BOGOTA – Bogota Mayor and Americans for Prosperity New Jersey state director Steve Lonegan will be speaking to the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers (AFT) at their annual conference this weekend. Lonegan will be speaking before the AFT 2007 Friend of the Taxpayer Awards Luncheon on “The fight for taxpayers’ rights.”

Mayor Lonegan’s address will focus on taxpayers’ defeat of two questions on this year’s New Jersey ballot, including the first defeat for taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research anywhere in the nation.

Lonegan will also talk about the challenges Mayors and other part-time legislators face from a full-time force of well-funded public employee lobbyists and others demanding more tax money.

“The biggest challenge taxpayers face is how to fight back against heavily funded professional left-wingers,” Lonegan said. “Groups like the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers and others affiliated with Americans for Prosperity are oftentimes the only organizations small business owners and individual taxpayers can count on to fight for them,” Lonegan added.

Mayor Steve Lonegan is finishing his third term as Mayor of Bogota. Under his leadership, municipal spending was virtually frozen, debt was cut drastically and town tax hikes were far below inflation. Although Bogota is a Democratic town that voted for Gov. Jim McGreevey, Gov. Jon Corzine, Sen. Bob Menendez, Al Gore and John Kerry, Lonegan won re-election twice by double digit margins and helped fiscally responsible Republicans keep council control for 11 straight elections.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is the nation’s premier grassroots organization committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org