Opinion: All this artifice

Gov. Jeb Bush and most Republican legislators may be patting themselves on the back for the budget that was finally enacted this week, but they are too generous in their self-praise. It looks good only by comparison to the emergency cuts that had been made earlier in this year's spending. To get even that far, they had to appropriate reserves that will not likely replenish themselves by this time next year. They also raided the funds that back up environmental land-purchase bonds. The medically needy program, which helps uninsured people who have catastrophic health problems, was extended in its present form only for 10 months, not 12, in the hope that the 2003 session will be able to scrounge the rest of the money somewhere.

All this artifice was so they could cut taxes once again. However, the only cut this time was for corporations. The popular sales tax holiday was not renewed.

Awakening belatedly to the symbolic implications, the House attempted at the last moment to revive the sales tax holiday, but with a twist that was monumentally cynical even by Tallahassee's jaded standards. Instead of late July and early August, when families normally shop for school clothing and supplies, the tax-free period would have come in the week before the November election, when incumbent legislators would be shopping for votes. Only one House Republican dissented on the party-line vote that adopted this self-serving amendment. In virtually the last act of his public career, Senate President John McKay salvaged a modicum of honor for his party and his state by refusing to take up the House bill.

The senator who is to succeed McKay, Jim King, R-Jacksonville, had warned colleagues earlier that "there are not going to be many ways" to avoid raising taxes next year. That was perhaps more truth than most of them cared to hear. He said it, however, not in opposition to the budget or the corporate tax cut, both of which he supported, but on behalf of legislation the governor hopes will discourage voters from favoring an initiative to reduce class sizes. The object of the bill, which passed, is to alert voters to the potential cost of that and other ballot issues. In debate, no one seemed to make the connection between the proliferation of initiatives and the public's diminishing faith in Tallahassee.

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