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Slipping, sliding away to a backward reputation
© St. Petersburg Times, Makes you proud, doesn't it? We rank 49th among the states in high school graduation rates. We rank 38th in per-student spending. We rank 43rd in the percentage of high school students who attend college. We rank 36th in the percentage of residents with a college education. In all of these categories, Florida lost ground during the prosperous 1990s. Look. This is not the 1950s, the 1960s or even the 1970s, when all we cared about was paving over the swamps as fast as we could, and selling land to Yankees with the promise that their taxes would be low. For all those decades, our unofficial state policy was: We Don't Care About The Future. We don't care if kids go to schools in portable classrooms, or can't take home a book. Tax the tourists. Don't tax me. The state of Florida is sinking further into cheerful mediocrity. We even are taking steps backward. Who needed a centralized state university system, after all? The current governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, was only in charge for the last two years of the decade. It is not entirely his fault. But neither does he show the slightest sign of wanting to fix it. All he can do is deny the importance of the statistics. Two things from last week illustrate perfectly the fix we are in. A study from the Florida Chamber of Commerce (that wicked, wide-eyed liberal outfit) warned that unless Florida drastically improves its education system, Florida will never attract the higher-paying, high-tech jobs that it needs to compete with other states. (Speaking of good jobs, did I mention that Florida fell from 33rd to 40th in median household income? Or from 29th to 33rd for the percentage of its residents living in poverty? Or that Florida ranks last, dead last, in the percentage of scientists and engineers with doctorates in its work force?) Here was the other thing from last week: John McKay, a Republican businessman who is the president of the Florida Senate, put forward a specific plan for changing the way Florida collects taxes. He wants to close the loopholes for special interests. This would raise so much money that we could reduce the state sales tax for everybody from 6 cents on the dollar back to 4 cents. McKay wants to write this into the state Constitution, where it could not be easily changed by the whim of the Legislature. McKay's plan would not increase the state's overall tax collections for the first three years, so it would not be a "tax increase." But in the long run, Florida would be better off. Instead of just taxing tourists and retail sales, we would have a sturdier tax base, that would not fall off a cliff every time the economy coughed. So what does the business community of Florida say? Why, it hates the idea. One by one, each interest group comes forward to defend its own loopholes. For example, how can this cruel state even think of taxing agricultural feed, seed, fertilizer and pesticides? Doesn't it know how important farmers are? The same thing is being said by each industry sector in turn. We are important. We are too important to be taxed. Tax the tourists instead. The governor, and House Speaker Tom Feeney, do not like all the ink that McKay is getting. They think he is grandstanding. They have no love for his plan to rile the special interests and reform taxes -- especially in an election year, when big money will be in play. But we are not talking about liberal government spending. We are not even talking about putting the Democrats back in charge. We are talking about a sober plan by a Republican legislative leader to begin, merely to begin, to put this state on a responsible footing. It is important enough to say, here and now, that on this decision of tax policy alone, Florida will decide whether to claw and fight its way toward a better 21st century, or will willfully surrender, and slip into a red-mud, Hee Haw, banjo-picking buffoonery that it will most richly and sincerely deserve. At least Alabama will be grateful to us for taking over last place.
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Times columns today Howard Troxler Gary Shelton Sara Fritz From the Times Metro desk |
