In this week's cover story, which you can read here, Jim Nintzel examines the newly passed-and-signed state budget.
The budget is awful. It will harm our already shaky education system. It will eliminate child-care options for many lower-income parents. And it may very well put to a halt Arizona's fledgling economic recovery by killing jobs in the health-care, education and day-care sectors.
But these short-sighted cuts aren't the worst aspect of this budget, as bad as these cuts are.
The worst aspect involves how the budget was enacted: It was rushed through, with little public debate. In other words, our public officials basically didn't allow the people who placed them in office to have a say.
This is not how we should be governed.
People who voted in these Republicans—even if they agree with everything that the Legislature has done this session—need to ask themselves: Is it right for our elected leaders to be avoiding public input and acting with such secrecy?
• In other news: Due to a technical glitch (involving the editor's brain; everything else is working fantastically), we left the Folk category off of our Tucson Area Music Awards (TAMMIES) ballot during the first six days of voting.
If you have not yet gone to TucsonWeekly.com or TAMMIES.com to fill out your TAMMIES ballot, no worries; the category is now there. If you did already vote (before the morning of Tuesday, April 19), and you want to add in your two cents in the Folk category, go back to the ballot and log in to your TucsonWeekly.com account; you should then be able to access your ballot, which now includes the Folk category.
Sorry for the goof.
