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Our Leadership in Arizona has mortgaged the future of our children. Whether it is borrowing well beyond the Constitutionally set limits, selling our state buildings, or re-instituting the lottery for another 25 years just to preemptively borrow against the future proceeds; time and time again our legislature has continued to prove that they are horrible stewards of the resources given to them by we the people.

/c

Click HERE to hear Brett speak about Proposition 100.

Brett Petillo, flanked by two supporters of Proposition 100, which he opposed, at a forum at Higley High School.  Brett, the only candidate opposed to Proposition 100 that attended, stood up for fiscally conservative principles at the Prop 100 event.

Just as our Federal Government, our State has placed a reprehensible anchor of debt around the necks of our children that will deprive them of their God-give rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unless we act immediately and take control of the chaos at our state capital.

We don't necessarily have a revenue problem in our state, we have a spending problem in our state. Ten years ago, we had a billion dollar budget deficit, a Republican Governor and a Republican Legislature. From 2002 to 2009, we had a budget deficit that tripled, a Democratic Governor and a Republican Legislature, and for the last two years, we have had a Republican Governor and Republican Legislature (notice a pattern), and they just told us that the only solution to our current fiscal fiasco was a $3 billion tax increase during the worst economic time since the Great Depression. The truth is between 2002 and 2010 the projected General Fund Expenditures increased by nearly 70%, with a Republican Legislature. Had we maintained conservative principles and not allowed spending to outpace inflation and population growth, the worst our projected expenditures could have been over the same time period would have been $7.9 billion, not the projected 2010 budget of $10.8 billion. This was eventually reduced to $8.9 billion, but that was only achieved by selling our state buildings, borrowing against the lottery for the next 25 years, increasing taxes by $1 billion a year and various other gimmicks. The bottom line, our state level government is either derelict or ignorant, neither being a very good option.

We need to start by simply not spending more than we take in. We have to do it in the real world it is time for our government to live by the same rules as us all. What we can afford we do, what we can't, we do not mortgage our children's future to attain. Next, we need to stop accepting matching dollars from the Federal Government and file a suit to stop them from taking money out of the pockets of the citizens of Arizona for Unconstitutional expenditures beyond those that they were specifically given authority by the states in the United States Constitution Article 1, Section 8. By doing those two simple things we will begin the long and arduous process of stopping the insanity that is our state legislature.