by Rich Templin, Sep 25, 2007

Politics is full of old adages, little nuggets of truth like “all politics are local,” that have been repeated by the political class so many times that they have taken on the qualities of scientific laws like the law of gravity. I would like to add my own truism to the mix, one based on a question: What do you get when you elect politicians who profess their disdain for government and all taxes and run their campaigns by promising to eliminate both?

A poorly run, bankrupt government that does so little for the people that it negates the reason for having a government to begin with. This is surely true at the national level where George W. Bush and his cadre of cronies have presided over an administration that historians already are calling the worst in U.S. history, bungling through world affairs like a bull in a china shop, grossly mismanaging disasters like Hurricane Katrina and turning a historic budget surplus into the biggest national debt we have ever seen.

In Florida, we have been “blessed” by not one but two administrations guided by the Bush family philosophy. But our own personal Bush, little bother Jeb, was a little smarter, making him a lot more dangerous. Jeb Bush (or as his campaign bumper stickers would have it, JEB!) used some masterful political spin and creative accounting to hide the deleterious effects of his anti-government, anti-tax philosophy from the public until after his final term in office—but boy are we paying for it now.

The Florida Legislature is coming back to Tallahassee next week for another of its now infamous special sessions (at a cost of $40,000 to $60,000 a day charged to the taxpayer) to slash more than $1.5 billion from Florida’s budget for the current fiscal year. You see, after eight years of Jeb Bush and more than $20 billion in tax cuts for the biggest corporations and wealthiest residents, Florida is just about broke. Those of us in the union movement knew this was coming.

Any economist will tell you there are three basic sources from which taxes can be drawn—work, wealth and transactions. Florida doesn’t tax work because we have no income tax for individuals, although we did have a tax on corporate profits, but at an incredibly low rate. So that left wealth and transactions. We had a series of wealth taxes targeting only the top 1 percent to 3 percent of all taxpayers, mostly aimed at income over $1 million derived from stocks and bonds—but the overwhelming bulk of revenue has always been taxes on sales and other transactions. 

Enter Jeb Bush and the Republican takeover of the Florida Legislature. He repeatedly professed his hatred for government so he quickly privatized more than 10,000 state jobs and a myriad of services from toll roads to health care, which, as we expected, have turned out to be even more expensive than letting the public sector handle those responsibilities. He ran on an anti-tax pledge and believes in the nonsense of “trickle down economics,” so he eliminated more than $14 billion in corporate taxes in the state so that corporations like Wal-Mart currently pay very little in taxes, if any at all. He also eliminated all of Florida’s wealth taxes on individuals. This has been great for celebrity watchers as more and more of America’s rich and famous flock to Florida to avoid paying taxes, but it has cost state coffers an estimated $6 billion. 

Oh, and what about our all important last remaining source for money, sales and transactions? Well, Florida has no service tax whatsoever and with more than 300 separate exemptions from the sales tax (for things like stadium skybox seats, dock fees for big yachts and deep sea charter fishing), we now are exempt more from the sales tax than we collect! All of this led a former state economist (who resigned during Jeb’s reign) to label Florida, the “single biggest tax shelter in history.” The bottom line, according to the U.S. Census, Florida is home to one of the wealthiest populations in the state but because we don’t tax anybody—we are broke and it shows. 

Florida is ranked 48th in the nation for total per capita spending on education and 50th for higher education. We are 44th in the nation in terms of providing health care for children, 46th for overall Medicaid spending and 48th in the amount of money we draw down from the federal government from state/federal match programs like SCHIP because our own social safety net spending is so abysmal. I could go on, but you get the point. Now, the Legislature is coming back to town to slash $1.5 billion more from the budget and the knife is aimed right at these same vital programs and services, all the while pledging to “protect the legacy of Jeb Bush” (an actual quote from the floor of the Florida House) by refusing to look at new sources for tax revenue.

Florida’s labor movement has been working on this problem for years. Along the way, we have been joined by a great group of allies. Together, we will fight more cuts to our badly torn safety net next week and will work to push measures that finally begin to undo the damage done to our state and our people over the past eight years. This will be a long and difficult struggle that is sure to last well beyond the special session and into the 2008 elections. There are many lessons to be learned from Florida’s current mess. 

Here are a few. When political leaders promise they can cut taxes for the rich while not hurting services for people—don’t believe them. The rules that govern your family’s checkbook should also apply to government: Don’t buy the fancy sports car until you have taken care of your family’s basic needs. Last, and this is probably the best of the old political adages—elections  matter. By the way, Florida’s budget shortfall next year is expected to be double what it is this year. Thanks, Jeb! We’ll keep checking in right here on the blog to let you know how things are going. 

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