes how we can become involved. Obviously people have different tasks that they are better at. Mine is the technical layout of the book and the technical processes. Once I leave, the dynamic of the project will change. Someone will have to pick up where I left off. We learn from our mistakes. We make quality changes, we make it better, and we become more efficient with our time.

Jose Cardenas:
Barbara, you mentioned S.R.P. as one of the sponsors. Are there other participants?

Barbara Hatch:
Yes, Arizona Republic, Wells Fargo, and veterans donate their tax credits to a school or a nonprofit. This year we received probably $15,000 from the tax credits from veterans.

Jose Cardenas:
Roughly what does it cost? Is it that $15,000 that you were talking about?

Barbara Hatch:
It's getting close to that, because this year's book is longer. This year we have more about -- because the students are making history, as well. It's not only the story of the veterans, its the story of the students making history. So there's a lot more in the back of the book about the process, the events that the students are invited to participate in. There will be many opportunities that open up to students because of this. Speaking engagements, presentations to the national council of social studies, where we went in November. They went to the association of the U.S. army -- where else did we go, Mark?

Mark McCullough:
Albuquerque:

Barbara Hatch:
We went to Albuquerque.

Jose Cardenas:
How many states have projects like this?

Barbara Hatch:
Right now, because Montana folded, we are the only one in the U.S.

Jose Cardenas:
Mark, any particularly special experiences as a result of your interviews over the past three years?

Mark McCullough:
Well, they're all special in their own aspect. Most special, I would have to say, is from a veteran named Dieter Loper, actually a German veteran, although he is a full American now. He is more patriotic than some of us. He is a pilot like I am, and actually invited me to his home and we went flying in his motorized sail plane.

Jose Cardenas:
This is all covered by school insurance, of course.

Mark McCullough:
Well -- So that's a memorable moment after the interview, and then we have stories from interviews that are also very intriguing.

Jose Cardenas:
This covers a series of conflicts, World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Gulf wars. Anything you feel you've learned about war?

Mark McCullough:
Well, war -- well, freedom is not free, that was a very major predominant theme in our presentation yesterday. It just gives more of an appreciation for what the veterans have done, including the Vietnam veterans, because they have not received the press, good press as much as the others have. Now they are coming out of their shells and realizing that they are welcomed home. One veteran said all he wanted to hear was welcome home. They were the only group of veterans that did not hear that. That really meant a lot to him. It just gave a very dynamic appreciation to what I've already known, and then just enhanced that knowledge.

Jose Cardenas:
Barbara, on the video one of the students said you find out things you won't read in a textbook. Can you give us an example of that?

Barbara Hatch:
I could give you hundreds of examples, because I go on just about every interview. Veterans will tell stories and say, I've never told anyone this. And it will be an item that may -- it doesn't contradict the history books, but there's more information or more involvement to it than you really see, because I am a history teacher. And the books just can't cover it all, especially from the Vietnam guys and their pride. We had one this year, who was in special forces. He was in the battle -- we were soldiers, the battle that movie is based on. He says that movie is actually very, very accurate. He was going out on patrol for three days, and coming back to a base camp, and they wouldn't let them in. You have to let us in, we have a walking pass.

Jose Cardenas:
Sorry, but we're out of time. Those are great stories and we thank you both for sharing them with us. Good luck on next year's project.

Barbara Hatch:
Thank you.

Mark McCullough:
Thank you.

Jose Cardenas:
It seems that the simple act of eating a hamburger or a steak has a variety of social and political implications these days. In fact, there are many things to consider when we choose to eat meat. At the University of Arizona Meat Science Laboratory, students and faculty deal with the issues of dealing with our society's appetite for meat, in a unique classroom setting. Luis Carrion takes a look at the work in the lab.

Luis Carrion:
It's become somewhat of a contentious issue. Books, such as fast food nation, point out many of the social and environmental problems associated with the modern industrialization of the meat industry. Here at the University of Arizona, food choices reflect the trends of the country as a whole. It can be a contentious issue for some, and it shows no signs of diminishing with our current students.

Christian Bernal-Rigoli:
My names Christina Bernal-Rigoli, and I'm in the animal science -- that's my major, and then my option is industry.

Luis Carrion:
For these students, The University of Arizona Meat Science laboratory is a place where they gain firsthand knowledge of an aspect of American food production that many people would rather ignore.

Christian Bernal-Rigoli:
Once I got into High School, I started raising sheep and pigs in high school, and from then it stemmed. [inaudible] that's how I got into it and decided to do Animal Science.

Luis Carrion:
Dr. John Marchello heads the Meat Science Lab. And it's his job to balance to the needs of an increasingly industrialized market with the health and welfare of animals as well as consumers. Here at the College of Agricultural Meat Science Lab, the process takes place in an academic setting.

John Marchello:
Now we're fabricating carcasses from our cattle, from a college of agriculture-owned ranch near camp Verde. We're dividing muscles based upon what we call muscles of locomotion versus muscles of attachment. They have 550 mother cows that raise calves and come down through our feed lot, and then we harvest them and collect information with regard to cutouts, quality. In turn, they take that information back and select the sires to go back into the herd to improve quality.

Luis Carrion:
Dr. Ahmad is a microbiologist at the meat science lab. For him the most pressing concern is safety.

Hamdi Ahmad:
Of course our food comes from animals or comes from the soil. And this is a reality. You know, they come -- if we not take care of them, they will be contaminated. We have to do our best to keep our food clean. In this country it's great. Every food produced gets a code or a number. If you take a package of meat to New York and they see it, they check the number that you have, and they see it goes to Tucson, the University of Arizona.

Luis Carrion:
Throughout history, our animals have had a role in our culture, and the role of the farmer, hunter, and rancher continues to evolve today. For better or worse, as we become disconnected from the land that produces our food and rely more on the industrialized producers to meet our needs, the science of meat is something that will affect us all.

Christian Bernal-Rigoli:
A lot of the girls in my group are vegetarian. I think the big thing is most people are really uneducated about processing and production. That's the concern among most kids or students that I've heard, that they're worried that it's just manufacturing, just a manufacturing plant. They're no longer thinking about the right -- it comes down to the feelings of the animals.

Luis Carrion:
It may seem odd, but for some students with a love and appreciation of animals, it's the meat industry where they can find fulfillment and motivation.

Christian Bernal-Rigoli:
I want to improve the quality of life for the animals, talking about research and development in different ways, my whole goal is to improve the quality of life of the animals. You know, they're only going to be alive for a short period of time, so you want to improve it to its highest amount. I think that's what makes me so passionate about what i want to do, to make it as comfortable until they're processed.

Hamdi Ahmad:
If you work in the university, it's in our assets, a great thing. You work all the time educating students and sending them to the industry, and if you send somebody to the industry and get a call that they're looking for a second run, it makes you happy that you did something.

Merry Lucero:
Dial Ride and Saturday transit services are in jeopardy of being cut by the City of Mesa because of its budget crisis. We look at what the City Council is considering and we gaze back at a rough stretch of Arizona road that draws tourists from all over the world-- The Apache Trail. Tuesday at 7:00 pm on Horizon.


Jose Cardenas:
Wednesday we'll learn more about school district unification. Thursday we'll talk to the director of the D.P.S. Friday join us for "journalists roundtable." that's our show for tonight. I'm Jose Cardenas, thanks for sharing your evening with us.

Barrett Marson:Director of Communication, State House of Representatives;John Loredo:Political consultant, Tequida and Guttierez ;Barbara Hatch:Advisor, Arizona Heritage Project;

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