It's Official, Brewer is Running

November 5, 2009,
Phoenix, AZ
By Bob Haran

Early today Arizona Governor Jan Brewer submitted the initial paperwork with the Secretary of State to run for election in her own right as Governor.

Brewer inherited the Governor's office in January when former Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, resigned in order to become U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration.

The duties and responsibilities of the office of Governor were not the only things Brewer inherited from Napolitano. Brewer said that she inherited a budget deficit created from years of overspending and living beyond our means.

To reduce spending and manage the budget Brewer and the Republican controlled Legislature made the largest spending cuts in Arizona history, around $1 billion.

Brewer admitted that some of those cuts were not easy to make but also said that, "tough times call for a tough leader."

In August Governor Brewer and the Republican leadership of the Arizona Legislature reached an agreement which was praised by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) as an alternative to tax, spend, and tax again. Designed to entice more employers and high-income taxpayers to Arizona and to stimulate the economy by putting more money in the hands of consumers, instead of trying to tax their way out of a huge budget deficit, Arizona would grow its way out by repealing the hated business property tax, reducing the state corporate income tax rate from 6.97% to 4.86%, and in addition, cutting all personal income tax rates by 6.6%. In exchange for the tax cuts the legislature would allow the voters to decide if they were willing to temporarily pay an extra one cent on the dollar in sales tax for two years and a half cent for a third year.

The WSJ article pointed out that economic studies have shown that states have more jobs and higher income growth when they tax consumption rather than savings, investment and business profits.

The tax and spend Democrats called the agreement a tax giveaway to big business and voted as a block against it. The package past however in the Republican controlled House but ran into trouble in the Republican controlled Senate when two extremist, anti-government senators, Pam Gorman of LD 6 and Ron Gould of LD 3, broke ranks with the Republican party and voted with the Democrats against the sales tax referral to the voters, defeating it by one vote, thereby killing the agreement and forcing the governor to veto the tax cuts. Later Gorman resigned as Senate Majority Whip, citing philosophical differences with the Republican Caucus and went on a mid-west vacation.

Jan Brewer is a conservative Republican from Glendale who was first elected to the Arizona House in 1982 and to the Arizona Senate in 1986 were she also served as Majority Whip for two terms. In 1996 she was elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and went on to become Chairman of the Board.

First elected to statewide office in 2002 as Arizona Secretary of State and re-elected in 2006. Brewer has been a Republican Precinct Committeemen since 1970 and has always been a stalwart, hard working Republican who has never lost an election.

After taking office as governor, Brewer told the Arizona Daily Star; "First I was worried, then I was concerned, and now I'm just angry to see what has happened and the irresponsible management that has led us to the brink of bankruptcy."

It seems that Napolitano knew when to abandon a ship in trouble, thankfully Brewer is made of sterner stuff and will not abandon ship because Brewer has the Right Stuff.

Bob Haran,
American Conservative Republican