“We’re broke” is the meme Republicans and tea baggers cite when they claim tight budgets force us to reshape social policies, such as collective bargaining agreements, or to siphon public funds and redirect resources to corporations only too happy to pocket the largesse.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott, with full support of the Republican legislature, is using “we’re broke” to justify everything from deregulating nail salons to defunding services that save taxpayers money, like group homes for the developmentally disabled.
Former Democratic Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham knows whether the emperor has clothes. He shows that tax cuts, rather than improving the business climate, are moving Florida away from its goals.
Before you read further, please note that Florida has no state income tax for its residents, and that Jeb Bush was governor from 1999 to 2007, followed by Republican Charlie Crist, and now Republican/Tea Bagger Rick Scott. Republicans have held a majority of both chambers of the Florida legislature since 1994.
…Since 1999 there has been a stream of tax reductions to make the state more attractive for investment. Absent these cuts, state revenue in 2011 would be $4 billion greater. This would have avoided the need for the deep cuts now being considered by the Legislature.
The stunning truth is that on virtually all fronts — the Legislature, the executive budget office, academics — there has been a failure to subject these cuts to the basic question: Did they work?
…How many jobs have been created and what did they contribute to the quality of life of working families?
The increase in jobs from 2000 to 2010, after the economic development stimulating tax cuts began taking effect, was 606,798. This increase was substantially less than in the two decades prior to the tax cuts: 1980-1990: 1,998,833; 1990-2000: 1,530,936.
…In terms of take-home pay, what was the quality of those jobs? Florida first achieved a long-sought goal of exceeding the national average of per capita income in 1983 when Floridians earned 100.3 percent of the national average. State workers reached a peak in per capita income in 1987 at 101.7. By 2010 that relationship reversed and Floridians earned only 96.8 percent of the national average.
After 12 years of tax cuts, there is no evidence in these numbers that the cuts have achieved their purpose of accelerating quality jobs.
If that is the case, what have we done? All of the tax cuts, particularly the total repeal of the tax on stocks and bonds, primarily benefited the upper 5 percent of Floridians, thus contributing to the enormous disparity in wealth in the United States…
Graham notes that states which have not waged war on public education faired well even during the recession.
The states which have benefited most by technology industries — such as North Carolina and Virginia — have done so not by selling themselves as the cheapest places to do business but rather as states that have built the infrastructure and the educational institutions which will most help businesses achieve sustained profitability.
…this [Florida] Legislature is on course to erase decades of investment and progress in education…Since 1990, in inflation-adjusted dollars, per student funding of the state university system from general revenue has dropped by about $4,000. These savage cuts to education expose a lack of vision for Florida’s future.
Scott and the Republicans in Tallahassee share one vision only. Government is a weapon best used to punish enemies and intimidate friends. The goal is to protect and shore up their interests.
Nowhere is that clearer than Scott’s recent announcement he will use funds for the developmentally disabled not in ways that allow members of that population to lead happy, productive lives but to warehouse them in nursing homes. The move leaves the nursing home industry, already a huge contributor to Scott’s candidacy, better able – and more deeply indebted – to fund future campaigns.
All Florida residents, whether they moved here last year or spent their lives here, worry about its future. Never has that future looked darker than it does under Rick Scott and his Tea Party minions.
Many of my European friends have looked at what is happening in Florida and are just selling out at a loss – it’s going to get worse. It’s important to remember that Florida rejected by 1% a highly competent intelligent candidate for Governor last November, Alex Sink. NO ONE complained about Rick Scott’s highly negative campaign – based on NOTHING. He refused to talk to newspapers and didn’t get many endorsements. BUT, before Jeb Bush left, he made the county Supervisors of Elections into political posts instead of professional ones, so there was much less oversight and accountability. In Sarasota county we have Kathy Dent, a self-described “Republican activist” as Supervisor of Elections. She rammed thru the purchase of Diebold machines against tough complaints, which had to be scrapped a year later at a cost of millions. She “lost” 18,000 votes which threw the race to Vern Buchanan, one of Cheney’s mobsters – and the rethuglican “state election supervisors” ruled her innocent. Last election, she and Buchanan just happened to get the same number of votes as she gave Buchanan.
Until the Dems get on the stick and fix the election mechanism, elections here and in Ohio and in most other states are a sham – we might as well be in a third world country.
And yet – they purposely ignore this problem.
I’m afraid they have all been bought…