Wildfire prevention.
However, as reported by the Yellow Sheet, Mr. Ducey’s budget has two major reasons for serious minded individuals and legislators to pause. They are:
A reliance on the federal government to supply stimulus aid to fill the funding holes in areas like K-12 and Higher Education that the Governor does not want to do with state monies.
In other words, Ducey does not mind big government expenditures as long as he is not the one doing the spending.
A tax cut in the middle of a health pandemic. Ducey’s budget calls for a $1.2 billion tax cut over three years. Mr. Ducey clearly has not learned the lessons of Kansas and recent American Economic History.
The other pandemic: Loneliness widespread with the loss of social connections PHOENIX – The pandemic has affected different people in different ways, causing financial stress due to job loss, sliding grades, relationship pressures and worries that vulnerable loved ones could contract COVID-19. But one factor that has affected Americans across the country is the loss of social connectedness. Even before the pandemic shuttered schools, restaurants and workplaces last spring, an estimated 3 in 5 Americans reported a growing sense of loneliness, according to Cigna’s 2020 Loneliness Index. Roughly 73% of those surveyed said they sometimes or always feel alone, up from 69% in the previous year.
Tide fan frenzy, valentine volunteers, ventilator theft: News from around our 50 states From USA TODAY Network and wire reports, USA TODAY
Alabama
Tuscaloosa: Thousands of excited football fans partied in streets around the University of Alabama after the Crimson Tide defeated Ohio State for the national championship, ignoring pleas for common sense and safety at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Students and others poured out of jam-packed bars near campus as time expired in Miami late Monday, gathering on University Boulevard in an area called “The Strip,” traffic cameras and images posted on social media show. Many of the fans screaming and cheering as they pressed against each other in the street didn’t wear face masks. The scene was exactly what officials feared before the game as they urged people to watch at home and celebrate privately. More than 5,300 people have died in Alabama from the illness caused by the coronavirus, and about 404,000 hav
PHOENIX (AP) Schools that have lost students during the pandemic would see their funding cut under a proposal Gov. Doug Ducey outlined Monday in his annual state-of-the-state address, a speech that hardened his longstanding resistance to school and business closures.