Arizona voters will go to the polls in November to determine government leadership from the federal to the local level and will also be asked to vote on Proposition 208 a tax to fund education.

The proposition is a 3.5% tax on those with incomes over $250,000 or those filing jointly making over $500,000 for teacher salaries and education programs, Ballotpedia reported.

There could be unintended consequences to the state economic and business sector as the Goldwater Institute reported passage of the proposition would have devastating consequences on the state, negating any type of advantage to be gained. The details were identified in the Institute’s report entitled Good for Special Interests and Unions, Bad for Arizona: The Economic Impacts of Proposition 208.

“Proposition 208 will impact the state’s ability to be a national leader in economic growth over the next decade,” Senior Fellow Jim Rounds said, the Institute reported. “Arguments for additional education funding need to come from diligent research on individual budget items, not from broader generalizations about overall funding. Changes to public policy also need to be based on reliable return on investment calculations.

“Furthermore the initiative on average will produce $250 million less than projected by advocates. Thus, the promised increases in teacher pay and reductions in classroom size will be negligible. However, the economic harm from the measure will be significant. A better plan can be designed to help both the economy and K-12 education. I still remain optimistic that we can coordinate our efforts and do better.”

Among the details in regard to the damage caused by passage of the proposition is job loss to the tune of a minimum of 124,000 over the course of 10 years. To place that under a perspective, that is four times greater than the job losses suffered in the economic downturn in 2001 the Institute reported. There is a projected minimum of $2.4 billion in state and local revenue that will be lost in the decade. Complicating matters will be cuts to social services and other state services as General Fund revenues drop by $120 million per year. As Arizona small business owner recover from the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic they would be hit by another challenge as the proposition would cost the state half of its small businesses.