Republican legislators are trying to put together a tax cut package for this session. That's not an easy job for a Legislature to accomplish without executive branch leadership.

Spending pressures are incessant, and the Legislature is more prone to succumb than the executive branch, at least when it is led by a fiscal conservative. Different lawmakers are fond of different spending programs. Unfortunately, the math of legislative deal-making in such circumstances is nearly always addition, not subtraction.

Wolf! Wolf!

There's a campaign to terrify Arizonans with a phony danger: Property taxes will eat you alive.

Homeowners are easy prey for fear right now.

Property valuations in many places have taken eye-popping jumps. In Maricopa County, the median increase was nearly 52 percent.

Some homeowners may be too rattled to remember: Property values don't dictate tax bills. Taxes are determined by local spending needs.

There is no more widely and confidently held belief about the Arizona public school system than that it has one of the highest dropout rates in the country.

A recent study by the Manhattan Institute, however, indicates that isn't true.

A Jan. 12 announcement about the first round of grants from the Science Foundation of Arizona renews our concerns about allowing this group to fund education projects with little state oversight.

Last year, the Legislature gave $35 million in tax money to the newly created private nonprofit with the intent of spurring new economic development in industries related to bio-science, medicine and cutting edge computer technology.

Pima County homeowners next week will begin receiving property assessment notices, the basis for property taxes. They can expect valuation increases of up to 25 percent, Assessor Bill Staples says.

That could mean increased property taxes. But County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said he thinks the Board of Supervisors likely will lower the tax rate, as it did last year, at least partly offsetting higher taxes caused by the valuations increases.

A bipartisan measure moving through the Arizona Legislature to cut business taxes likely would mean a higher property taxes for homeowners — at least in the short term.

HCR2037 would exempt the first $150,000 of business equipment from annual property tax levies. The move, according to Rep. Ben Miranda, D-Phoenix, would mean no tax on equipment at all for 90 percent of all firms in the state.

Rep. Michele Reagan, RScottsdale, said the change — which would require voter approval in 2008 — would encourage companies to both locate and expand in the state.

Property taxpayers across Arizona are alarmed. They have been receiving notification from county assessors across the state that the taxable value of their property is again increasing.

Their anxiety is certainly justified because experience tells them that increases in assessed value will translate into higher property taxes when local governments set their budgets.

Some taxpayers are exploring the possibility of joining a handful of tax-revolt efforts that are brewing around the state.

Valuation increases do not have to result in tax increases.

When Arizona's cigarette tax jumped from $1.18 a pack to $2 in December, Donna Dear started reminding her husband that if they quit smoking, they could afford a nice vacation.

Dear, 55, of Laveen, didn't quit, but she went from 10 packs a week to six. With Congress now weighing the biggest federal cigarette-tax hike in history, Dear said the pressure on her pocketbook may soon be enough for her to kick her 30-year habit.

"Every time you buy a pack and you see the cost, it reinforces the fact that you have to quit," she said.

Arizona leaders are doing a lot of looking for unicorns these days.

The one they are in particularly hot pursuit of is a state tax structure that isn't so subject to cyclical fluctuations.

The universities sent out a scouting party for this particular unicorn, called the Fiscal Alternative Choices Team. It recently released a field report.

The main focus among state government policymakers has been how to pay the bills next year. There are, however, side discussions taking place over how to construct a better tax system.

In fact, part of Gov. Jan Brewer's plan includes pro-growth tax changes (unspecified) to be phased in after a temporary tax increase (also unspecified) carries us past the present valley of woe.