A Tale of Two Bills

This is cross-posted from the Florida Progressive Coalition blog. This is just a small sampling of the absolute craziness happening in Tallahassee as I type.

I don't have too much time to blog today, so I wanted to point you to two quick and significant stories about the budget battles happening in Tallahassee.

As you might expect, Republicans in the legislature are using the shortfall in the state budget (which could have been averted by restoring the intangibles tax, reworking the corporate income tax, and/or closing unncessary tax loopholes) to destroy successful programs they have been unable to dismantle over the years. First and foremost: public financing of elections. Capital Report on Florida Public Radio reported on this last night (its the second story.) The clear ignorance and hypocrisy of Rep. Alan Hays, the Republican behind the dismantling of public financing, is on full display. You can look at the twin disasters that are Rep. Hays campaign finance bills here: HJR 281, HB 277.

Republicans in the legislature have also demonstrated their clear desire to keep the budget shortfall a shortfall, by ignoring all of the solutions I briefly discussed above. Exhibit A was when Democratic Rep. Dan Gelber tried to close a loophole that allowed multi-state corporations to avoid paying corporate income taxes (HB 1237). Here's what happened:

First, the corporate loophole bill. Presently in Florida, multi-state companies – the biggest in the world – who do business in Florida are able to essentially export their Florida profits to other states and avoid being taxed and paying their fair share of income earned in Florida. Florida-only companies are at a disadvantage because they have to pay their fair share, and Florida residents are denied the revenue that would otherwise flow from these mega companies. 21 states have closed this loophole and if Florida did it would raise $365 million dollars. My bill would have given $100 million to higher education, and the remainder to lowering property taxes. The bill failed – on a party line vote – with the Republicans arguing it would destroy business in Florida. Of course, none of the states that have closed the loophole, including New York, California and Texas, have had that problem and there is not a scintilla of proof that this would happen. In fact the top 6 locales for fortune 500 companies are the states that have closed this loophole. I found it absolutely amazing that Republicans who just last session voted to increase sales taxes nearly 3 cents have the audacity to argue that closing an unfair tax loophole for big business is somehow wrong. Relativism is alive and well in Tallahassee.

Its ironic that Rep. Gelber's responsible measure would have put $365 million back into the budget while Rep. Hays' destructive measure, destroying our public financing system, would only put around $15-20 million back. The first savings would force corporations to pay the people of Florida what they're owed, while the latter "savings" would eliminate much of the counterbalance to corporate and special interest money in Florida politics. Just peachy.

Every Floridian should know that this is how elected Republicans in Florida have governed, are governing, and will govern: use hard economic times to push through their right wing agenda, destroy government no matter the cost, and ignore any sensible solution that would help everyday Floridians in their time of need. Shame on them.