Budget: I Told You So, and a Solution's Beginning?
Governor Charlie Crist broke ranks early on with fellow Republicans and publicly supported the $789-billion stimulus package waiting for President Barack Obama's signature. Crist contends the package "represents a sound investment in our long-term economic interests."
The Governor has every right and need to be concerned about Florida's economic future. He has recently put his signature on a more than $2-billion revision to the state budget which cut public education, juvenile public safety, health care, and services to children and the elderly. Trust funds and reserves were raided and traffic fines were increased in order to balance the budget. Service cuts included programs that potentially could have pulled down increased federal funding if the stimulus Governor Crist supports passes.
United States Representative Allen Boyd, a democrat from North Florida, expressed his concerns about Florida looking to the stimulus bill to rescue the state. With a clear edge to his comments, he told the St. Petersburg Times that the Republican led legislature "...has been reducing revenues in the last several years, and now they're coming to us (the federal government) to fund their state programs. I'm not sure how people reconcile that."
Today, Senator Evelyn Lynn (R-Daytona Beach) and Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda (D-Tallahassee) announced a new bi-partisan effort supported by unique partners that would add potentially $2 billion to $4 billion in revenue to the state budget. Their plan would close the tax loophole that keeps the state from collecting tax on out-of-state purchases, including catalog, mail order, and online sales. Closing this loophole would effectivly "level the playing field" between local and out of state merchants while bringing in much needed revenue to the state.
How did Florida get into this mess where balancing the budget meant raiding reserves and rainy day funds, taking money from children and the elderly and cutting services across the board?
It's a classic "I told you so". As long as ten years ago, in a 1999 FL Trend article entitled "Lone Voice", Larry Fuchs, Florida's chief tax collector at the time, made the case that although Florida was experiencing the largest economic expansion in its history the state was "functionally bankrupt. "
Mr. Fuchs believed that the state had created such a "rickety, unstable tax structure" that an economic decline would leave the state deep in the hole. While Fuchs was making his case, few, if any, chief policy-makers paid heed to this most qualified man.
In fact, Governor Jeb Bush's budget chief at the time stated that the administration was not ready to say there were problems with the state's tax base until it challenged all the spending assumptions on which the budget is built, including automatic appropriations to trust funds.
There-in lies a big part of the problem. Focusing on the budget as a spendingplan year after year rather than an investment plan has precipitated the current crisis with Florida's budget. Such thinking has resulted in our state being placed increasingly on the watch list of respected national watchdog groups who rank children's well-being. The reason is that Florida is falling behind in investing in educational, preventive, intervention and public safety programs and services.
We rank low in areas we should be excelling in, and high in areas that speak to our failures. Ranking at the bottom in child health but near the top in school dropouts and the number of youth in adult prisons is shameful.
Supporting the federal stimulus package without asking the Florida Legislature to invest dollars in programs that will open the valve for the federal dollars to flow to the state would be another huge and costly mistake. Looking only to the business community, as some leaders are being encouraged to do, as the primary recipient of stimulus funds and not to education, social service, and health care would under-estimate the stimulus gains to be made by a broader, more equitable investment approach.
Now more than ever is the time to invest in Florida's true infrastructure, its children. Services to children not only draw down federal funds, but investment in prevention and early intervention saves the state big bucks in the long run. Over time, the correct investments would right Florida's flagging financial ship. Making children a legislative priority and funding needed children's services creates jobs while it builds the future, including a quality, qualified workforce.
It is time to learn from the past in order to have a better future. If we don’t, we’ll be back here again, with another “I told you so”. Unfortunately, children’s lives, and Florida’s economic vitality, will have been compromised in the interim.
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