The gubernatorial race is perhaps the most important in the state. The ‘little president’ race, as I like to call it, is only giving us one genuine choice this year, and that man’s name is Barry Hess. Let’s discuss Barry’s political positions as well as those of his opponents to see what we’re up against.
The first thing on many Arizonan’s minds is illegal immigration. Gov. Jan Brewer has given us no specific information about how she plans to stop illegal immigration aside from completing the fence and somehow reimbursing Arizona for the burden we’ve had to bear, due to the insecure border. But tell me, Jan, with what funds are you going to reimburse Arizona? With the money the government takes from us each year?
Terry Goddard gives us a bit more information about how he protected our borders as attorney general, but the elephant in the room is that he fought symptoms and not the source. He talks about targeting wire transfers of drug cartels and seizing their assets without realizing the whole time that he could plan to end substance prohibition, thereby cutting off the cartels’ entirety of funds at once.
Barry Hess wants to end the War on Drugs, and gives voters a 6-level platform from which he’ll protect the borders. These levels include a series of signs pointing toward non-lethal passive denial systems that, he states, will be effectively self-funded. Real, concrete plans from a politician without rhetoric? I’ve never seen anything like it.
The second topic voters are most concerned about is the economy and jobs.
Jan Brewer talks about cutting taxes and making government smaller, using the proper etiquette that has been taught to George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and other empty suits of the like, yet her website is seemingly dedicated to how she’ll use the government to plan the economy she previously helped to ruin.
Terry Goddard, again, outdoes Brewer by providing a 10-page plan for economic recovery that he hopes will help set up a cooperative lending program between banks and private investors in order to provide small loans to entrepreneurs while also proposing a 50-percent income tax credit for losses.
This isn’t exactly a tax cut for success, but perhaps it will spur more investment in Arizona, which is a start. However, he also talks about issuing a partnership between the state and the private sector, which, I’m afraid, will lead to artificially low interest rates in the future if too much central planning is happening from the government’s side of the deal.
And while some parts of Goddard’s plan aren’t too bad, Barry Hess ushers along our realization that his understanding of economics and ethics is solid. Other candidates will tell us that we can get through this “Depression” easily, but we can’t, and Barry openly admits it. He realizes the government’s best economic policy is to get out of the way so working citizens can fix what the bureaucrats caused in the first place. Just one of these propositions is a flat transaction tax for all wholesale and retail sales topping off at 10 percent, both eliminating deficit spending while providing financial privacy to individuals as directed in the Fourth Amendment.
My unwavering faith will continue to stand with Barry Hess as the most prepared and constitutionally responsible candidate of this gubernatorial race, and I hope you will all support him at the polls on Election Day.
Reach Brian at brian.p.anderson@asu.edu
