For most Floridians, the best-case answer would be, "Not much." The worst-case answer would be, "Actually, you're paying more, chump."

How . . . can Scott and the Legislature give a billion in tax breaks while spending more? They can't — if they use honest numbers.

If not, they might use tricks. When Scott and the Legislature touted nearly $500 million more for education this year, they didn't say the money came mostly from higher local property taxes.

Tallahassee sets the larger of two rates on your tax bill that finance public schools. They could have lowered this rate but didn't. Next year, with property values still rising, Scott and the Legislature could raise that rate a little and get that added $700 million for education through a tax increase they hope no one will notice.

In that case, most Floridians would be paying more than whatever Scott and the Legislature might claim to be saving them through lower vehicle registration fees, sales-tax holidays and whatever Tallahassee might do next year. Behind Scott's $500 million tax-cut campaign theme was much creative math. To hit $1 billion, the math could get twice as creative.

Weekly Roundup

"Weekly Roundup: Everything Old is New Again."

Jebbie sending strong signals he'll run

"Jeb Bush and his emissaries are sending increasingly strong signals that the former Florida governor is gearing up for a 2016 presidential campaign, with associates saying he could announce his intentions within a month." "Jeb Bush sending signals that he may be getting ready for 2016 presidential run." See also "George W. Bush Looms Over Jeb's 2016 Decision."

Crossing the line

"There are several Democrats who work well with the Republican majority in the Florida Senate but Bill Montford is increasingly standing out from the pack."

"Despite his background in education, Montford does have connections to the business community. He’s a favorite Democrat for the likes of the Florida Retail Federation, AIF and the Florida Chamber and he has longstanding ties to the Tallahassee Chamber."

That’s not to say he’s a [total FlaBagger] conservative. Montford has no problem standing against the Republicans on issues ranging from prison privatization to moving state employee pensions in line with the private sector [read: no pensions].

FlaBaggers "debate" minimum wage. Really?

"Minimum Wage to Top $8, but Debate Continues."

In a remarkably odd response, our Governor seems to think the market should set the minimum wage:

In an Oct. 21 gubernatorial debate in Jacksonville, Scott supported the idea of a minimum wage, but wouldn't say what the number should be.

"How would I know? I mean, the private sector decides wages," Scott said during the debate.

Harvard study finds corruption in the Florida Legislature to be "very common"

Bill Cotterell: "Two researchers at the Harvard University Center for Ethics rated the states on both 'legal corruption' and 'illegal corruption.'"

They defined illegal corruption as giving money or gifts to a public official “in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups.” Legal corruption is a payoff “in the form of campaign contributions or endorsements by a government official … be it by explicit or implicit understanding.” That’s a more highbrow description than Tammany Hall politician George Washingon Plunkitt used more than 100 years ago for “honest graft.” That meant simply using your connections to get favors from your powerful friends. “Dishonest graft” meant using bribes or blackmail.

Our Legislature was rated a 4, “very common,” for the illegal kind of kickback.

For legal corruption, what is called “campaign contributions” — often with a straight face — Florida reporters said it was “very common” in both legislative and executive branches of government. But reporters tend to be cynical and disillusioned, especially those who’ve been around the Capitol a day or two.

No matter how many times the lobbyists say they’re only “participating in the system” by giving money to legislators, no matter how solemnly legislators insist that their votes are never swayed by political contributions, nobody believes them. Candidates for governor promise openness and transparency, legislators periodically go through paroxysms of reform, but the numbers just keep getting bigger.

Hardly a legislative session goes by that legislators don’t make another run at ethics reforms – tightening reporting requirements, changing the caps on contributions, curbing donations from some sources. They even imposed a “gift ban” on themselves, so a lobbyist can go to lunch with a legislator and deliver stacks of campaign checks from clients – but not pick up the tab for a hamburger.

"Early allies get plum jobs"

Paula Dockery: "Both Speaker of the House Steve Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner released their committee structures shortly after being officially sworn in. There were no real surprises at the top."

Their colleagues who were most instrumental in their leadership races tend to become their top lieutenants.

"Back-to-back miscues by notaries"

"Paperwork errors have opened the door to a possible gain for school-choice proponents who are supporting a challenger to former state Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, in a special Democratic primary on Tuesday."

Back-to-back miscues by notaries public kept Fullwood, who represented Jacksonville’s House District 13 until last month, from easily winning a third term. His re-election had appeared so certain that he had drawn no opponents by the end of the candidate qualifying period in June.

Now Melissa Sellers can add another top job to her resume at a relatively early age — chief of staff.

Sellers just completed her first week as Gov. Rick Scott’s chief of staff. The 32-year-old Texas native replaces Adam Hollingsworth and becomes one of the youngest people in Florida to serve in the role.

Sellers has spent much of her career working in communications or on the campaign trail. She had a reputation in Louisiana as a hard-nosed spokeswoman and was described as someone who was “quick on the draw with both her smile and middle finger” in a 2008 profile of Jindal in Esquire magazine.

Never mind

"Gov. Rick Scott pledged if voters rewarded him with a second term, he would return the favor with $1 billion in tax cuts and more spending on schools and conservation. Now, Scott and lawmakers are sorting out priorities for a dwindling supply of extra tax dollars expected to be available next year." "Scott's $1 billion tax-cut plan may take time."

Maps? What maps?

"In his first two years in the Senate, Galvano was put in charge of redistricting after a Tallahassee judge ruled the maps violated the Fair Districts Amendments. Galvano efficiently and effectively helped guide the new maps through the Senate during a special session back in August. What could have been a major disaster for Republicans during election season turned into a yawner and the new maps were approved by the judge. Galvano has to get some of the credit for that." "Bill Galvano's Star Rises in the Florida Senate."

Florida "House Republicans are politically homogeneous"

"Dana Young has worked as an attorney, taken time off to be a stay-at-home mom and then was elected a state representative for Tampa. She plans to advocate for the Tampa area this session."

Some political experts had predicted that after the November election the Legislature would start asserting its independence, at least from lockstep with the governor.

But with exactly two-thirds of the House in his hands, it’s hard to imagine how Crisafulli’s agenda could go off the rails among his own team, said Lance DeHaven-Smith, a public policy professor at Florida State University.

Unlike the Senate’s GOP contingent, the House Republicans are politically homogeneous.

Has Dubya fallen off the wagon?

"George W. Bush says that he badly wants his brother Jeb to run for president -- and that if he were to face off against Hillary Clinton, he would 'absolutely' beat her in a 2016 matchup." " href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/07/george-bush-jeb-bush-hillary-clinton_n_6284062.html." More: "George W Bush on brother's 2016 presidential aspirations: 'Run, Jeb'."

""Could there be a bigger political pariah?"

Nancy Smith asks, "Could there be a bigger political pariah in corporate Florida than Duke Energy?" "Duke Energy's New Hire Has His Work Cut Out to Rehab the Company Image."

"Jeb!" depending on the "failure of the American people’s collective memory"

"Without this failure of the American people’s collective memory, there would be no premise upon which a three-president Bush dynasty could be built. If Jeb Bush were to actually succeed in getting elected two years hence as a “healing” president, America would need to seriously reexamine the political conditions that made that possible. The Bushes, though not among the progenitors of the New Right, have already become its most direct political beneficiaries." "Jeb continues a Bush tradition: Capitalizing on GOP obstruction."

Illegal immigrants flock to Florida

"While opponents of President Obama’s Nov. 20 executive action are decrying the plan’s legal consequence and calling attention to the scourge [sic] of illegal immigrants in the country, the numbers are saying the problem is actually not as severe as in years past."

Florida, however, is one of only two states to show increased numbers.

Somehow appropriate

"Satanic Temple display approved for Florida Capitol."

Respected Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley told the Washington Examiner recently that Jeb Bush is the latest in a line of Bushes who oppose Reaganism. Radio host Mark Levin has dismissed Florida’s former governor as “a very good moderate Democrat,” while pioneering conservative activist Richard Viguerie for at least two years has been trashing Bush as a dangerous, big government Republican.

Meanwhile, much of the speculation about the 2016 presidential race lately centers on whether a moderate is a viable contender for the Republican nomination.

The governor who treated trial lawyers and teachers union leaders as enemies of the state? Who stripped job protections from civil servants? Who slashed taxes? Whose passion for privatization included enacting the nation’s first statewide private school voucher program and extended to privatizing health care for the poor, prisons and child protection services?

This “very good moderate Democrat” defied court after court to try and force the reinsertion of feeding tubes for brain-damaged Terri Schiavo and consistently backed more restrictions on abortions and fewer on gun ownership. He fought for reduced entitlement spending and, deriding nanny-state impulses, repealed the helmet law for motorcyclists in Florida and vetoed a GOP-backed bill requiring booster seats for kids in cars.

“For us who live in Florida, who experienced the eight-year Jeb Bush governorship, it’s almost laughable and maybe even hysterical for people who live outside of Florida to claim that he’s a moderate,” said former House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, himself a conservative Republican who led the opposition to Florida accepting federal money to expand Medicaid to more than 800,000 people.

Poor "Jeb!," even the wingers say he "is more about big government crony capitalism than concern for children’s education."

Powerful new documentary exposes Publix greed

Scott Maxwell reminds us that Publix

is one of the big holdouts in the corporate movement to ensure that tomato pickers get decent wages and working conditions.

[Even] Wal-Mart has agreed to pay an extra penny a pound to lift these impoverished wages.

So has McDonald's, Chipotle, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Taco Bell and others.

All of these companies agreed to pay a tiny amount extra — voluntarily — because they thought it was the right thing to do.

Narrated by Forest Whitaker and produced by "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria, the movie takes place in Florida's sun-baked tomato fields — and in front of Publix's Lakeland headquarters, where executives refused to speak with farmworkers.

The movie lays bare this country's long record of shoddy treatment of farmworkers, particularly immigrants. It shows a segment of Edward R. Murrow's famous "Harvest of Shame" report aired by CBS way back in 1960.

Things have gotten better. But sorry working conditions — and even crimes — persist.

The Coalition for Immokalee Workers says farmworkers make about 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they harvest. That means a worker who harvests 2 tons of tomatoes in a single day — 125 buckets, or 4,000 pounds — would make about $62.

Florida's fields also are littered with cases of abuse. They range from the criminal (workers being beaten) to workplace problems such as sexual harassment and insufficient shade, water or breaks.

The Fair Food Program changes all that — through voluntary cooperation.

Companies agree to pay an extra penny a pound. That money — which costs the average tomato-buying family about 40 cents a year — then goes into an audited fund that makes sure pickers get raises and that workplace-safety practices are in place.

Many companies decided it's simply the right thing to do. Florida's largest grocery chain, however, refuses.

But the movie calls baloney on that. So does common sense.

If Publix would happily pay more money, the suppliers would happily take it.

"Hard to tell what the Florida Legislature has the most disregard for"

The Miami Herald editors: "It’s hard to tell what leaders in the Florida Legislature have the most disregard for: the environment or the voters who overwhelmingly told them in November that they wanted the state’s natural resources to be protected and preserved." "The voters spoke on Amendment 1."

Except for the part it won't be a mid-term election

Bill Cotterell: "Florida Republican Party leaders happily celebrated their sweep of state elections and gains in Congress Saturday, then turned their attention to expanding GOP majorities and winning back the White House in two years."

“The 2016 campaign begins today,” state GOP Chairwoman Leslie Dougher said at the first quarterly board meeting since the elections. “The preparation must start now.”

She and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Democrat Hillary Clinton will probably run a tough, well-financed campaign with the online and volunteer forces President Obama organized to win Florida’s 29 electoral votes twice. They said 2014 “was a great year” for Republicans, with the re-election of Gov. Rick Scott and all three Cabinet officers, a gain of six seats in the Florida Legislature and winning control of the U.S. Senate — as well as electing governors in such heavily Democratic states as Massachusetts and Illinois — but that turnout will be much heavier for the presidential election in 2016.

Scott said “there is no reason” his state party can’t duplicate, in a presidential year, the off-year turnout efforts that won for him and the state legislators in 2010 and this year.

Except, Rick, for the part it won't be a mid-term election.

Solar power

The Tampa Tribune editorial board: "It seems only natural that solar power will play a meaningful role in providing for Florida’s future energy needs. The price to produce solar power is dropping as the technology for harnessing and storing the sun’s energy advances." "Clear the dark clouds over solar energy production in Florida."