On Tuesday, February 2nd, The Phoenix city counsel and our mayor Phil “Flash” Gordon approved a 2% sales tax on all grocery purchases in the city of Phoenix. This tax is supposed to be “temporary,” to help offset the city’s huge budget problems. The city counsel and our fearless mayor took up the mantra of all true politicians by saying the only way to bring the budget under control is to stop spending; the spending they choose to cut is of course the services that will bring the most outrage from the communities. They propose to cut 177 Firefighters, and 350 Police officers. 

These are the tactics of Politicians, liars and thieves -  when you overspend, threaten to cut true “vital” programs unless “drastic” measures are taken, such as tax increases and new taxes. There are other programs being cut–after school programs, libraries, parks, etc–but none of these are vital to the functioning of the city – they are perks of living in a large city that we have come to expect, but are not “vital.” Currently, the largest example of wasteful spending in Phoenix is Jack Harris, our “Public safety manager,” a title he received after retiring as Phoenix chief of police. He now collects a cushy pension, works in the same office, wears the same uniform, performs the same tasks as a Police chief and gets paid approx. $4000.00 per week on top of the pension. Oh, and Phoenix has no “Chief of Police” now. There are other examples, this just happens to be the most well documented.

Interesting update: as I was writing this article, the news broke a story that now our City counsel and mayor are considering increasing that 2% tax that they just approved 24 hours ago to 4%. Maybe I should wait to post this as it seems they can’t make up their minds on how much money they should steal from us.

At a time when Arizona is looking to raise taxes, the Federal government is going to raise taxes and incomes are falling, does it really make sense to financially burden the citizens further? The answer is a resounding NO! Stop the wasteful spending and the problem will cure itself.