Unless something notably dramatic happens in the next few days, the Florida Legislature will have given dereliction of duty a bad name. Real revenue-raising reform will have been shelved. The sales tax formula that worked well enough in the Leroy Collins era will remain alive and, well, grossly inadequate for a state no longer in a mega-growth mode.
So, instead of pitching those no-tax, yes-pander blinders, Florida’s legislators will have again ignored the merits of overhauling a system that countenances untaxed services, unwarranted sales tax exemptions and unbelievable inertia on untaxed Internet sales. Plus chronic toleration of corporate tax loopholes that shift income to lower-tax states, online travel companies that book hotel rooms without paying the full tourist tax and state employees that abuse the Florida Retirement System’s double-dipping provision.
It’s obscene that in the absence of revenue raising beyond trust-fund raids, some fee hikes, and tobacco and gambling taxes, Florida seems content to keep holding critical services and key institutions in abeyance, if not hostage. The gutless, vision-challenged Legislature is saying, in effect, to the residents of Florida: “Certain lobbyists matter more than you. Of course, we’re not about to get serious about equity in taxation and subsequent revenue raising. Frankly, we’d rather live in our elected-official, parallel universe and just nickel-and-dime-and-dollar the Moffitt Cancer Center, Byrd Alzheimer Research Institute, higher education, Florida Forever, the Ringling Museum of Art, high school advanced placement courses, health care, juvenile assessment centers, the guardian ad litem program and whatever else you politically puny, bleeding hearts think is important.”