Robbing from the people, giving to big business

TROXLER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published May 17, 2002

How perfect. How perfectly perfect. The epitaph of the 2002 session of the Florida Legislature is this:

Tax breaks for corporations, and the heck with the citizens.

That is the official policy of the state of Florida.

The policy of this state is that the Legislature will raise taxes on parents who are buying their children shoes, and socks, and shirts, and pants, so that the corporations of Florida can still get a fat tax cut.

As one of its final acts, the Legislature killed the late-summer "sales tax holiday," which is a tiny crumb of mercy it has tossed the citizens for these past four years. One purpose of the tax holiday was to give parents a break in buying back-to-school clothes.

You say that getting rid of a tax break for shoppers and the parents of Florida is not a tax increase? Yes, it is, by the Legislature's own definition. People will be paying more than they were paying before. That is a tax increase.

For parents.

But, by gum, not for corporations.

The Legislature made sure, above all other priorities, to cut the state's corporate income tax by $262-million.

The excuse is that robbing the state treasury will increase "investment."

In other words, it is trickle-down theory, yet one more tiresome time. The governor's father once called it "voodoo economics."

This is not "conservative."

We passed "conservative" a long time ago. We are at the point that the Legislature trips over itself to do whatever corporate Florida tells it to do -- even if it is openly hurtful to the citizens. Even if it is an election year.

That is not an exaggeration. This year's Legislature seemed to boil over with almost open hostility, even contempt, for the average citizen's ability to oppose special interests:

It gutted the citizens' ability to oppose environmentally harmful projects. We do not have to be alligators to have a stake in the Everglades.

It voted to jack up monthly telephone rates on millions of Floridians, because the telephone companies told it to. The governor vetoed it.

It tried to create phony "health insurance" for employees that wouldn't cover a lot of things. At one meeting, only insurance lobbyists were allowed to testify; citizens were gaveled down.

It created a "price tag" requirement that lets the government try to defeat citizen petitions on the ballot, by including a government-created cost estimate.

It stole money from the Preservation 2000 trust fund for other purposes, breaking a promise to the citizens that the money would be used for land-buying.

It passed a school budget that contains virtually no real increase, after inflation and growth -- and bragged about it, because the polls say that voters are getting angry about the condition of Florida's schools. Meanwhile, tuition will go up again.

It killed a comprehensive attempt to revise Florida's unfair, outdated and regressive sales tax, which allows wealthier Floridians -- who use more of their income on untaxed items -- to avoid paying a fair share.

On top of all this, the state budget is a fake, a sham. It is built on one-time money that will get the Legislature through the election, just long enough before the roof falls in.

Now the members are going to come home and ask for your vote. They are going to tell you what a good job they did.

Do you know how they will be able to afford to tell you this?

They will be able to afford billboards, and slick brochures, and even TV commercials, because the corporations that they have serviced will pay for their campaigns.

It is an open question as to how long the people of Florida will stand for this. The Legislature does not believe the voters are capable of connecting the dots.

But sooner or later, something will become the rallying point. Jacking up phone bills? Maybe. Taxing parents but not corporations? Maybe. A skinflint budget for an agency that is losing children? Maybe. Maybe.

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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