Rex Keeps Digging a Hole

In 2020, I ran for County Supervisor as my first foray into politics. It’s not something I’d ever desired to do, or even thought about, before then-Supervisor Ally Miller announced her upcoming retirement from the office. By the time counting was complete, out of over 130,000 votes, my campaign came up exactly 730 short. A victory by less than half a percent, however, does not give the winner a mandate. My then opponent, Rex Scott, held himself out to be a moderate and portrayed himself as a reasonable, responsible candidate. He’s had four years, and he’s proven himself to be the radical we thought he would be.

Over $100 million to house illegal immigrants? That’s just the start, not including millions of dollars the county spent in administration and ancillary costs. His signature “PEEPs” program, a glorified daycare? It’s spent more per enrollee than it would have cost just to send each kid to an existing daycare program. Our roads? Nope, he hasn’t improved them. Our crime rate? It’s getting worse under Rex. And the “Prosperity Initiative” he passed in December 2023? It’s socialist-style programs drenched in platitudes, poised to cost this county incredible sums of money we don’t have.

But here’s what is absolutely galling: Rex Scott has engaged in a shameless gaslighting campaign to convince District 1 voters that we’re better off for all the money he’s thrown around.

Who knows otherwise? The many, many District 1 neighbors who have begged me for help because the increase in county taxes is straining and draining their fixed retirement incomes, that’s who.

Across four years, according to Pima County’s own budget publications, Rex Scott has spent $1.4 billion more than he’s taken in from taxes. To put that into perspective, the county’s revenue in the year before he took office was $1.1 billion.

But Rex has repeated this bogus message that expenditures exceeding revenues is not a deficit because he’s used federal funds and credit to backfill that $1.4 billion.

Bull.

The Federal Government is presently running a record deficit. I can give you thirty-five trillion reasons why every federal dollar he’s spent is a deficit dollar. And the credit? At the beginning of September, Rex proudly proclaims, he passed another $95 million in credit, 55 million of those dollars against future sewer revenues. So here’s the deal: He’s burned through the year’s budget with too much waste, so he borrows dollars today, that we then have to repay in the future with interest. When that comes due in the future, we’ll still pay our taxes, but instead of Pima County being able to spend one dollar for every dollar we pay in sewer revenues, Pima County will have to pay debt and interest with part of every dollar, and will then need to increase sewer rates to compensate.

And Rex wants you to believe this is responsible of him.

Friends, early ballots go out in just a few days. Let’s send a resounding message that Pima County does not deserve Rex Scott’s abuse.

Thank you for all you’ve been doing for this campaign, friends, I appreciate every one of you.

Photo credit: Worm’s-Eye Photography, Creative Commons CC0