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Editorial: The key to $900-million
There's one tax bill that ought to be an easy sell even to Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida House of Representatives. It would simplify the sales tax in keeping with an agreement signed last fall by Florida, 32 other states and the District of Columbia. This is a key to collecting nearly $900-million in sales taxes that people already owe but don't pay.

Editorial: A win for free speech
By ruling that anti-abortion groups cannot be sued for extortion under the RICO law, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a significant victory to all protest groups.

Editorial: Mayoral momentum
Pam Iorio's dominance in Tuesday's first-round vote for Tampa mayor reflects the broad appeal of her campaign. Iorio captured 46 percent of the vote in a five-way race, showing an impressive depth of support across racial, economic and partisan lines. Tampa voters clearly want a new direction and a new openness from their next mayor. That Iorio and Frank Sanchez, who captured second place, proceeded to a runoff over more familiar names also points to a desire for a chief executive who can move the city forward without pitting constituencies and neighborhoods against each other.

Letters: Revote idea ought to include candidates, too
Isn't that a novel idea the governor and some legislators have come up with to solve the budget dilemma?

 

Columns today
Mary Jo Melone: Once again, Buckhorn rolls with the punches
Bob Buckhorn landed in Tampa by accident.

Christopher Goffard, Tamara Lush: Fire chief gets third Bucs tattoo
Guess where Fire Chief Pete Botto was one day after the Super Bowl?

Gary Shelton: Wanted: Fanfare of '95-96
Any day now, the passion will begin to build.

 

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.