harpers_arizona_story
A 5000-word feature in the new issue ($) by political writer Ken Silverstein starts out with a quick portrait of the comical and bumbling architectural and construction history of the state capitol.

That’s just a setup for the very long piece’s thesis statement:

The general unsightliness of the capitol makes it a fitting home for today’s Arizona legislature, which is composed almost entirely of dimwits, racists, and cranks.?Collectively they have bankrupted the state through a combination of ideological fanaticism on the Republican right and acquiescence and timidity on the part of G.O.P. moderates and Democrats.

The article alternates between depressing accounts of the state’s financial mess …

… and ever more depressing accounts of the bozos in charge of fixing it:

In January, Senator Jack Harper, an immaculately combed zealot who speaks in the patter of an harpers_coverinfomercial voiceover, submitted a bill that would allow faculty members to carry guns on university campuses, saying it was “one very small step in trying to eliminate gun-free zones, where there’s absolutely no one who could defend themselves if a terrorist incident happened.” The house passed a measure that would force President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate to state officials if he runs for re-election, as well as a bill that bars Arizona from entering into any program to regulate greenhouse gases without approval from the legislature. “There are only two ways to vote on this,” said Representative Ray Barnes of the latter initiative. “Yes, or face the east in the morning and worship the EPA because they own you.”?

The upshot: Arizona has been lowering taxes for decades, partly from a clumsy and unworking political philosophy and partly from the usual political corruption (tax breaks for big business with lobbyists), using the former as cover.

This has plainly not worked. Indeed, it’s destroyed the state’s economy.

And yet the political forces that put us here remain in power.

The full article is available only to subscribers, but the beginning of it is here.