As the legislative session approaches, local business advocates share their hopes from lawmakers

The upcoming State Legislative Session begins next week and with that in mind “we” begin our series of looks at what advocates for various issues are looking to see from lawmakers this go-round. Tonight, we start by hearing from the business community. Our guests: Daniel Seiden, President and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Todd Sanders, President and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Chamber.

“The big issue for us this session is going to be to keep the momentum going, I don’t know if you’ve been looking at our numbers, they’re all great, we’re looking at a 4.7 unemployment rate, it’s the lowest since the great recession, so the real name of the game is to not do anything to derail that,” Seiden said.

Seiden continued that we need to keep our tax rate low, keep regulations low, and keep making sure we’re the number state in the country for school of choice because people are moving here and we are within the top 3 states for growth.

Sanders added that some of our key drivers in the state’s economy are transportation and infrastructure.

“We’re coming up on the end of Prop 400 and one of our big goals is to ensure that the voters have a chance to look at it in the 2022 election. That means that we’re going to ask our friends at the legislature to authorize that to go to the ballot,” Sanders said.

Seiden said the economy in the state is doing great so, “if the legislature chooses to go back and lower the income-tax again, they’re doing someone solid, economic footing and that is shown by how great our budget surplus is, and everything else.

Seiden added, “I would say that we’re funding education at near record levels, we’re hitting caps that were set by the voters…our Chamber has always been supportive of more money for education.”