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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 Sunday, October 09, 2005

Welcome to the Club, Mr. Thomas

    "Jeb!" voter Mike Thomas is a little late to the dance with this long overdue observation today:
    We rank last in the nation in per-student funding for college. We are near the bottom in funding for K-12 students. Between 1992 and 2002, Florida and Arkansas were the only states to reduce spending per student when taking inflation into account. We also are billions behind in building roads and other public improvements needed to handle growth.

    Florida stitches together enough money every year to scrape by with no planning for the future. And when there has been a surplus, Jeb has aimed much of it at tax cuts that benefit the wealthy.

    These are permanent tax cuts based on temporary upswings in the economy. It is horrific policy that will haunt Florida into the future.

    The state already had one of the most regressive tax structures in the nation, meaning wealthy people pay a much smaller percent of their income in taxes here than other states.

    Reducing their minimal burden even more was a silly priority given other needs. This will be a huge problem as state revenues are predicted to slump in the next few years.

    Instead of boosting economic development, Bush's tax cuts have boomeranged. They have made the state a less desirable place for high-wage, educated workers. They want good schools more than a $23 savings on their property taxes.

    Bush brags about creating lots of new jobs here. But most are low-wage jobs that drive up the cost of Medicaid, a program that is devouring the state budget. From 1998 to 2002, the average wage in Florida has declined when compared to wages nationally. ...

    Something has to give, and, unfortunately, it has been our state. And for a solution to a crisis he helped create, Bush wants to slash education spending by dumping the class-size amendment. Wonderful.

    Maybe it is time to start building Florida right instead of cheap.
    "Playing cheap will cost state well into future".

7:43 AM

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