The Arizona Legislature has one job left to do before they can adjourn for the year: Pass a balanced state budget that corrects a $1.8 billion deficit caused by Gov. Doug Ducey-era universal vouchers and tax cuts for the rich.

Given our divided government, it might be easier for a clown to find a needle in a haystack while riding a unicycle and playing a French horn.

It shouldn’t be this hard. Lawmakers could simply pass Gov. Katie Hobbs’ budget proposal to limit private school vouchers to students who’d attended public school in the past or stop voucher handouts to the rich.

In so doing, they’d immediately recoup $400 million to 500 million a year — shockingly close to next year’s projected deficit of roughly $676 million — and they’d be well on their way to solving their budget woes.

This puts the Legislature’s choices in sharp relief:

Choosing the first option hurts no one; choosing the second hurts everyone in the state.

Thus far, Republican lawmakers have stubbornly refused to touch the universal voucher program.

Despite the fact that the program is projected to cost nearly $1 billion this year, Republicans refuse to acknowledge that Arizona clearly cannot afford the massive new costs incurred by the vast majority of voucher students who’ve never set foot in a public school.

While states like Texas, Tennessee, and Idaho are watching Arizona’s voucher fiasco and rejecting similar voucher schemes in a bipartisan manner, Arizona Republicans doggedly refuse to rework the unpopular, unaccountable program.

Study after study shows that Arizona’s voucher program is overwhelmingly benefiting the rich, yet Republican lawmakers flatly reject any attempts to cap the program to reverse the welfare-for-the-wealthy coupon for rich private school families.

Despite new polling from the nonpartisan Center for the Future of Arizona showing 80% of Arizona voters want private schools receiving public taxpayer funds via vouchers to be held accountable, legislative Republicans obstinately ignore the public’s call to pass accountability measures.

Despite the fact that the voucher program is rife with waste and fraud, Republicans have dug in their heels and outright refuse to create any form of oversight, transparency or even basic safety measures.

Put simply: the Republicans in charge of the Legislature would rather cut services to public safety, public schools, highways, health care and universities that serve all Arizonans than reform their off-the-rails, unpopular, irresponsible voucher program.

They’d rather cut services for vulnerable children, working families and the middle class than cut off voucher funding for their rich donor class.

And they’d rather watch public schools starve in service of vouchers — almost as if that was the plan all along.

There’s still time for House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen to meet Gov. Hobbs at the negotiating table with the commonsense voucher reforms she’s proposed, instead of forcing budget cuts that will hurt everyday Arizonans.

Or they can choose to play clowns riding unicycles pretending their task is harder than it is — but Arizonans are smarter than that.

Failing to reform vouchers will spell utter defeat for Republicans at the ballot box in November.

Beth Lewis is director of Save Our Schools Arizona, which led a citizens initiative in 2018 to overturn the expansion of school vouchers. The Legislature in 2022 voted for universal vouchers. Reach her at beth@sosarizona.org.