Commentary: Through the looking glass of Arizona priorities

I know a family. They are good neighbors and good people. They mean well but their means are limited and they’re feeling run down. The recession continues to hit them hard, and recovery is not yet in sight. They want to turn the corner to a better life but find themselves cutting corners instead.

To add salt to their wound, they hear mixed messages from their Governor and Legislature that offer little comfort. They hear promises about investing in the future and protecting the most vulnerable, but they’re not convinced that their need for butter is more important than the state’s interest in guns.

Think about it:

The Governor has proposed a balanced state budget; it’s cushioned by a $621 million surplus and a rainy-day fund of $500 million. He stresses that the state must live within its means. For a family of limited means, that’s a hard pill to swallow, especially when a reasonable portion of the surplus could be used to elevate Arizona’s embarrassingly low rankings in child welfare, health care, education, and workforce development.

For example, the budget proposes millions in funding for K-12 education and job training but hardly enough to compensate for past cuts and lost ground. It fails to reinstate KidsCare and thus is the only state in the country without a Children's Health Insurance Program. It continues cuts in food stamps for thousands of low-income families.

Then, there’s the Legislature whose priorities include more prison beds, more guns in public places, less power for cities, and larger tax breaks for the wealthy.

Mom and Dad hear the message loud and clear. They’re on their own. Dad is told to get a job, but he’s already got three jobs, all low-paying and still not enough to make ends meet. Mom’s been told to do more with less, so she’s deciding whether it’s groceries or gas or medicines that she’ll forgo this month.

All their lives, Mom and Dad believed in possibility and the American dream, but these days they feel more like citizens of Wonderland where “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place, and if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Well, Mom and Dad aren’t in Wonderland. They’re in Arizona, they’re running as fast as they can, and they’re running out of steam. And the government from whom they seek leadership and relief is running away.