State lawmakers have full committee agendas this week as the legislative session continues getting going. Among the issues they’ll be debating: cryptocurrency, unemployment benefits and vaccines.
Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services joined The Show to preview what to expect this week at the state Capitol.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Good morning, Howie.
HOWIE FISCHER: Good morning. I keep telling you if you keep your expectations low, you'll never be disappointed in the Arizona Legislature.
BRODIE: You do keep saying that. So, Howie, a lot of states are, especially states controlled by Republicans, are taking up bills this year dealing with cryptocurrency. Arizona is no different. What are lawmakers considering doing this year?
FISCHER: Oh, we have a whole bunch of things. I mean, it starts off with the basic idea of declaring cryptocurrency to be legal tender. So all of a sudden, you know, your Ethereum coins, your Bitcoins, maybe even your Howie bucks, cause I figured why not get into a cryptocurrency here, can all be used for official purposes. Now, I don't know whether that would affect the ability of Fry’s to turn away or something else.
But then we get, you know, into some, some, some very specific things. For example, having the state invest some of its proceeds in cryptocurrency, allowing it to be used to pay public debts, exempting virtual currency from certain kinds of taxes that would apply to other holdings or even having the state retirement system put some of its holdings into crypto.
An interesting concept, you know, crypto sort of came out of nowhere as we know, and, by my way of thinking, I don't know what the inherent value of crypto is. Again, like I say, if I decide I'm going to have Howie bucks and I decide this is the value of it, you know, who gets to start crypto, who regulates it? And that's obviously going on in Congress, but it remains the question of should we be encouraging it here, right?
BRODIE: So that'll be going through a Senate committee later today. Howie, tomorrow a House committee will be considering a measure that would change the way the state gives out unemployment benefits, right? This is not something necessarily new, but what are they doing here?
FISCHER: Well, under Arizona law, if you are fired from your job for no reason of your own, in other words, you didn't, you know, screw something up or you're laid off, you're entitled to up to 26 weeks of jobless benefits, and the maximum benefit is $320 a week. What this proposes to say is we're going to cap the number of weeks based on the jobless rate of the state.
Now Arizona's been running below 4% now for, for some time, you know, ever since the end of the COVID epidemic. But this would say that if in fact the unemployment rate is 5% or less, you'd only be entitled to 12 weeks. Let's say if it's, you know, more than 5.5%, it'd be 16 weeks, and it would only be 26 weeks if the unemployment rate is more than 8%.
Now, this is based on the idea of, well, if there are plenty of jobs out there, you shouldn't have any trouble finding work. And obviously, this is a big benefit to employers because remember, unemployment is not paid by taxpayers, unemployment is paid by the companies and their rate is based on how often they tend to lay off employees.
There are a lot of companies that do a lot of churn and lay off employees seasonally, and they obviously have a higher rate. The companies that hang on to employees may pay as little as $4 a year for unemployment benefits for their employees. And so this goes into a trust fund. And the question becomes, should you be required to take any job at all? Should you be allowed to wait until there's a job in your field or something more suitable to you? And that's what we get into it every year in terms of, well, your unemployment rate is 5%, therefore, you should be able to go flip burgers. Never mind that perhaps you were a vice president of some corporation, right?
BRODIE: All right, so Howie, another bill that will be heard tomorrow in committee, another sort of hot button issue this dealing with vaccines, creating new exemptions for vaccines both in schools and in jobs.
FISCHER: Exactly. There already are various exemptions for schools, you know, the religious exemptions, personal exemptions, medical exemptions for schools. Jobs are a little trickier because employers are basically considered to have the right to set conditions of employment. This would say that you could exempt yourself from employment requirements if it doesn't meet a whole series of issues that that the proponents say should be necessary, approved by the FDA and as we know, some of the COVID vaccines were only under an emergency use, has been evaluated for long term potential to cause cancer, impair fertility that the there was a placebo group that went in and did part of the testing. Studies have been conducted to determine it was necessary when administered, alone or with another state-mandated vaccine, and that the vaccines manufactures a liability for design defect for any claims caused by the vaccine.
This is meant to set up a whole set of barriers that would be very difficult for companies to meet every one of these and have the state set its own standard for what are acceptable vaccines. There are a lot of people who don't believe in vaccines. I mean, we have the potential head of Health and Human Services in this country who doesn't believe in vaccines. And the question becomes if we were to erect all of these, and if they were to be declared legal, whether we'd be opening up Arizona to all sorts of interesting illnesses and injuries.
Look, I'm of the age I went to school with kids who had polio because of the fact we didn't have a vaccine initially. I happen to be a big believer in vaccines because of that, I don't know we should be erecting hurdles in that.
BRODIE: Well, Howie, quickly before we let you go, like, what's the, like, what's the argument in terms of, as you say, like there's sort of a private like a business right here, like business is sort of setting the terms of their employment. This would take away some of those conditions, right?
FISCHER: Well, businesses can't set any right at all for their employees. They certainly can't discriminate based on race or religion or gender. But the question becomes, where does that line stand? Can a business fire somebody because you're not good looking enough, or if you have a face for radio, so to speak, you know, these are, these are fascinating questions here. I think the question becomes do vaccines affect only the people who are being vaccinated, or is there a larger societal issue?
We have a real problem in this state where the number of children being vaccinated has fallen below 90% in some cases, and you can't get that herd immunity here. And so you're you're creating a situation where one kid gets sick, spreads it to another kid, and all of a sudden you have an epidemic on your hands. And I think the same concern exists within businesses.
