Today's Lesson: The Last-Minute Hit Piece

This anonymous post on Sonoran Alliance is a great example of the classic last minute hit piece.

While in the state legislature, Schweikert supported an 8 cent tax increase on diesel fuel (reported in the Phoenix Gazette, “Jobs Riding on Reduction of Trucking Tax,” February 16, 1993, Associated Press).  This measure would have raised the tax to .26 cents a gallon, “one of the highest rates among Western states.” By way of explanation, Schweikert says “A tax collected at the pump catches all truckers equally and eliminates much of the opportunity for fraud,” said Rep. David Schweikert, R-Scottsdale, another sponsor.

Schweikert supporting a tax increase?  Give me a break.  Since I was in the Legislature in 1993 it was easy for me to smell a rat on this one.   

This bill was a TAX REPEAL.  Notice the quote is from the Phoenix Gazette?  The anonymous author conveniently used an out-of-context 15-year old quote from a defunct newspaper to try to allege that Schweikert raised taxes.  This one would be easy to debunk...if we only had access to the defunct Phoenix Gazette archives.

Of course, since the article was from the Associated Press, it ran in the Arizona Daily Star as well.  Here's a copy of the entire article. It's clear that the bill that Schweikert supported was part of a tax reduction package that was supported by the trucking industry and put through by legislative Republicans.

Bill to repeal road-use tax touted as trucker job-saver
The Arizona Daily Star - February 14, 1993
Author: Neil Bibler
The Associated Press

PHOENIX - Arizona stands to lose scores of high-paying jobs unless it gets rid of a tax that costs truckers more than double the national average and nine times what they pay California, lawmakers say.

"Truckers have been avoiding Arizona for years," says Rep. Lela Steffey, R-Mesa.

Steffey wants to repeal a road-use tax she says costs each trucker driving in Arizona an average of $13,500 a year, compared with about $5,500 nationally.

So is there anything that we can actually learn from a hit piece like this?  Yep.  Early voting starts in 3 days, Schweikert has raised nearly a million dollars and has been dropping $50k a week on TV and someone out there is getting really desperate.   

You don't even have to have access to the archives to figure that one out. 

Comments

[Jim]

Your time is about up Harry.

[Chris]

Greg- just because you voted for this bad bill along with Davey, doesn't mean this was a good idea. Lets line the pockets of big business and make all the other citizens and business pay the difference in higher diesel fuel.

Bad than and bad today!!!