State of Defense (State of Arizona Book 1)

by Doug Ball

  “There is a right way and a wrong way to gain that position and you stand for the wrong way, Julio. I am sorry it has come to this. You have many freedoms here that are not available to you elsewhere, please use them for the bettering of our state and nation, and not for some mass movement of a dissatisfied, illegal people. We love the heritage of our state and would have you as a part of it, along with the Native Americans, blacks, Asians, and all groups, but we cannot afford to support illegals. How would you want it fixed?”

  “Open the doors and welcome all as equals.”

  “The doors are open, but they must go through the right, lawful door. I am sorry we cannot come to a partnership in this. Have you more to say to us?”

  He turned and walked out giving orders to his assistant in rapid Arizona Mexican Spanish.

  The Governor fell back in her chair, “I tried, I really tried hard to come together with that man. It’s as if he were advocating opening all the prisons and turning everyone loose. We just cannot do that. What would Mexico do if we ran all those freed prisoners over the border in their direction? I’m not saying all the illegals are criminals from Mexico in a prison sense of the word, but they cause the same burden, and frankly, many of them are hiding from Mexican law.

  “Bring it on, Mr. Villasanchez, bring it on.”

  The studios of KPHO Channel 5

  2 PM

  “Citizens of Arizona, I greet you today on behalf of all but one current member of the Arizona State Legislature.

  “We are seeing great gains since I last addressed you, four long days ago, but there is much more that is needed to be done. As you know we have become a focal point of the nation. Many states are just waiting for us to fall on our face or to succeed. Frankly, most of them don’t care which. They just want to see how it works. Succeed and they will follow, fail and they will laugh, government will continue as before, and the entire country will be bankrupt.

  “Before I get to the meat of this I want you to know I have, for the past three months, been walking around, in, and thru all the Governmental offices, state and federal, in disguise. I borrowed a wig from my sister, pulled an old house dress from the back of the closet, acquired some clunky old, out of fashion shoes, changed my makeup colors or wore - horror of horrors - none at all, going to Information windows, making phone calls, or just plain browsing through the buildings and offices. In one case I was a cleaning lady for a day. To say the least, I learned a lot.

  “Based on my research, our greatest expenditure is in Family Assistance (welfare), the second is education, and the third hardly matters after the first two.

  “I also discovered we have too many people doing nothing most of the time. We will cut Arizona government portion of our budget by 30 to 50% with layoffs from the top down. It makes much more sense to lay off or retire someone getting a large paycheck than it does to layoff someone with a small paycheck. We will cut upper level staff members by 75%. We will cut intermediary staff by 50%. Last but not least, we will cut lower levels by 25%. The top level folks already know who is leaving. They will, as their last act on the job, recommend who will be laid off at the middle levels.

  “We have done our best to consult and make decisions from a position of knowledge and not just you, you, and you are laid off. In many cases, these folks are very near retirement, which we are facilitating early. Anyone laid off with over 20 years of service to Arizona will be retired based on the current formula of years served and age.

  “We will no longer negotiate with public service unions. The government cannot negotiate with itself, for itself. That is called conflict of interest. The termination of workers who cannot or will not do their job will be streamlined. They will receive one warning, along with an improvement plan, and should they have a second offense within some period of time, they are gone. They may appeal termination within 24 hours to their boss’ superior. The superior’s decision is final

  “In the column concerning family assistance the following will be implemented.

  “All recipients of assistance in Arizona will be required to submit to a UA, Urine Analysis, and tests for alcohol and nicotine. Anyone who wants to drug, drink or smoke, get a job. It’s your choice.

  “The Department of Economic Services, Public Assistance Branch, offices will randomly call all recipients of assistance once a month for the next six months to come in to the office within 24 hours and be tested. Those homebound by written doctor’s orders will be visited randomly, prescriptions checked, and testing done. All recipients will be required to have present current prescription medicines in labeled containers with their names on them and reconcile the quantities in those bottles.

  “Everyone on our state medical plan may be required to submit to a UA each time they visit a medical provider or pay for the medical services themselves.

  “Failure of a UA will cause a retest by a more sensitive method and if that test fails, all state assistance will stop and that person will get a free ride to Druggersville, their choice of side.

  “Food stamps will only buy basic foods like flour, beans, rice, seasonings, block cheese, milk, juices, meat, fresh veggies, baby foods and cereals, TP, and the like. For a complete list check your local market tomorrow. Quick stops will no longer be included in the program. If you want frozen pizza and other prepared foods, get a job.

  “If you didn’t know, there are now 1.6 jobs for everyone on unemployment and food stamps.

  “Private day-care facilities will be opened in every community within the next 60 days. Those of you with children will get a job and, if required, place your children in your local facility. The cost to you will be a flat percentage of net pay based on the number of children with no cost over 20%.

  “All female recipients of state assistance will submit to a pregnancy test. If negative they will further submit to implanted birth control or tubal ligations. Implants will be monitored each time a UA for that individual is done. If you are unmarried and you desire to reproduce, get a job. If the female recipient is legally married and living with her husband who is unable to work, various limitations are to be implemented. If the husband is able to work, there are jobs available to pay the support of families.

  “If you live in subsidized housing, your dwelling place will be inspected quarterly without notice. If it is not clean and kept up, you are out. We can no longer subsidize the destructive and wastrel lifestyles of many of our citizens. If you want to be destructive and wasteful, buy your own home to destroy. We have neighborhoods of cheap houses, get a job and buy one.

  “Right now with the change in border security, correctional facilities, fencing of Druggersville, and maintenance of roads, parks, and playgrounds, many jobs are available to those who could not find jobs in the past. We have contractors building fences, cleaning and maintaining state facilities, and providing security who will hire you if they have an opening. Right now, all of them have openings. Our assistance budget, better known as welfare, is now focused on contracts like these.

  “One of the things that the people of Arizona must understand is that being on assistance from this point forward requires you work if you are able. The only form of assistance for the healthy and able is a job. With the availability of jobs and child care there are only two reasons to be on assistance involuntarily, you are unable to work physically or mentally. State contracted doctors will make this determination. The unable will be helped.

  “No one’s rights are being stepped on here. No one is forced to work. Each individual can make their own choices. We are no longer going to pay for the bad choices people make. I want to quote a verse from the Bible that applies here, ‘Let him who will not work, not eat’. Please note the emphasis on ‘will not’. Where there is a will, there is a way, or so my old Granny told me.

  “Some of you may say, ‘What about the catastrophes or the unexpected tragedy?’ To that I see the people of the communities and neighborhoods in our great state more than able to assist as good neighbors sho
uld and if the tragedy is a large area disaster, the state will assist with all the resources deemed necessary. We have some truly giving people and organizations that have specialized for years in meeting the needs of the downtrodden and local emergencies. They are not going to go away.

  “Should you think that making folks work on the streets and in the bathrooms of Arizona’s facilities is beneath their dignity, let them find something else. I will not remove the privilege of initiative from any citizen. The American Dream is alive and well in Arizona.

  “I can still remember a time when being on welfare was embarrassing and hidden as much as possible. Today it seems like folks brag on how much they can get from the system. Folks, the system is broken and we are going to fix it. We have to.

  “We are asking all schools to begin the Wednesday after Labor Day with teacher prep days. Students will begin the Monday following. This next school year will be a challenge. We wish to see our graduation rate at 100%, all our students meeting expectations, our teachers challenged and rewarded by the accomplishments of their students, and jobs filled with prepared young adults.

  “In order to do all of that, the following policies are now in place. Subject testing will be done at the end of each quarter. Teachers will not teach the test, they will teach the subject. All texts will be available as printouts to each school district should they wish to take advantage of the money savings. Each quarter’s text will be available on line, one book per student covering all subjects in all grades, kindergarten thru sixth, costing approximately $13 to print out and copy, and includes everything for the quarter. The district will now have the option of using our text or continuing to pay up to $100 per subject per year per book for books. Subject books for seventh grade through high school will be produced in the same manner. All of these changes mean teachers will be required to only do one thing, teach, while students will have the sole responsibility of learning. The only paperwork required after registering is a report card.

  “In order for students to move to the next quarter they must pass the test for that quarter with an 80% or higher, or have a do-over. This will require four sections of each grade/subject in every school. No students will then loose a year of their life by a ‘do over’. Where this is impractical, as in many high school classes, other methods will be put in place to ensure educated graduates of not just high school, but every class and school. The necessity of ‘required’ classes will be examined by a group of private employers and educators before the first of August.

  “Students will learn or stay in school. The freedom to dropout is available and all dropouts will be required to go to work and pay their own way. Mom and Dad are not a welfare program for illiterate, uneducated children. Truancy laws will be reinstated. Parents may educate at home with the same quarterly testing required as for public school students and upon satisfactory completion a state approved diploma will be presented in addition to their certificate of completion from the program they are using. State curricula will be made available to homeschoolers if desired.

  “Folks, all of this will require some fine tuning, and your legislature is consulting teachers, social services providers, parents, and students, along with all sectors of business and industry, in order to make this state the best educated and served state in our great nation. Arizona will no longer be held back by Federal dumbing down.

  “One piece of really great news is that our legislature will be working for free for the next two years. They have agreed to this, as have I, along with many advisors and experts in various fields. Another change in the legislature is that all bills will come directly to the floor and the committees will then present a recommendation within two session days with no privilege of stopping the bill. A preliminary discussion will take place on the floor and a vote will be taken on that day as to the worthiness of the bill. If a bill is not passed by 60 per cent majority it is dumped and cannot be reintroduced for three years.

  “We have also implemented a hot line for your suggestions. Actually two. The first is 800.555.0001, or you can use www.Arizonaideas.az.gov. I want to hear from you. I will randomly be checking your suggestions without benefit of my housedress and wig.

  “I will be addressing you again with our changes to the court system in Arizona.

  “Thank you and goodnight.”

  4

  Arizona Republic Editor’s office

  3:30 PM

  Oscar Whiting loved to stare out the window of his office and watch the city move. Phoenix was a living creature to him with its undulating pace of never ending surprises. His window was the reward of thirty two years of hard work and focus on the greater good of the largest daily newspaper in the state. Unfortunately, that newspaper was slowly dying like most other print media in the nation. Email and 24 hour news programs were slowly taking the glory from the press. Magazines were going to digital versions on an almost daily basis. How else could they keep up with the never ending stream of material out there?

  The governor’s latest speech had finished an hour ago and still he sat thinking of all that was happening. No other politician in the United States since Abraham Lincoln had stuck their neck out as far as this governor had in the past week or so, and the amazing thing was that almost the entire legislature was backing her. “Where, oh, where did they get the backbone to make these changes so drastically and so quickly?” was the thought going through his mind.

  “Where?” he said out loud.

  Turning back toward his desk, he caught the eye of the Crazy Man, Ted Fuerte, through the window to the heart of the newspaper. Giving the Crazy Man a signal to come in, he grabbed a pencil.

  They didn’t call Ted Fuerte, the Crazy Man for nothing. He had been known to do whatever it took to get a story. Some of the maneuvers he made in the past bordered on dangerous, illegal, or just plain crazy. Like the time he dressed in drag to attend a women’s rights conference where men were not allowed. Everything went well until he asked a question of one of the speakers during a break. His strong baritone voice could not be disguised. She shrieked. He kicked off his high heels and ran forgetting how slippery nylons can be, slipped and slid into a wall at the door to the stairwell. His left leg came in contact with the corner of the stairwell door and snapped just below the knee. The last thing he remembered before waking up in the hospital were the screams of the women, most of which were not complimentary and a few of them actually violent. A woman’s purse to the head was painful when she was packing a gun.

  He entered Oscar’s office with a slight limp favoring his left leg.

  “What’s up, jefe’?”

  “Get off it, peon. Grab some coffee and pull up a chair.”

  “How about some of your scotch?”

  “Later. Maybe. Right now I want to discuss what’s going on in the Capitol. Give me the man on the street opinion.”

  Ted scratched the back of his neck where the sunburn he earned while tubing the mighty Salt River was peeling. As great chunks of dead skin floated to the floor he said, “Most of the folks I’ve talked with are in favor of most of what the Gov is doing. I really think each one has a thing or two they don’t like, but are willing to put those aside because the rest is good stuff.

  “One guy I talked with last night told me he wasn’t happy with the hassle at the border, he had to stop and show ID, but that was better than the state being overrun with ‘wetbacks,’ his word, and his high taxes to pay their expenses. He also really liked the idea of Druggersville and the prison reform. It all made sense to him.

  “A lady on the elevator this morning was commenting on how much easier it was to get through the aisles at WalMart since the deportations and welfare reforms.”

  He scratched his neck again before continuing, “My deputy sheriff source told me that the Sheriff is not filling empty positions right now because he sees the need for law enforcement personnel being reduced. So, by the way, does my friend on the Phoenix PD. Just think of the savings reduced law enforcement organiz
ations will bring. One trained officer is a lot of money in salary, vehicle, equipment, retirement, insurance, the whole package. Smaller office spaces required is in there, too, and then there is the reduced court load, fewer judges, juries, and prisons.”

  Oscar refilled his coffee cup as the reporter talked.

  “The only real complaint I am hearing is around the idea of deported or departed family and/or friends.

  “Whatcha got in mind? Anything? I like what’s happening, personally.”

  The editor sipped his coffee staring into the corner of his office over the Crazy Man’s left shoulder. “Just wanted to know. Your take is the same as mine and what I have been getting from the others I talk to. I’m just waiting to see the list of law suits against Arizona.”

  “There is one thing, jefe’. My buddy on the Navajo Tribal Police has hinted there might be some unrest amongst the tribes. His cousin is a bit of a rebel, worked with the American Indian Movement for a long time. There is the possibility that the tribes will use the unrest in the state and the budget cut backs to their advantage. There has always been a group of the Native Americans who want independence from the state and Washington.

  “Another item to think on; when the law suits hit the courts, what happens then? We need someone in the court house again.”

  Ted stood up, filled his cup, and stared out the window at the newsroom.

  “I agree, but we have no budget for one and I won’t get it out of the Publisher this year unless we start selling a lot more papers. We are down another 10% in distribution since January.

  “Okay, Crazy Man, get on top of those two ideas and make us some exclusives.”

  “Got it. What’s my budget?”