The ugly truth about our $1B rainy day fund

We tend to start a new year with optimism and revelry.

As we begin 2020, the governor and his legislative majority are certainly crowing about their engorged rainy day fund and congratulating themselves on excess revenue as a sign of responsible fiscal management, merrily labeled a “surplus.”

Their message is simple: The sun shines brightly on Arizona, government and businesses alike, because their strategy of starving state government to pay for tax cuts year after year has energized the state. Undoubtedly, there will be another clarion call this year for more tax reductions to keep the good times rolling.

This 2020 legislative session, putting political spin aside, let’s use the sun not as a garish blinding orb but instead to see behind the facade of what is labeled efficient and effective government.

The money in the rainy day fund, topping more than a billion taxpayer dollars, and the excess revenue are real. What’s also real is what lies beyond the mirage: a state that is not doing all that it should for Arizonans.

There is a cynical postulate that government functions can be reduced to incarcerate, medicate and educate. Even if we accept those three duties as government’s only functions, we clearly see how unprepared we are to deal with both the short- and long-term concerns of the state.

In every area we find a hollowing of state government. Our corrections facilities are in disrepair and overburdened. Finding people to work in these abysmal conditions becomes more difficult by the day. Just repairs alone to keep staff and inmates safe would exhaust the “surplus” instantly.

Simply renaming the Department of Corrections won’t solve the problem. We must address the systemic issues within the department and enact meaningful sentencing reform.

Our children’s schools at every level have needs that would drain the rainy day fund more than three times over. This would still leave nothing to deal with the real and immediate crises of teacher retention and recruitment. For rural communities and our aging population, health-care professionals are retiring while the number of new graduates are inadequate to meet the needs of the state.

With 20/20 vision it becomes clear how Arizona’s future has been woefully compromised. Perennial tax cuts have, by both delay and decay, crippled the infrastructure of the state in nearly every area. From the neglect of physical resources like roads and infrastructure, to the investment required for human capital to serve our most vulnerable citizens, state government struggles to provide the most basic of services.

Everywhere you take a close look at state functions — from the departments of revenue, water, health, economic security, child safety, public safety, transportation and housing — you see how fragile our government’s infrastructure is and portends to be.

The price tag of this wholesale neglect, this scam of illusion, is tens of billions of dollars. There is no short-term remedy, but at a minimum we should do as the saying goes: “When you are in a hole, at least stop digging.”

Last year’s cuts alone keep us digging the hole by another $340 million per year. It makes no sense, business or otherwise, to maintain this illusion.

Beyond the mirage, any “surplus” is the result of a deliberately atrophied state government that cannot provide the essential services needed for Arizona to grow and for its people to succeed.

In 2020, let’s at least see clearly where we are so we can prepare to go where we need to be.