Category: Florida

Speaking of Cuba, the usual suspects are not giving up without a final panderfest: doing what they can to delay inevitable normalization, slow down history and ignore the best interests of America, Florida and the Cuban people.

In addition to presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, as well as the Díaz-Balarts and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, we now have Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying–no, boasting–that his chamber is unlikely to approve an American ambassador to Cuba. He also suggested–no, threatened–to fight Obama administration efforts to fully lift trade and travel restrictions that have limited commerce and tourism between the countries for decades.

Detente reality and July 20 embassy openings notwithstanding, some things don’t change–especially with presidential-candidate debates and primaries now looming. “Legacy-shopping” references are guaranteed.

The president says we need not remain “imprisoned by the past.” GOPster leadership, we are again reminded, is still pushing for Cold War incarceration.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, the Tampa Democrat, put the diplomatic normalization/embassy issue in proper context and priority order.

“An embassy in Havana will enable us to effectively promote American interests, protect and assist American citizens traveling to Cuba, and increase engagement with the Cuban people,” she said. “An embassy is not a gift to a foreign country, but represents a sign that two countries are committed to deepening bilateral relations.”

Indeed, two distinctly different countries with history that includes a nuclear trip wire, can reach accommodation because it’s about time and about common interest. But two distinctly different parties with history that includes a government shutdown can’t reach agreement on much of anything because it’s about polarizing politics and a gullible electorate.

If you were looking for common sense and common decency on Medicaid expansion from Tallahassee this legislative session, you probably revisited the outrage that had subsided over high-speed rail. If you were looking for help on the environment or medical marijuana or backyard shooting ranges or abortion autonomy or texting while driving, you were out of luck.

Because of the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul approach, the Legislature spent $450 million in state money to compensate for lost federal dollars and help hospitals cover the cost of charity care. Too bad we couldn’t rob the Florida House and help the working poor buy health-care coverage. It would have been both humane and business-savvy.

“Flori-duh,” as we know, doesn’t traffic in such approaches if there’s an Obamacare “entitlement” association and serious pander points up for grabs.

But if you were hoping for, say, the elimination of the sales tax on gun memberships, the status quo on “Stand Your Ground” or an insulting rebuke to President Obama on detente with Cuba, you were not disappointed.

Timing, as we well know, is everything.

Had Jeb Bush, for example, defeated Lawton Chiles in 1994, he–“the smart sibling”–would arguably have been the second President Bush. But that was then, and this is now.

“Jeb!”,as we’ve been seeing for the last fortnight,is no longer the non-candidate with the 9-figure Super PAC. He’s in early primary states and on late night comedy shows.

He’s downplaying the candidate chops of competing senators and playing up his own CEO bona fides as a former governor. And not just being the former chief executive of the nation’s biggest swing state, but being a very successful one when it comes to the economy and job creation.

It’s a major bragging point in an upcoming election where the economy, jobs and wages will likely be determinative.

Only one caveat. That Sunshine State economic track record–the one that trumps the problematic likes of FCATs, Terri Schiavo and a “Stand Your Ground” signature–must be seen in context. Timing again.

If you revered Bill Clinton’s national economy, then you also own the dot-com bubble protagonist. If you relished Jeb Bush’s Florida economy, then you also need to concede the housing-bubble momentum that impacted this state far more than most–and peaked in Bush’s last year in office.

To be precise, Florida averaged more than 4 percent annual growth under Bush, while it was 3 percent nationally. In the next four, post-Bush years, the U.S. averaged 0.3 percent growth as housing prices plunged and the recession took hold. Florida then averaged a “growth” rate of minus 2.4 percent. The double-edged housing sword cuts both ways.

Jeb was a prudent steward and intellectually rigorous, but he was also the beneficiary of a roller-coaster housing market.

Timing, as noted, matters–as we’ll be hearing during the presidential campaign.

These have not beenthe best of non-candidate times for Jeb Bush, the Zelig of presidential politics.

There’s that inexplicable matter of still not being ready for those “W”-Iraq questions. And Justice Department interest in his Right to Rise Super PAC charade. Even some corporate-adviser subplots harkening back to when he was cashing in and prepping for his political return.

But what’s likely confounding for many 2016 Florida primary voters is Bush’s potential impact on his home state. Despite being his “own man” and the moderate GOP “adult,” he has defining issues with direct Sunshine State implications.

His gubernatorial legacy includes standardized-test overkill in the disingenuous name of “accountability.”  Plus, his recent criticism of Cuban detente and his ambivalence, at best, on offshore oil rigs smacks of pandering at the expense of what’s best for Florida.

Maybe it goes with a fund-raising “non-candidate” campaign sham. His chances are not ripe for rising right now. The Jeb Bush amateur hour has been as disappointing as it’s been shocking.

Imagine, not being ready for prime time after all this preparation–and all those reminders that he was, to be sure, the “smart brother” who missed the 2000 presidential window.

One major take-away from the “Ebony and Ivory” appearance of State Sen. Tom Lee and State Rep. Darryl Rouson at last week’s Tampa Tiger Bay Club gathering: If they were typical of what we have up there, we wouldn’t have what’s up there.

As we enter a special legislative session–look for Gov. Rick Scott to keep assigning Soprano-esque blame, conjuring up “continuation” budget scenarios and soliciting ever-larger, post-campaign checks.

And, of course, taking credit: unemployment rate, down; number of WaWa jobs up.

And don’t put it past Scott to find a way (campaign-style video?) to bask in the unprecedented state of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, which hasn’t had a named-storm hit in a decade. For the first time, the Cat Fund will enter a storm season with enough cash and assets on hand ($17 billion) to pay off everything it could conceivably owe.

Now about those 800,000 uninsured, working poor…

For the Gunshine State, with its more than 1 million, potentially self-defending right-to-carriers, here’s some sobering data from the Violence Policy Center. Since 2007, at least 743 non-self-defense deaths have been attributed to individuals with permits to carry concealed weapons. These included 222 suicides. Also included: 29 mass shootings of three or more victims that resulted in 139 deaths. The death toll for police officers: 17.

It was heartening, on balance, to see some good news coming out of Tallahassee the other day when Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a measure that legalizes 64-ounce growlers. It’s considered a win for this state’s craft beer association, the Florida Brewers Guild, and that’s good for Tampa, rapidly morphing into craft-beer preeminence. The law also allows breweries to obtain up to eight vendor licenses and to open tasting rooms.

Put in context, however, it’s a reminder that the bar, so to speak, is embarrassingly low for meaningful legislation.

Much more pressing public policy issues were neutralized by a dysfunctional  Legislature. Scott signed SB 186 into growler law, but nothing on such serious priorities as health care, the environment, energy, medical marijuana, prison reform and gambling. That’s what the Do-Nothing Legislature walked out on. Anyone want to drink to that?

“Flori-duh.”

Remember when that was a regular Daily Show tag line that referred to hanging chads, voting lines, a gun culture, pet pythons, water chlorination and Rick Scott?

Then add a certain gyrocopter activist.

And this just in. The governor sued the feds over LIP and the Senate sued the House over less than lip service to its lawmaking responsibilities. The Florida Supreme Court agreed that unilaterally adjourning was, indeed, unconstitutional–as well as downright awful–but it was, well, too late to really do anything about it.

This passes for lawmaking in Tallahassee. Another day at the orifice for the asinine state. Another piñata for the Punchline State.

What just happened with the state Legislature, however, is a new low. It truly gives dysfunctional a bad name.

The House flat-out quit the session–and its statewide constituency–and went home. Rather than compromise for the sake of the uninsured working poor, it thumbed its nose at everybody who wasn’t a churlish “Obamacare” antagonist. See you in June to somehow pass a budget.

And rather than mediate–or at least appear to mediate–Gov. Scott was AWOL cutting a Wawa ribbon, opening a carnival ride and planning his next poaching trip to a state with a Democratic governor. Thanks for nothing.

As for the rest of us, we can talk about term limits and jerry-rigged districts or the need for open primaries, multimember districts and campaign finance reform, but the ongoing reality is this. While there are more than 400,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in this state, the Legislature’s GOPsters more than double the Dems–108-52. Turnout matters if voters want to turn out those whose foremost priority is ideological acolytes and fund-raisers–not what’s best for the country’s third-largest state.

Failing that, we will remain “Flori-duh.”