Category: Florida

Thanks to some recent polls, we now know that Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum has a gubernatorial lead on Democrat Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and that Gov. Charlie Crist is comfortably ahead of Marco Rubio in the Republican U.S. Senate primary. The elections, lest we forget, are in November 2010.

 

What the polls have revealed is that those candidates with the most name recognition are ahead. In the case of Sink, it’s likely that there are voters, including females, who don’t even know that “Alex” is derived from Adelaide. That’s why we have campaigns, which are won’t commence for a while.

 

In the case of Crist, a career politician best known for being ideologically safe and personally pleasant, he also has the GOP establishment behind him. Rubio, the former Florida House Speaker, is attractive to the increasingly marginalized base of the incredibly shrinking Republican Party.

 

This far out, the polls could only confirm that candidates whom voters are most familiar with would be in the lead. But we already knew that.

Planning-designing-engineering firms are, by their nature, both methodical as well as flexible in their planning, designing and engineering work. They have to know construction permits, codes, guidelines and clients’ bottom-line needs and priorities – but also prevailing politics and prevalent players.

 

Now add threatened species expertise. At Florida-based WilsonMiller Inc., it’s part of making sure that clients are in compliance with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s management plan for gopher tortoises. Especially now that they’ve been uplisted by the State of Florida to a threatened species.

 

As a result, WilsonMiller can now claim three of its planners as certified Gopher Tortoise Authorized Agents, who are qualified to assess, trap and relocate gopher tortoises.

 

It’s sound environmentalism – and savvy marketing.

Good call by the Obama Administration to make budget cuts in the ineffectual, counterproductive, Miami-based Radio and TV Marti. That’s the government broadcasting network that beams ham-handed propaganda into Cuba. Quality journalism and Radio and TV Marti are considered oxymoronic by anyone outside the exile community and their right-wing political acolytes.

 

Unfortunately, the cut will only lop off about $2.5 million from the nearly $35 million budget.

 

If Radio and TV Marti really wanted to do some good, they would simply continue to underwrite the broadcast of Major League Baseball – and nothing else.

Now that it’s finally official and Gov. Charlie Crist will, indeed, run for Mel Martinez’s U.S. Senate seat, it’s already apparent what his strategy will be. That was underscored and summarized in his low-key, e-mailed announcement.

 

“Here in Florida we’ve shown that when we put people first and work together, much can be accomplished, and I intend to bring that same approach to Washington,” declared Crist. 

 

In other words, there’s a lot more mileage left in slogans, platitudes and a quintessential, nice-guy image.

 

While it obviously wasn’t all his fault, Crist will be leaving a state worse off than when he came to office. Property taxes and insurance rates never dropped like rocks, and he never considered exhuming Jeb’s bully pulpit to even try to pressure the Legislature to act financially responsible. Florida’s Ponzi-inspired, revenue-raising formula was never challenged as the state stayed fixated on one-time income paying too big a portion of recurring expenses.

 

Charlie fiddled while Florida yearned for a post mega-growth strategy. Crist doesn’t just leave unfinished business; he leaves unstarted business.

 

And who knows how long he can keeping dodging a major hurricane on his watch?

 

The usual political observers have already expressed (influence-eroding) concern about Crist’s lame duck status. What happens to his leverage? A better question: Will anyone notice a difference?

For most of its dozen years of existence, Florida’s Bright Futures Scholarships have been in the cross hairs of controversy. The ongoing, core question: Because it is not need-based, does it give too much help to the affluent? But, frankly, is that a valid enough concern when the prime objective of the program is to entice the brightest students to stay home and go to college in Florida?

 

Now the subplots are thickened by all-too-familiar, budget concerns. What was a $70-million program at inception in 1997 is now at $380 million.

 

A suggestion: If this is to be a scholarship and not a subsidy, toughen up the criteria. “Medallion Scholars,” for example, get 75 percent of their tuition and fees covered at a four-year public university or 100 percent at a state community college. The criteria: A 970 SAT and a 3.0 average. This used to be called above average – but hardly scholarship worthy. Get real. If fewer qualify, so be it.

 

Then there is the (ostensibly) skewed-priority issue that Bright Futures’ critics lambaste  when they reference the “BMW fund” or a rich kids’ “entitlement” program. Indeed, the state shouldn’t be in the business of indirectly subsidizing sorority fees or luxury cars.

 

A sliding scale, where need is a factor, could be accommodated. But only if need is far outweighed by merit and prestige. The best and brightest have plenty of options outside Florida, a state that can ill afford a brain drain. Now more than ever.

For those who think the recent sham legislative session could not have been worse, consider this: Rep. Dean Cannon is in line to be the next Speaker of the House. Recall that it was this Winter Park Republican who was the political point man for unnamed energy interests and Associated Industries in their blind-siding, under-the-radar, last-minute effort to pass a bill allowing oil drilling on the Gulf horizon line.

 

Nostalgic for the ethically challenged Ray Sansom or the merely ineffectual Larry Cretul yet?

In case you’ve forgotten, among the issues the Florida Legislature hasn’t gotten around to addressing – while it wasn’t addressing other stuff such as revenue reform – is that of drivers, especially teens, using cell phones. Oh, multiple bills were filed, so there are those who officially think preoccupied, distracted drivers are an issue, if not an unconscionable menace. But there is still no law in Florida that prohibits or limits cell phone use while driving.

 

Maybe next year. Or, like revenue reform, maybe never.

 

The need is more than manifest. After pouring over research, the National Safety Council says that cell phone use increases the risk of a crash fourfold. It equates talking on cell phones — hand-held or hands-free — with drunken driving.

 

“Public awareness and the laws haven’t caught up with what the scientists are telling us,” points out NSC president Janet Froetscher. “There is no dispute that driving while talking on your cell phone, or texting while driving, is dangerous.”

 

As a result, the NSC has called for a cell phone ban for drivers. And for the record, adds Froetscher, there are an estimated 270 million cell phone users in the U.S. – and 80 per cent of them talk on the phone while driving.

 

Then add to the equation the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s finding that teens are three times more likely than the average driver to get into a fatal crash. Also include an AAA study that showed that 25 per cent of 16- and 17-year-olds text-message while driving. And another AAA study that ranks Florida among the worst states for teenage traffic fatalities.

 

Then add common sense. Even the most vacuous, fatuous cell phone conversations can blind drivers to visual cues, slowing reaction time and situational awareness. Why wouldn’t they?

 

We all drive. We’re all on the road. We all want to protect ourselves – and our kids. If the call is that damn important, it’s worth pulling over to make it.

Florida may soon be better known for denying financial reality and deferring responsibility than promoting sunshine. The Florida Legislature is now synonymous with “parallel universe.”

 

Its legislators, led by the “no tax”-mantra GOP, tune out economists as easily as advocates for higher education, social services or wetlands protection. Reasonable revenue reform? Might as well be lobbying for an atheists’ license plate.

 

Most recently, however, Florida lawmakers had to turn a deaf ear in another direction – toward those who can’t be labeled politically partisan or priority skewed. Try Moody’s Investors Service.

 

Moody’s has looked askance at Florida because it found its financial stewardship foundering oxymoronically. It saw a state that was fixated on one-time income paying too big a portion of recurring expenses. It saw a state that lacked a plan for restoring reserves spent down to avoid an unconstitutional deficit. It saw a state that seemed to care more about slogans than solutions.

 

And then it did what bond-rating agencies do in such cases. It put Florida’s top-level Aa1 bond rating on a watchlist for a possible downgrade. One that could happen within 90 days.

 

The likely result, of course, would be Florida paying higher interest rates to borrow money. Which would mean many more millions of dollars the state doesn’t have. The Sunshine State’s perfect storm continues.  

However all of this shakes out in Tallahassee, including the specter of another less-than-special legislative session, this much seems assured: the Florida Legislature is a parallel universe. This state, which is obviously no longer in a mega growth mode, cries out for real revenue reform.

 

And yet it’s frustratingly apparent that the odds are better that a GOP-dominated body would rather work religiously on an anti-evolution bill or sectarian license plates than apply itself meaningfully to real-world priorities. Ironically, maybe a “God Help Us” plate would be all too appropriate.

 

While it’s understandable that many wax nostalgic for Gov. LeRoy Collins, no one should seek to perpetuate the sales-tax formula that dates to his era. Florida has a 10-figure budget deficit, one that will only be partly offset by the federal stimulus of $13.7 billion over three years.

 

And yet the “no-tax, yes-pander” crowd would rather consider up-front gambling money or under-the-radar-’til-the-last-minute, future oil-drilling dollars instead of equitable revenue reform. This is in addition, of course, to layoffs, service cuts, trust-fund raids, some fee hikes and more tobacco money – aka a voluntary tax.

 

Florida legislators continue to ignore the inadequate, antiquated, inequitable system that still countenances untaxed services, unwarranted sales tax exemptions and inexcusable inertia on untaxed Internet sales. Plus, the legislature remains chronically tolerant of corporate tax loopholes that shift income to lower-tax states and online travel companies that book hotel rooms without paying the full tourist tax.

 

Any wonder that Moody’s Investors Service has looked askance at Florida and put this state’s top-level Aa1 bond rating on a watchlist for a possible downgrade? The likely result of which, of course, would be Florida paying higher interest rates to borrow money. Which would translate, of course, into millions of dollars the state doesn’t have. And it could come within 90 days.

 

The Moody’s rationale: Florida is fixated on one-time income to pay too big a portion of recurring expenses. It lacks a strategy for restoring reserves spent down to avoid an unconstitutional deficit. Other than that, the Sunshine state is an avatar of financial accountability and foresight.

 

In effect, this state’s gutless, vision-challenged Legislature is telling Moody’s and the residents of Florida: “Nothing matters more than our self-serving, ideologically compromised, “no tax” mantra, and nobody matters more than certain, favored lobbyists.

 

“If we can help it — and you better believe we can — there won’t be any equity in taxation and subsequent revenue raising. Ever. It’s part of our birthright as Floridians. We’d rather gut services or drill, baby, drill. So, yeah, you can expect us to just nickel-and-dime-and-dollar higher education, health care, the Moffitt Cancer Center, Byrd Alzheimer Research Institute, the Ringling Museum of Art, Florida Forever, the Inland Protection Trust Fund, high school Advanced Placement courses, juvenile assessment centers, the guardian ad litem program and whatever else you politically puny, bleeding hearts think is so damn important.

 

“And don’t look for the ‘people’s governor’ for help. It’s not the Charlie Crist style. Besides, Jeb took the gubernatorial bully pulpit with him. Crist isn’t just ‘above the fray.’ He’s an empty suit preparing for that empty 2010 seat in the U.S. Senate. We don’t see much of him, whether we’re in or out of session. We hear he’s still waiting for insurance rates to ‘drop like a rock.’”

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.”