Destroying Florida: it's the Republican way

Okay, class. Pick up your number 2 pencils ... and ... begin:

1. You live in a state in a fiscal crisis, with municipal services being cut, state employees being laid off, and facing an additional $24 billion cut in revenue over the next five years. In addition, there's always the threat of a natural disaster, but the revenue cuts have limited your state's ability to respond adequately to a catastrophe. And you're a decisionmaker who can help influence the economic course of your state in the future. What's the first thing you do?

1. Explore options for increasing state revenue through higher taxes.
2. Propose limits on state spending by eliminating superfluous programs
3. Develop a plan to reduce the flow of state money to municipalities even further by capping revenue, making sure to exempt your hometown
4. Quit your job and move to Paraguay before the grand jury can indict you
5. None of the above

Well, if you are Duval County Tax Collector Mike Hogan, although you ought to pick "D," you choose "C." And you're a batshit crazy wingnut as well.

Hogan is a member of the infamous Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, which we discussed yesterday as a committee thereof tries to route state money to churches. This is a wholly separate proposal in which Hogan is trying to put the brakes on rampant government spending.

Wait ... we have rampant government spending in Florida? Uh, no. Quite the contrary, in fact -- our municipalities generally are damn near bankrupt. But that's not stopping Hogan and his, um, heroes:

An economist hired by the commission predicts that despite Florida's slow economy, the measure will force the state to cut $1.2 billion in taxes by the 2010-11 fiscal year and local governments to cut $375 million. While that will give taxpayers more money to spend, Miami economist Tony Villamil predicts it will also slow the state's economic engine and decrease employment.

The caps will allow people to keep more of their money, he said, but private-sector employment will rise only moderately and wages will decline. The result will reduce the state's overall economic output, he said.

Hogan modeled his original version after the controversial Taxpayer's Bill of Rights Colorado passed in 1992 and suspended in 2005. Similar proposals are being promoted in dozens of other states by conservative and libertarian groups. Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio touts it as a key component to making the state more affordable for working families.

If the amendment gets on the ballot and passes, Rubio told a group of tax cut proponents from Miami on Tuesday, "never again will government grow faster than our economy."

He predicted that Hogan's changes will be enough to win the commission's approval.

If the cap had been in place between 2001-06, Miami-Dade and Broward counties would have been forced to return billions in property-tax revenue and an undetermined amount in other revenue.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning Washington-based think tank, estimates the state would have had to reduce taxes $5.6 billion during that time.

Hogan, a former Jacksonville state legislator, says the cap is needed to let taxpayers "have some say about what they pay."

But opponents warn that Florida shouldn't make the same mistake as Colorado, which suspended its spending and revenue cap at the urging of the business community, after school funding declined from 35th to 49th in the nation, higher education spending dropped by 31 percent and money for work on roads and bridges disappeared.

Five Colorado business leaders, including leading Republicans, sent letters to members of the Florida Taxation and Budget Commission on Tuesday, urging them to reject the "rigid" formula and avoid their headaches.

Only in Florida could we model a program after another state's program THAT FAILED. And naturally the Taxpayer's Best Friend Wang's™ Bacterial Infection Marco Rubio just loves the idea. After all, he never met a destructive fiscal policy he didn't like. Plus, we've got all these bodies of water in which to drown the government! Yippee!

Marco, of course government won't grow faster than the economy if this passes. Both of them are going to shrink away to nothing ... which is what you want, isn't it?

Oh, and the best part? Hogan exempted his own city from the revenue cuts:

Hogan has excluded government-owned airports, seaport and utility services from the revenue caps. He has exempted special taxing districts, state universities and community colleges. He has carved out an exemption for cities and counties that consolidate services -- a measure that would give special benefits to Jacksonville and Duval County.

Rubio and Hogan and their cronies will stop at nothing to destroy Florida economically while simultaneously covering their own asses. If they haven't succeeded already, maybe this proposal will achieve their dream of utter ruin; if not, I'm sure they have another plan up their sleeves. People like them aren't just dangerous -- they're malicious, craven and, yes, batshit crazy.