Dear CPAZ Friends,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you in Glendale yesterday!

Arizona has a chance to set a great example for America. Arizona has the worst budget deficit in the country, on a per-capita basis, because of the huge spending increases enacted by Gov. Janet Napolitano and the Legislature during the past six years. If Arizona can resolve this crisis without raising taxes, we will do the nation a great service. Arizona can serve as a counter-example to the dangerous national trend of tax-and-spend crisis management.

Friday, June 12, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, the Arizona Chapter of Americans for Prosperity Foundation is sponsoring a Taxpayer Town Hall meeting at the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park (three miles west of 101 and W. Indian School Road). Here is a link to a map and directions:

http://www.wigwamresort.com/meetingsbrochure/map-directions-fact-sheet.html

Speakers will include Representatives Steve Montenegro and Jerry Weiers of Legislative District 12, AFPF Arizona director Tom Jenney, Goldwater Institute education policy expert Dr. Matthew Ladner, Goldwater Institute tax and budget studies director Byron Schlomach. We have made room in the schedule for more than an hour of Q&A from the public at this nonpartisan event.

Please RSVP to infoAZ@afphq.org, and let us know you’re coming. The room we have rented seats 100 people, so we need to know as soon as possible if we will need to make accommodations for more persons. There is no charge for this event.

It is very important for Tea Partiers and other Southwest Valley taxpayers to come to this event. The town hall meetings sponsored by other organizations tend to be dominated by the spending lobbies, whose members come in large numbers to beg legislators to raise taxes and spend more of your hard-earned money.

AFPF-Arizona wants to send another big THANK YOU to the thousands of taxpayer activists who came to the April 15 Tea Party at the Arizona State Capitol. You took an important stand in the fight to save our country from the Big Taxers, Big Spenders, and Big Debtors who are trying to lead us down the road toward ever-bigger government. Like you, we are fed up with tax increases, federal bailouts, mounting debt burdens on our grandchildren, and government takeovers of the private sector (including health care).

Please forward this announcement to other Southwest Valley taxpayers and Tea Partiers!

You can see a photo of a recent AFPF town hall event here:

http://www.americansforprosperity.org/042409-photo-tucson-taxpayer-town-hall-april-24

Additionally - We have to TAKE ACTION NOW to stop a gigantic tax increase.

TO CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS, GO HERE:

http://capwiz.com/americansforprosperity/issues/alert/?alertid=13465996&type=ST

Last week, the public learned that Governor Jan Brewer’s unofficial adviser, political consultant Chuck Coughlin of HighGround, has put together a coalition of corporate-welfare interest groups (“Building a Better Arizona”) to fund a $225,000 campaign to buy radio, newspaper, e-mail, telephone and ground-mail advertisements, to try to fool the public into believing that Arizona needs a tax increase, and that your hard-working legislators are mean-spirited ideologues bent on passage of “draconian” budget cuts. For more about the HighGround campaign, use this URL: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/060109-highground-campaign-raise-arizonas-taxes

Right now, these corporate-welfare interests–and the government employee unions–are pressuring your legislators to pass a budget that includes tax increases. If they can’t get the Republican majority to do it, they will try to form a new majority by teaming up with Democrats and a small handful of big-spending Republicans. That kind of Big Spender coalition has come together before: Former Gov. Janet Napolitano used that kind of coalition to pass a gigantic budget increase in 2004, and to pass a massively unbalanced budget in 2008.

If the spending interests are successful, the state would have to spend millions of dollars to put on a special election—for the purpose of raising your taxes! Governor Brewer’s latest proposal would mean raising the average Arizona household’s sales and property taxes by $1,600 over the next four years. The tax hike would go into effect at the worst possible time: during a recession, when families and businesses are suffering.

But Arizona does NOT need a tax increase to get through the current budget deficit crisis. For background on how Arizona got into this mess, and how we can get out, without raising taxes, use this URL: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/060109-background-arizonas

A tax increase in Arizona would be a defeat for conservatives around the country, as they struggle against Big Government in the Age of Obama. In the minds of conservatives around the country, Arizona is still a conservative state, with a GOP governor and legislature.

We need to stand up now and serve the country as an example of how to manage a budget deficit crisis that was caused by massive overspending. We need to do it by reducing spending. Please contact your legislators TODAY, and encourage them to hold the line against tax hikes.

TO CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS, GO HERE:

http://capwiz.com/americansforprosperity/issues/alert/?alertid=13465996&type=ST

TO INVEST IN OUR EFFORT TO DEFEAT THE TAX HIKE, GO HERE:

http://www.americansforprosperity.org/060109-invest-our-efforts-defeat-brewer-tax-hike

For Liberty,

–Tom

Tom Jenney
Arizona Director
Americans for Prosperity Foundation
(Arizona Federation of Taxpayers)
www.aztaxpayers.org
tjenney@afphq.org
(602) 478-0146