Arizona lawmakers reached a budget deal early Wednesday morning. Arizona Week Friday analyzes what’s inside with Gov. Doug Ducey.
Interview Highlights
On the budget
“We had a little more money than we had last year. We had the first structurally balanced budget since 2007. We were able to put dollars into K-12 education, into universities, into child safety, into a veterans home. So it was a positive budget. We still live within our means, but we’re investing in the state of Arizona.”
On Prop 123’s effect on the State Land Trust Fund
“Some people are saying if we don’t spend any money out of the trust, it will be bigger 10 years from now. Well of course it will, except that it exists to help K-12 education and through proper investment, through ongoing land sales, the trust will be bigger anyway, but we’ll have more money into K-12 education.”
Arizona Freedom Schools' connection to the Koch brothers
“There are significant donors to all of our universities. Some people have a heart for the medical school, some people have a heart for different services that are taught inside our schools and others have a heart for our free enterprise system for our capitalist system of economic development and growth. So I think this is normal and customary for universities, especially public universities across the country.”
Caterpillar Inc. in Southern Arizona
“This was a real team effort lead out of the Governor’s office to present Arizona to one of the most successful companies in the world that could go wherever they want and they chose Tucson...It’s just the beginning for Southern Arizona.”
Border Strike Force
“The Federal government has neglected the border. I think anyone will tell you that in southern Arizona. We have drug cartels and human trafficking in a wide open and unprotected southern border.”
“I think as governor of the state of Arizona with public safety as the number one priority that we need to provide law enforcement with the resources they need to protect their citizens.”
Ducey family summer vacation plans
“Typically there’s a lacrosse camp, or a football camp or a hockey camp. That’s what we’re scrambling to do. We love to get away, get a little beach time. We love Flagstaff. We spend as much time as we can up north as well.”
His favorite music
“I like Springsteen, I saw my first concert when I was a sophomore in high school at Chrysler Arena in Detroit, Michigan, and I’ve seen him ever since.”
Also on the program
-The Buzz: Host Lorraine Rivera fact checks some of Ducey’s statements and reviews the Legislature’s final actions with AZPM’s Christopher Conover.
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