Ocala Star-Banner

May 9, 2010

The Great Recession isn't bad news for everybody. After all, conservative lawmakers in Tallahassee, under the guise of economic necessity, made a lot of headway toward achieving their cherished goals during the legislative session that just ended: deplete library funding, bust unions, gut environmental laws, sell off conservation lands, weaken the Public Service Commission, divert money to private schools, strip teachers of their academic credentials, thwart growth management and launch other attacks on civilization, which they claim is part of their core values.

But weren't they obliged under state law to balance the budget? Yes, but not by dipping into pensions of state workers, and trashing public services and the environment.

But that's what they were doing. And in the process, they continued to hurl Florida - already near the nation's bottom for funding social services - to the basement.

Sadly, many of our tax-phobic politicians never manage to muster the courage to point the finger of accountability at those who are the most to blame for the economic mess: themselves.

Today, 350,000 empty homes sit idle in Florida. It wasn't state workers, environmentalists or poor people who caused this disaster. Instead, you can thank our "growth at any cost and at any speed" state Legislature - dominated by the Florida Growth Machine - and a lion's share of county commissions and city councils, many of whom were financed by big business to rush land development in recent decades. The result of such greed, shameless self-interest and irresponsibility is a vast glut of vacant houses and retail space that wrecked the construction business and sank property values and, in turn, property taxes. This, plus the crimes and frauds on Wall Street, have ruined Florida's economy.

Were these lawmakers - or their kindred political spirits of the past - worried about balanced budgets when they granted all those sales-tax holidays during the peak of tourist season in recent years and reduced revenues to public services? Or, when they beat down legislative attempts to create a "service tax" or extend sales taxes to products not being taxed at the retail level? What about those flagrant tax loopholes that never get fixed? So, why is it taking so long to get a tax on bottled water-the enemy of the Florida aquifer? According to the Orlando Sentinel's Mike Thomas, there are no state taxes on, among many other things, "ostrich and racehorse feed; complimentary meals served by hotels; booze bought for taste-testings; university stadium skyboxes; religious items; Internet sales; veterinary medicines; newspaper inserts; racing dogs; railroad-bed materials; cattle-growth enhancers; and tickets for the Super Bowl ..."

These exemptions may deprive us of billions in revenues.

We don't have a state income tax, and the collection of the intangible tax in Florida was a joke. Homestead tax exemptions for just about everybody! Lately, some of the lock-step legislators were conniving ways to make it easier for developers to avoid paying their fair share of land taxes, by instead using "agriculture" tax assessments originally written to help farmers.

What do you expect - other than mindless ideological consistency - from a bunch that wants to cut taxes when the economy is bad, and cut taxes when the economy is good?

Tax-slashing ideologues in Tallahassee also keep trying to authorize elected local officials to seize our taxpayer money to help them campaign against resident ballot initiatives that corporations don't like. As Texas populist Jim Hightower recently put it on PBS, "They think they're the top dogs, and we're a bunch of fire hydrants."

Of course, the one resident initiative Florida's corporate elite really hates - and is terrified of - is Amendment 4, appearing on the upcoming November ballot. Amendment 4 will empower residents to veto any comprehensive land-use changes made by elected officials that the community doesn't want.

Amendment 4, in fact, may very well give Floridians the power to prevent future development madness that is bound to re-emerge when the recession ends.

This state belongs to all of us, even if it is ruled by the top dogs. One way to fight back against corporate power brokers and their sycophants in Tallahassee is to vote "Yes" on Amendment 4. The fact that architects of the current assault on government public workers and the public - Sen. John Thrasher, Jeb Bush and the Florida Chamber of Commerce - can't stand this idea should tell you plenty.

John M. Dunn, a member of the Smart Growth Coalition of North Central Florida, teaches social studies at Forest High.