WASHINGTON – Gilbert resident Lori Ament said she and her husband both work full time to support themselves and their 5-year-old son and are getting by. But not much more.

“We can barely afford child care which my son needed, and some regular doctors’ appointments, which meant medical care copays,” Ament said. “And I didn’t have the time or money to address my own mental health needs, and I have to work full time to even make that work.”

But help started Thursday in the form of monthly payments the IRS will begin sending to most American families with children, an advance on their 2021 tax returns that could mean up to $300 a month per child.

“Putting money in the hands of families month to month is helping them then,” Ament said. “You can’t just sit and twiddle your thumbs until February.”

The payments are part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that was signed into law in March. That bill increased the previous per-child tax credit, raised the eligibility age from 16 to 17, expanded the payment to cover families that had been excluded because they made too little, and made sure those families got the full benefit – and it’s making the payments in advance, instead of after taxes are filed.

The payments will reach an estimated 39 million households, “covering almost 90% of children in the United States,” the White House said in a June release. In Arizona, an estimated 1.5 million children are expected to benefit from the plan – 692,000 of whom were not previously covered.

“If you look at changes in tax policy in Arizona and the country, this is a really strong policy response to benefit lower-income families and children,” said Andrew Sugrue, assistant director of policy and advocacy for The Arizona Center for Economic Progress.

He said the payments are expected to cut child poverty in half nationally and by about 45% in Arizona, lifting as many 238,000 children in the state above or near the poverty line.

Several local roads are closed because of flooding, according to the Pima County Transportation Department. Recent storms have produced flash-flood warnings from the National Weather Service.

Roads closed as of Wednesday morning:

• Manville Road West of Sandario Road - all directions
• Manville Road West of Avra Road
• Sandario Road South of Desert Oasis Trail
• Avra Valley Road West of El Paso Gas Road
• Avra Valley Road East of Trico
• Jamie Avenue North of Bopp Road
• Overton Road from La Cholla to Verch Way
• Wilds Road East of Lago del Oro Parkway at the CDO Wash
• Lago del Oro from Rail N Road to Golder Ranch Road
• Silverbell Road from Sweetwater Drive to El Camino Del Cerro
• Hawser Street from Twin Lakes to Coronado Forest Drive

Congressman Raúl Grijalva called for an investigation into a facility housing migrant children in Fort Bliss, Texas after whistleblowers filed a federal complaint alleging rampant abuse and neglect.

The complaint notes that the Children housed in one of the Biden administration's largest shelters for unaccompanied migrant minors were being watched over by contractors with no Spanish-language skills or experience in child care who usually stood idly at the edge of crowded tents.

It also details lack of medical care, clothing, and regular showers for children in their care and highlights the lack of childcare experience of those working in the facility.

“These allegations are horrific and have no place in our asylum system. Children do not belong in detention, and I’ve long advocated for the closure of these types of facilities,” Grijalva said. “The Biden Administration must pursue community-based alternatives to detention that put the welfare of children first. We need an independent investigation to determine exactly what’s going on and end these inhumane practices one and for all.”

Other immigration advocates have also called for the Biden administration to end the use of emergency intake shelters like Fort Bliss and to use only facilities that operate under state licensing requirements for children, especially as the number of unaccompanied migrant children in the care of Health and Human Services has declined from over 20,000 to fewer than 15,000.

So far, HHS, which has closed some emergency intake facilities, has not announced plans to close Fort Bliss.

State lawmaker Kirsten Engel, a Democrat elected to her first term in the Arizona Senate in 2020 after serving four years in the Arizona House of Representatives, is in the race for the retiring Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s seat. (The district lines are scheduled to be redrawn before the 2022 election by Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission.) Engel is an attorney who has worked for the Environmental Protection Agency and taught environmental law at the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law. Also in the race: Engel’s fellow state lawmakers Rep. Randy Friese and Rep. Daniel Hernandez. (You can find Friese's Q&A here; Hernandez's interview will post on Friday.)

What makes you the person for the job?

I'm a mom, I am a working parent, I've lived through some of the challenges and stresses that families have faced, especially working women during COVID. And I think that gives me perspective and even more understanding of this district, and even more interested in a post-COVID recovery, so that we come back out of this pandemic stronger than ever. We have some real opportunities here. And I think, my experience—as a legislator, as an attorney, as an environmental law professor and somebody who's worked on water issues—puts me in a really good position to deal with some of the challenges we're facing. We're facing issues in terms of investing in our infrastructure. And I'd say that's both hard infrastructure—you know, roads and bridges, digital broadband, EV charging stations—but also that social infrastructure that is so critical to getting parents, moms, back into the workforce, finishing their degrees. And those are things like childcare subsidies, workforce training programs, things that really will make the difference in terms of getting families back to work. And getting people who have been left out back to work, you know, women people of color. So, that's going to be my primary emphasis.

What do you make of the ongoing audit of the Maricopa County election?

Well, I could call it something other than an audit. But I will refrain from that. But I think it's really harmful and it is really endangering our democracy. And it's really trying to and it might be succeeding and perpetuating this conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen. And that is entirely untrue. And it's also opening up citizens’ voted ballots to scrutiny by conspiracy theorists and their contractors. And I'm just concerned about the sanctity of our ballots, and could they be corrupted? And we've already heard from Secretary of State (Katie) Hobbs that the voting machines now cannot be used after they've been tampered with by the auditors. And that's costing the citizens money, that's millions of dollars. So I'm concerned with what it's saying and perpetuating this myth that there was something wrong with that with the election, as well as what it might do with respect to the concrete evidence of the 2020 election.

Were you disappointed that a proposal for a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol was blocked by a Senate filibuster?

Yes, I was. I do think that a bipartisan commission to investigate that was in order. That was a really sad day in American history. And I think that we should know more about who was behind it and who was involved with it. And it seems like that commission would have been on track to do that.

How do you grade Congress's response to the pandemic overall?

State lawmaker Randy Friese, a Democrat elected to his fourth term in the Arizona House of Representatives last year, is in the race for the retiring Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s seat. (The district lines are scheduled to be redrawn before the 2022 election by Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission.) Friese is a trauma surgeon who saved Gabby Giffords' life on Jan. 8, 2011. Also in the race: Friese’s fellow state lawmakers Sen. Kirsten Engel and Rep. Daniel Hernandez. (The Weekly will post Q&As with the other candidates later this week.)

What makes you the person for the job?

I guess it's just a sense of service I've had throughout my career with the Navy, a teacher at the medical school, a legislator who is serving my fourth term in the Arizona House of Representatives. So I think it'd be an opportunity to broaden my service to the community. I've always felt that being a trauma surgeon was community service. I looked at my legislative services as broadening that and this just takes it a step further.

What do you make of this audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County?

I find it dangerous. Very, very troubling. The people who are running the audit are not trustworthy, don't have the experience. I think Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said a few weeks ago that the Dominion machines now need to be returned and new ones need to be released before another election. It's just unfounded and dangerous.

Were you disappointed that the proposal for a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol was blocked by a Senate filibuster?

Of course. I don't understand why the senators would block a proposal that was bipartisan to start with. The commission was created with a nod towards the requests of the House Republicans that were on the developing team. The subpoena power was bipartisan, as I understand it, and there were certain things that were put in there to make people comfortable with the ability to get to the facts. This country deserves more information on how that developed, what the intentions were. We need a lot of the answers and that commission would have gotten there in a way that would make people comfortable that all points of view were respected and taken into consideration

How do you grade Congress's response to the pandemic?

I think a lot of the response to the pandemic lay in the executive branch agencies. I think Congress's response to the pandemic was voting for the funding through the Cares Act I and II and the American Rescue Plan. I think those were necessary. It was a lot of spending, but we needed to get aid and help to the American people and small businesses. And so I would look at Congress's response and probably say that it was a B-plus, getting aid out in those different plans. I would grade the executive branch a little differently until the new team came in.

How do you think the Affordable Care Act could be improved?

The intention, when the Affordable Care Act was initially passed, was to continue to work on it. In 2010, when it was passed, I believe that the Democrats in charge changed the scope of the Affordable Care Act to try to entice some Republicans to vote for it. High-risk corridors, reinsurance, those types of things, were put off to try to get some Republicans to support it. And that didn't happen. And I believe the concept was to address those in the future years. And they were unable to because the intent was then, under the new majority Republican majority—I don't know how many times they voted to try to repeal it. So I think there are things we can do to broaden the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, We need more young, healthy people using the Affordable Care Act and the exchanges to get their health care to sort of spread that risk out. And that costs, right? The more young healthy people you have buying insurance that aren't using it, the more money is available to pay for those that are older and less healthy that require the health care. So I think there are ways we can try to improve it. Absolutely. Starting with those high-risk corridors.

What did you think of the Biden administration's infrastructure proposal?

WASHINGTON – For a mostly red state, Arizona has a lot of blue-state company when it comes to states ranked by electric vehicle ownership, according to recent government data.

Arizona had 28,770 registered electric vehicles as of June, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center, the seventh-highest number among states. When ownership is measured per 1,000 residents, Arizona inches up a notch to sixth place, with just over four electric vehicles per 1,000 people.

That rate put Arizona just behind Oregon and Colorado and just ahead of Nevada and Vermont. California was in the lead by far, with 425,300 registered electric vehicles, or one for every 10.7 residents.

Arizona EV enthusiasts welcomed the ranking, which they said they have seen reflected in steady increases in group membership, but said the state can do better.

“Arizona is growing by leaps and bounds in major areas, but still struggling out there in the hinterlands,” said Jerry Asher, vice president of the Tucson Electric Vehicle Association.

He and others said the biggest challenge in Arizona, as in much of the country, is the lack of readily available charging stations for electric vehicles.

Currently, there are 385 public fast-charging plugs and 1,448 non-fast-charging plugs in the state, said Diane Brown, executive director with the Arizona Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. And many of those “are not available 24 hours a day, often making EV charging less convenient to the public,” she said.

It’s no surprise to hear last year’s monsoon was wimpy — only 0.03 inches of rain away from being the driest Tucson monsoon ever recorded, according to the National Weather Service. And while rising heat is relatively predictable, climate change seems to have a less linear impact on rainfall, with monsoons ranging from weak to powerful over the past decade. Luckily, this year’s monsoon is off to a much better start than last year.

We’re less than a week into July 2021, and Tucson has already seen more rain than in the entire month of July 2020. The National Weather Service reports that we've already seen half an inch of rain in the first few days of July, beating the 0.46 inches of rain seen throughout all of July 2020, as measured at the Tucson airport.

The contrast is even stronger when comparing Junes. This June saw 0.17 inches of rain, compared to none last year.

Since 2008, the National Weather Service has defined the monsoon as rainfall between June 15 and Sept. 30. Prior to 2008, the monsoon start date was determined when the average daily dewpoint was 54 degrees or greater for three consecutive days.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

Arizona voters support the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan, according to a new survey released this week.

The American Jobs Plan, a proposal to invest $2.2 trillion in various infrastructure programs (including repairing roads and bridges, replacing lead water pipes and improving the electrical grid), had the support of six out of 10 voters, according the survey by polling firm ALG Research. That includes strong support from 44% and opposition from 35%.

Meanwhile, the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which would provide tax credits to cover the cost of health insurance, pay for child care for kids 3-4 years old and provide two years of free community college courses, had the support of 55% of voters, while 42% oppose the proposal.

Specific elements of the two proposals enjoyed even higher support, such as improvements to roads and bridges (86% support), expanding job training programs so high-school graduates can enter the workforce without needing a college degree (83%), replacing aging lead pipes (81%), improving high-speed internet in rural communities (80%), expanding free childcare (65%) and expanding the use of clean energy (65%).

The survey also suggested Arizonans support raising taxes on Arizona’s higher earners, with 60% supporting raising taxes on Americans earning more than $400,000 to help pay for the programs. In general, 58% of those surveyed said that corporations and wealthy Americans don’t pay enough in taxes—an interesting finding, given that this week, Gov. Doug Ducey signed a state budget dramatically reducing taxes for Arizona’s top earners and shifting the state’s tax burden to the middle class.

Those surveyed balked at proposals to pay for the package with higher gas taxes, with 72% opposing such a hike or indexing the gas tax to inflation. An even higher number, 84%, oppose a new tax on the number of miles driven, while 69% oppose higher fees on toll roads.

Half of those surveyed said they’d rather see Democrats pass the proposal with higher taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans with only Democratic support, while just 24% said they’d rather see Congress pass a bipartisan plan that included higher user fees for low-income and middle-class Americans.

While Biden and Senate leaders say they have reached a compromise on a bipartisan infrastructure proposal, Republican leaders say they won't support other Biden administration proposals that Democratic leaders say they will try to pass via the reconciliation process to prevent a GOP filibuster in the Senate.

The poll surveyed 801 likely 2022 Arizona voters via telephone and text-to-web from June 2-8. The margin of error was +/- 3.5%.