FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Friday, January 21, 2005

"Ideology Not A Budget" ...

    ... And the "ideology" is hard right (yet will be reported as "compassionate conservative"):
    As has been the case since 1999, Gov. Bush's budget is less than what it seems. Yes, he proposed a 300 percent increase for the program to keep children from smoking. That $4 million total, however, would be about $70 million less than experts believe the state should be spending. The money is there, sent to the state every year as part of the 1997 settlement with tobacco companies. But Gov. Bush, who opposed the lawsuit that produced the settlement, spends the money on his own priorities.

    Those include tax cuts. Two stand out. One would eliminate, at a cost to the state of nearly $50 million, the tax on liquor by the drink. In 1998, during the governor's campaign, an association fund-raiser brought in $250,000 for the Republican Party of Florida. In 2001, Gov. Bush tried to slip into the budget a cut in the drink tax, just after meeting with a lobbyist for the Florida Restaurant Association. The Post exposed it. Now, the governor intends to keep that promise, and then some. Don't expect any savings when you hoist a cold one.

    Nor would most Floridians benefit from phasing out the intangibles tax on non-retirement securities accounts. Gov. Bush has trimmed it for six years, and that has meant savings for the minority of Floridians with significant stock portfolios. For Floridians without those portfolios, the governor cuts most of the Medically Needy program.
    "Ideology, not a budget".

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