From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Monday, January 11th 2010 at 9:34

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This week will provide a lot of news about how Arizona is in a horrible fiscal crisis, as the Arizona Legislature begins its 2010 regular session.

State lawmakers are facing the largest deficit by percentage..nearly 42 percent of the budget, which amounts to a little more than $10 billion. That's "billion," with a B.

There promises to be a big debate over where to cut programs and agencies, or raise taxes. Education funding is sure to be a part of whatever plan is discussed and there surely will be opposition to whatever proposals move to the forefront.

Democrats will blame Republicans for the budget mess and Republicans will pin it on Democrats. This year is also an election year, with the entire legislature and the governor's race up for grabs. Remember, incumbent Governor Jan Brewer was never elected to the office. The former Secretary of State ascended to the post when Democrat Janet Napolitano left for her Department of Homeland Security job, a position in which she's taking a lot of criticism for national security failures.

Brewer most likely will blame Democrats and her predecessor for the problems, but Democrats will fire back and say the fiscal mess got worse under the current governor's leadership. Either way, it should be an ugly, drawn-out battle. Considering Brewer will have opposition from both major political parties this election year, don't expect anything to be easy...at least when it comes to the blame game.

I predict whatever happens will not please many people, but it will sure be fun to watch, once you take out of the equation that whatever decisions are made will affect us all.

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