Issue Position: Grow Jobs and Economy

Issue Position

Arizona job growth comes from existing businesses, businesses relocating here and the creation of new businesses. This year my wife and I created our own small business so now I have experienced the difficulty of navigating the red tape of high regulation. High taxes and fees as well as overly burdensome regulations make it difficult to start and maintain a new business, yet most jobs come from these new business creations. We must make it easier to start new business as well as attractive for our current businesses to grow and thrive and for other businesses to relocate here if we are to have strong job growth.

Arizona not only competes with other states, but also globally for our business growth and exports. Maintaining an environment for business growth such as low corporate taxes and reasonable regulation is important, but it does not end there. We must maintain good highways and rail systems for product shipping.

Education is another area that needs improvement if Arizona is going to improve its economy as stated in the education section of the website. The current Legislature and Governor have passed a bill that will end the lawsuit of past funding and put billions of new dollars into education, but that bill must be passed by the voters on May 17th, 2016 to become law. Some of the money will come from the education trust fund of Arizona state lands which some say will hurt the future of the trust fund. From what I have seen of the new law the trust fund will continue to grow and infuse new money into education as well as end the lawsuit against the state. This is a win win situation and I am for it.

In a recent report it was reported that Arizona will have a $62 billion shortfall of transportation funds over the next 20 years. Higher education institutions and Child Protection Services are also wanting much more funding as well as several others. These are big problems looming on the horizon and must be dealt with without raising taxes. Duplicated services provided by different government departments need to be eliminated. Some services need to be streamlined, outsourced to the private sector or eliminated.

In summary we need smaller government, lower taxes and less burdensome regulations to grow jobs and help our economy. Education needs improvement and our highway and rail system infrastructure must be funded. With more and better paying jobs our tax base will improve without raising taxes while continuing the current plans to reduce corporate taxes.

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