Prop. 204 Fought the Car and the Car (Dealerships) Won

Hilariously sad and true cartoon drawn by David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star.

Well, actually Prop. 204 was not trying to fight anyone but was to help education and create jobs. It was to permanently keep a one cent sales tax (that we already had) and the funds were to educate our kids in Arizona and create jobs by building better roads. But many did not like the fact that the tax would be permanent. Those have to be some of the most terrifying words in red state America: a permanent tax! Prop. 204 was soundly defeated. I was all for Prop. 204 and was very sad when it was rejected by the voters mostly because my kids and their friends are going to suffer, educationally speaking.

The car dealerships certainly did not like 204, and they fought it by giving lots of money to the anti-204 groups. In the last few days before the November 6th election, Arizona televisions were awash with negative ads put on the air by groups that were funded by auto dealerships, but they were not the only ones. Many businesses that were not going to benefit from Prop. 204 put their money into bringing it down. It is very interesting that one of the super-pacs that funded money into anti-204 ads has been sited by California as doing “money laundering.” This super-pac is called Americans for Responsible Leadership. I think a better name would be “Republicans for Tax Cuts and Partisan Bickering” since they also brought down Prop. 121, which was to create an open primary in Arizona. But maybe that is probably being too truthful.

It was amazing to me that many super-pacs failed in their bid to manipulate the majority of Americans into voting their way nationally. It gives me hope that the whole Citizens United decision will not buy major elections for the rich. I guess it only works in small, local elections. The super-pac money certainly worked to kill 204 and screw the children of Arizona out of enough money to properly educate them.

Now Governor Jan Brewer says she will look into doing something about funding education. This means we need to trust her and the state legislature to fund education properly. Something tells me they will fall short. There might be enough there, but I bet they would rather spend that money for their crony friends in the private prison business. Since we won't be educating the kids, those kids might just turn to crime. Then the jails will be justified, won't they?