John Shadegg: “the fundamental essence of the gentleman's question is, is this workable. I believe the answer is, indeed, clearly it is…”

“the fundamental essence of the gentleman's question is, is this workable. I believe the answer is, indeed, clearly it is workable. I think the language or the points that you make now highlight the difference between that language which is before this body today and the language of the rule, because what we have done is to let go of the original language proposed in the constitutional amendment introduced by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton] and indeed embraced a different concept. That language would have said any increase in any tax rate or any increase in the base to which a tax is applied would require a supermajority; thus, the difficulty which you found in the language. Some would argue that, indeed, that is the preferable way to go, because it would mean that not only would we hold down increases but we would stop changing the Tax Code on a daily basis. Indeed, we made some 4,000 changes of one kind or another in the Tax Code in the last decade. But that is not the language that is before us today. The language of the rule which you just raised, the language which, indeed, was constrained by rule, the legislation you referred to, is not the language that is before us today. The language that is before us today embraces the concept of revenue neutrality, and, indeed, that is the language which we put in the Arizona Constitution in 1992, and which has been placed in many other constitutions.”