NFIB issues call to action. Potentially devastating initiative must be defeated
Know the facts. Spread the facts.
Numerous surveys consistently show small-business owners as some of the most trusted people in the nation.
Your word matters.
According to the NFIB Research Foundation, the most common public affairs and political activities in which small employers engage include initiating discussions with employees regarding the impact of a policy issue on the firm.
Proposition 127 would devastate the state, its citizens, small businesses, and their employees. Use the following facts to spread the word by talking to your employees and neighbors, through social media, through traditional media via guest editorials and letters to the editor, and by organizing.
Clean Air
Clean air is everyone’s goal. Prop. 127’s financial backers, such as California billionaire Tom Steyer, act as if they’re the only ones doing anything about it. The facts say otherwise.
- According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “From 1970 to 2017, aggregate national emissions of the six common pollutants alone dropped an average of 73 percent while gross domestic product grew by 324 percent. This progress reflects efforts by state, local and tribal governments; EPA; private sector companies; environmental groups and others.”
- Arizona already has its own clean-energy initiative based on renewables. In fact, APS, the state’s largest producer of energy, is already 50 percent clean today, so adding $15 billion in unnecessary infrastructure that doesn’t even clean up the air makes no sense.
- Prop 127 doesn’t even consider the nation’s largest source of clean energy: The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.
The Cost
According to the Seidman Research Institute of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, should Prop. 127 pass, its 43-year time horizon would leave:
- $72.5 billion less in Gross State Product
- $42.6 billion less in disposable personal income
- 547,000 lost job years
- $3.5 billion less in state taxes
- $2.3 billion less in local taxes, including $1.7 billion in property taxes
- $858 million less for schools
Click here to read more of the ASU analysis.
The Worst Time
While doing very little to improve the environment, Prop. 127 will have a devasting effect on the small-business economy, just when it’s experiencing its best-ever time:
- The latest NFIB Small Business Optimism Index showed its highest reading in its 45-year history.
- As a result of that optimism, employee compensation is also at a record high, according to the NFIB Jobs Report.
- Energy costs, which Prop. 127 would increase exponentially, were also showing a downward trajectory as a small-business owner’s concern, according to NFIB’s Problems & Priorities report, a quadrennial measurement of the 75 biggest concerns small-business owners have. In the 2012 Problems & Priorities report, electricity costs came in as the 12th highest concern. By the 2016 report, that concern had dropped to 19th place. Relatedly, the cost of natural gas, propane, gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil came in No. 3 in the 2012 report. By the 2016 report, it had dropped to 34.
Learn more facts at https://votenoprop127.com/ Click here to read answers to frequently asked questions.
Help educate your employees, family, neighbors, and community. You have considerable influence.
Arizona should never be used as an experimental lab for super-wealthy Californians.