Q: Why do you want to be the next governor of Arizona?
Parker: For future generations. I believe there is a lack of leadership right now. If we don’t come up with bold, innovative, creative solutions for the current economic chaos that we’re in, it is going to devastate future generations. We have to be creative and think outside the box and think of these innovative solutions and I know I am the person to do that. We can no longer rely on pass-fail policy. We have to make some pretty bold moves to save future generations.
Q: Why are you a Republican?
Parker: I am Republican because I love the party of Abraham Lincoln. He is the cornerstone of the Republican Party and the greatest president we have ever had in my opinion. I believe that the Republican Party empowers individuals by encouraging further self-reliance and for them to take more of a posture for themselves. I believe the role of the government is to help individuals help themselves and build a more solid foundation.
Q: We currently do have a Republican leadership. What new things do you bring to the table? What Republican principles do you believe the current leadership is lacking?
Parker: Well, the word “leadership,” I think that’s it. And this election is going to turn on leadership. It’s going to turn on confidence. It’s going to turn on whoever can really demonstrate that they are the leader for the future. Right now there is a lack of leadership, a lack of confidence by the people, and I have a history of leadership. I have been known to work with individuals who disagree with me the most and those are the individuals whom with I’ve had the most success. I’ve brought people together my entire career and they have not necessarily believed in the same principles that I believe in, but I have a way of working with people to get things done. That’s what we need to get back to — getting things done and not squabbling and fighting with each other.
Q: What role do you believe the Arizona government should play in protection and safety?
Parker: Well that’s a broad issue, but I believe the biggest concern for safety we have is the border in Arizona. It is the number one state for allowing drugs into the country. That has a devastating effect on families, I’d call it a war. I truly believe it is a war, when we are the capital for letting drugs in. When you look at it, Hal, this is more or less the “wild wild West” where you have gang violence, controlled drugs, and you have families being destroyed. On top of that, Phoenix is the kidnap capital of the world and that’s not a title we want. What I think is the most horrific issue we have to address is human trafficking. To bring someone across the border in circumstances that are inhumane I think we should not be proud of, but we should truly look to the state and the federal government for sealing the border off because if we can do that, I believe a lot of the violence associated with drugs and the violence associated with human trafficking and kidnapping will disappear.
Q: What role do you believe the Arizona government should play in health and welfare, particularly for less-than-privileged individuals?
Parker: I believe we have to look for creative solutions. For example, if you’re a physician and you want to go and volunteer your time as a good Samaritan in areas where your services are needed, you probably couldn’t do that because you’re afraid of malpractice concerns. We have to look for creative ways to improve our healthcare system by eliminating some of the activities that bring it down. For example, we have to look at tort reform. I’ll tell you the story of my wife, who has third-stage breast cancer and one of the things that came out of that was that she was given a lot of tests, not for preventative or diagnostic reasons but to prevent lawsuits, which really drives the cost health coverage up. So, if we can take care of that and look at innovative solutions of having borderless options and opening up choice when it comes to healthcare — but I don’t think the government’s solutions to provide healthcare like the president [Barack Obama] wants to provide is the solution. I don’t know of anything the government has done in large scale that has been more effective than the project.
Q: So by “tort reform” you mean to loosen those policies so that, for instance, doctors would not be forced to run all those tests and procedures?
Parker: Well, I don’t think they are being forced now, but I think they do them on their own because they know that if they are sued that they will be able to say, “I performed this test. I performed this test, this test and this test,” and some of these tests are probably more detrimental than the actual disease that people have. And then we also have to look at preventative care. A lot of insurance companies won’t provide for prevention, like giving you a discount for going to them, you know, they wait. We have a system that addresses patients concerns when they have the problem as opposed to prevention. There are a lot of areas that I believe we can look to that would have a positive effect on people who are more needy than others. The good thing about this country, and that of the state of Arizona, is that I don’t know of anyone who has been turned away from coverage. Now, we have to get away from using the emergency room as that conduit for service.
Q: You currently run against a handful of opposing candidates, including an incumbent Republican governor and the attorney general of Arizona. Why do you do this? Why do you think you can win?
Parker: Because the people are starved for something new. I think they are looking outside of career politicians and I think that’s what we’ve had the last couple years — individuals who have spent their entire political careers running for public positions. I think the people of Arizona are ready for someone new and bold and a fresh face, and someone who is not concerned about their next political job. Einstein said it best, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Right now this is not the state of Arizona, it is the state of insanity, the state of confusion, and so we have to do all that we can to, you know, try something new since the policies of the past have not worked.
Q: But what do you think “new” should be? A lot of criticism has come to the Republican Party as of late from individuals who claim that it has been taken over by the extreme right, and that politicians have chosen ideology over bringing people together. What to you have to say to them?
Parker: I don’t fall in that category. I will look out for the people of the state of Arizona, not just the people of one party. Would I implement sound principles, Republican principles, as far as lower-to-no taxes? Yes. Strong borders? Yes. But I think these are all things that when it really boils down to it there is no party line that defines them, so we have to get away from saying that these are Republican principles or that these are going to benefit Republicans. No, we have to look at what is going to benefit Arizona.
Q: While you are currently mayor of one of Arizona’s most affluent regions, you aim to become governor of a state blighted by budget shortages and job loss. How have your past professional and personal experiences prepared you for such an undertaking?
Parker: Well, people believe that Paradise Valley was immune or is immune to the recession and that’s not true. We had to cut our budget by 25 percent and there was a cry for us to increase the sales tax and bed tax and we said “No.” I vehemently fought against that. Our constitution states that we can’t spend more than we bring in and I think we violated that. When we looked at our own budget in Paradise Valley, we had services that are not being used right now. We had to let people go and that was a very difficult thing to do. But we couldn’t ask others to do what we couldn’t do ourselves, so we cut our own budget — the budget of the mayor, and the town council by 54 percent because we wanted to lead by example. And we have to have the same mentality when we look at the budget of the state of Arizona. It’s like when you have a family where the mother and father go to work and you’re eating filet mignon and drinking expensive wine and roses and all of a sudden the father loses his job. You have to adjust. You can’t just print money. You have to adjust. And we may not be eating filet — you may have to eat ground beef until you can get back on your economic track, and that’s what we have to do for this state. It may be painful, but we have to buckle down and do what’s right for future generations. But if we continue to spend we’re going to rob future generations of their future.
Q: But we can’t just keep cutting, can we? Do you have any ideas on how to raise new revenue for Arizona?
Parker: Oh yeah, of course. Instead of cutting we need to grow. We need to grow jobs in the state of Arizona. We need to do that by phasing out the corporate income tax in this state. When you look at the current climate of businesses around the United States, there is something called the Business-Friendly Index and, one being best and 50 being worst, California is number 48, which is not good. Nevada is number four, Colorado is 10, Utah is 13, New Mexico is 23 and we’re 28. So if you’re 48, you’re looking to run out of California. We have incredible weather. We have all these intangibles that other states don’t have, but they’re not coming to Arizona because it’s not a business-friendly state. We’re surrounded by other states that are more business-friendly. Nevada, I believe, has started picking up more jobs than any other state in this region because they don’t have corporate income taxing. Think about this: If you don’t have a corporate tax and you’re bringing corporations to the state of Arizona, they have to build an infrastructure, and they have to use local businesses to build that infrastructure. When they do that, you’re hiring people. These local businesses will hire people to build that infrastructure, but more importantly, once they’ve set up the infrastructure they’ve got to hire individuals. They’ll hire people from the state of Arizona and if they don’t come from the state of Arizona they’ll move here. If they move here, they’re paying for the general fund. We would have a lot more resources because we’re bringing in more jobs. But once we start seeing the upswing in revenues we can’t be like drunken sailors and start spending everything that comes through the door. We need to plan and do a better job.
Q: Other states have incorporated policies of offering venture capital as an incubation stage for the first one to two years of a business, but Arizona does not at this time. Have you considered such a program?
Parker: I think that we should treat all businesses the same, and I think that phasing out the corporate tax and looking at other creative ways to rid ourselves of onerous regulations are the most important things we can do. There have been some states that historically have given incentives to new businesses, but once those incentives are over they leave. Business leaves those states. Now, but if you have a sound policy to treat every business the same across the board and there are good sound economic policies that will attract businesses to the state, then what happens, Hal, is that those businesses will stay here over the long run. And the incentives that we have: We have incredible weather. We have incredible opportunity for growth. We have incredible universities to draw from, so those are the incentives we need to go along with sound economic tax policy, not the treatment of one industry over another.
Q: What about your short-term plans? Budget cuts have held a tremendous toll on Arizona’s state universities, leading schools such as ASU to cut programs, raise tuition and furlough professors. Governor Jan Brewer has warned state institutions to prepare for further budget cuts of up to 20 percent later this year, which would put the state below the requirements for the federal stimulus. How would you plan to balance the state’s budget, as required by Constitutional law, while protecting the financial needs of these higher-learning institutions?
Parker: Well it’s a partnership, and I think that the presidents of the universities should be involved. You sit down with them, and you don’t dictate to them, you ask them as a partner in this grand scheme, “Let’s work together and with the legislative leadership come up with creative solutions.” The presidents of the universities know their universities better than the governor and the Legislature. When push comes to shove I think we have responsible university presidents with great reputations and they’ll do what’s best, I think, for not only the university but the state. But it’s a partnership where you’ve got to sit down and do it together.
Q: I stopped by the ASU Budget Office earlier this week and from them I received a graph showing the general fund per full-time equivalent student at ASU. And basically their whole message with this table was to show the level of funding for the 2009-2010 year, which has not been this low since 1981 — over two decades ago.
Parker: Well we’re in an economic recession such as we have not seen since the Great Depression. It’s had a devastating effect. We’ve had businesses close. We’ve printed money like it’s Monopoly money to try to stimulate the economy instead of lowering taxes. So, while I haven’t seen this chart before, it doesn’t surprise me because in order to have the resources you have to have somewhere to get it from. But we have to work to bring this number up, now that we know what it is. We have to work to bring it up and we do that by creating jobs in this state. The more corporations we can lure here, the more people we can put to work and the more people we have in the general fund to help increase this number.
Q: How long do you think it will take?
Parker: Well, it can take a while. I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight, but I think it would take one legislative session to make it happen. The effect is similar to a polio shot … or immunization; you take a series of shots, they’re painful, but in the end it saves lives. And [what] we have to do will be painful, but in the end I think it’s going to create more jobs and stimulate Arizona’s economy — and this number’s going to go away. I am an optimist. I think the best days of Arizona are in front of us, I really do. And when I see numbers like this I ask, “What can we do to increase that number,” not just, “Oh boy, well that’s just a terrible number.” It is a bad number, but we have to come up with sound policies — it gets me even more excited because we can work our way out of there.
Before we move onto the next question, you asked me a question earlier regarding what has prepared me to be governor, and you deserve a full answer. I have spent my entire life overcoming adversity. I grew up in an area replete with drugs, violence, gang activity. Snoop Dogg lived around the corner. I grew up with my grandmother, who raised me and who could barely read. In my neighborhood I could count on one hand the number of children who had fathers — that was due, I believe, to the welfare state — and I can count on two hands the number of times I had seen my own father before he died. Many people told me that failure was an option for me, that I would never succeed. But I fought, fought hard, and defied those odds. I have a lot of friends now that are dead now because of drug abuse, and that’s why I’m really firm on securing the border, because these are drugs that I have family members addicted to — strong drugs like heroine. I had a cousin die because of AIDS. Another cousin died because of a drug deal gone bad, and I’m in the middle of all that and people tell me I couldn’t make it. And I fought, fought, fought, because I knew I could make it, and I’ll do the same for Arizona. Failure is not an option. I defied the odds and I’ll do the same for the state of Arizona.
Q: I asked a couple professors and advisors what they would ask you, and many of them had the same concern. In the wake of school budget cuts — be they K-12 or higher education — humanity programs such as history and art are usually the first to go. How do you value education that cannot be privatized quite so easily — education for the sake of learning?
Parker: Well, I remember when I graduated from the eighth grade, the program that they gave us, the Ten Percent program, said, “The love of learning is the key to knowledge.” That always stuck with me, because I think we do get away from the love of learning. We are now teaching our children how to pass standardized exams and test-taking techniques instead of teaching them the beauty of literature, instead of teaching them history, instead of teaching them the principles that this country [was] founded upon. I think we need to get back to those sound principles of learning in education. I feel very strongly about that, especially for K-12. We need a lot of reform there. We have to get away from a seniority based system. For example, if I had my own company and I hired someone and they were just a wonderful employee and they came in at six in the morning and didn’t leave until six at night and barely charged me overtime because they loved what they did. Then let’s say I had another employee who had been there for 20 years, if I had to let one of them go and if I were to be chained by law to let the one go who was the last employee who I hired, it would be a very difficult thing to do. It really is. I don’t know of any corporations who promote [seniority] unless there is some sort of performance standard, not just a seniority standard. We have to look at innovative programs like Teach for America, which I believe is just one of the classiest programs around, that takes individuals from universities like ASU who would like to teach in some of the most depressed areas in the country. [Teach for America] gives them temporary teaching degrees, lets them get in there and teach, and the results are there. I remember when I was a child I didn’t have anyone at home to help me with homework. I was in a pretty advanced math class, but I couldn’t do the work because I didn’t know how and everyone else had people at home to help them. But there was a teacher by the name of Dr. Cure and he said, “Hey, get here at seven in the morning, I’ll help you.” I took the city bus, got there every morning at seven o’clock and he was there. I want to put a program out that’s called Community in the Classroom, where the Dr. Cure’s of the world, the guy who may be retired or the mother and father who may be well-versed in history and they teach their own kids at home, can come into the classroom after doing appropriate background checks to assist students and their communities. And these are things that we can do to bring back the love of learning again and take some of the burdens off some of the teachers who are out there. Because when you look at test results — I hate to talk about test results because I’m not a good test-taker [laughs]. Y’know what, Hal, I read too much into them. I don’t read them as black and white. And I’m looking at a couple things that may not sit well with the universities — but first of all, I value our universities. I think we have some of the best universities in the country and in the world, but I think we have to look to grant more people in the middle-class opportunities to send their kids to college. I think we have to look to stop the brain drain from rural Arizona. We have to look at another system and I’m in favor of looking at giving community colleges the ability to grant a two and a four year college degree.
Q: Is that what you meant during your candidacy announcement speech when you spoke of, “[giving] every consideration to a higher education system that allows public money to follow students to public colleges or universities of their choosing, including a new state college system?”
Parker: Yeah, because if you look at it now — say you live in Stafford, or you live in Yuma and you want to stay within your community, you can’t, you know? Just think if we could offer four-year nursing degrees at these institutions. Because if you look at the Philippines, their biggest import is United States nurses. And I would sit down with the current university presidents and Board of Regents to define that because you can only put so much air into a balloon before it’s going to pop. Because Arizona State cannot handle hundreds of thousands of students, but there may be desire for these people to go to school here.
Q: It’s actually very interesting that you mention all this; Arizona State has a program called Colleges@ASU that is looking into the creation of satellite campuses in various regions — Chandler being the most discussed — as a second-tier university system to provide degree opportunities in fields such as business and nursing. Would this be something you would likely support?
Parker: Well, yeah, although it’s hard to say off the top of my head without first knowing more details about the program, but I would also support places like Holbrook, Stafford, and Yuma to build facilities and grant four-year nursing or liberal arts degrees there. Because I grew up in California — we had the UC system, we had the Cal State system, and we had the community college system. I went to a community college for two years then after that I went to Cal State University at Long Beach. We had about thirty-thousand students there and then Cal State Fullerton was 15 minutes away. Cal State Los Angeles was another 30 minutes away. Cal State Dominguez Hills — we had all these Cal State schools available, they opened up the door of opportunity for poor and middle-class students to get a four-year degree and that prepared me to go to Georgetown. Without that system in place I doubt I would have been able to go to one of the California State schools.
Q: Why should ASU students, faculty, and alumni give you their votes?
Parker: If they care about the future of the state of Arizona, they will. I think the youth — this is your country, this is your future, and this is your opportunity if you want to be part of something different. This is your opportunity to say, “I am fed up with the status quo,” and this is your opportunity to take this state back and be part of something special, something that I think is going to change Arizona forever.
Q: How can they get more involved in your campaign?
Parker: www.parker2010.com or www.vernonparker.com
And boy, let me say we are not the establishment candidate, because we are going to be saying things that the establishment will not want to hear. We are going to be bold, new, innovative and fresh and if I have any dream or desire it would be to have the students of ASU jump on board early and get involved.
Reach Hal at hscohen@asu.edu
