Journalists’ Roundtable: The effects of losing Prop 208

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Mary Jo Pitzl of the Arizona Republic, Bob Christie of the Associated Press and Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services all join Ted to discuss the major topics of the week for the journalists’ round table.

Here are the topics for the week:

  • Election Bills Voted Down
  • Precinct Committeemen SNAFU
  • Repeal & Replace Tax Cut
  • Ducey Slams Adel
  • Ducey vs. GOP on Early Voting

The repeal and replace tax cut, what’s happening with that now that Prop 208 is gone? Are we going to see lower taxes or increases in education? Are we going to see a special session?

Fischer: “Well, I think we are going to see a special session. You know, perhaps by the time we are off the air, everybody should go run to their news wire and take that out. There is broad sentiment among most republicans to deal with the fact that A) We don’t need to spend money to backfill proposition 208, that was the three and a half percent surcharge, so we don’t need to backfill that for the rich people. B) Some revenues are running a lot higher than anticipated particularly revenues from out of state retailers. C) There is no reason to have this in a two-step procedure. Originally it was going to go down to 2.5% by 2025, now the feeling is they can do it perhaps as early as this year.”

If the education budget did increase to at or near Prop 208 levels you could avoid a lot of conflict?

Pitzl: “That is the concept behind this grand bargain. This grand bargain is not on the table with this alleged upcoming special session. Maybe that will be a reason to hold out, to get some concessions but my sense is that once you cut that tax rate to 2.5%, so you get a flat rate which the governor really wants and a lot of lawmakers really want, what is to hold you to a promise to do something down the road with putting some of that surplus permanently back into schools?”

Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic; Bob Christie, Associated Press; Howie Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Ted Simons, host and managing editor of

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