A fellow blogger/runner/friend wrote about his thoughts today on the whacky republicans in Arizona and their peculiar thoughts on citizenship.
His timing was impeccable as I finally read an article today that had some stats I wanted to share.
I think anyone who knows me, can guess where I stand on Arizona's immigration laws so I won't even bother addressing the lunacy.
Here's the stuff I read that i thought I'd share:
The article stated that entry into Arizona by foreign visitors has dropped by 17% year over year. It also mentioned how the large majority of foreign tourism comes from the Mexican border. Later on in the article, it says that in 2009, tourism was responsible for 2.7 (or 2.6?, I forget which one) BILLION dollars in revenue for the state.
I have to assume that $450 million (17%) shortfall translates into 2 or 3 times that amount as money usually works it's way from hand to hand, and this will eventually mean lower taxes received by the government. I can't imagine that Arizona is doing so well that it doesn't need half a billion in tourism money, since usually hotel taxes pay for many "nice to haves" that are built in cities.
The unfortunate thing is that most of the half billion dollars is lost by people who welcome foreigners so you have to assume these are not the people who are pushing for these radical (downright racist) laws. I sure wish there was a way to hurt the haters' wallets instead.
[side note: I just had a very vivid and freaky "Deja vu" feeling while typing this up! Complete with specific typos that I corrected and thinking about the note my buddy wrote. Wow!]
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