By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2010-02-05 12:17:45 | Word Count: 440
"Like a bolt out of the blue Fate steps in and sees you through When you wish upon a star Your dreams come true." - "When You Wish upon a Star," Leigh Harline/Ned Washington Life is sweet on Planet Crist, where hope is a plan.
Gov. Charlie Crist's $69.2 billion state budget proposal for 2010-11 is full of pie-eyed optimism when Florida badly needs hard-headed realism.
[ advertisement ]
The governor is counting on more federal stimulus and Medicaid money, approval by the Legislature of a Seminole gambling pact lawmakers clearly don't like and the belief that the recession is over to fund a budget that is $2.7 billion higher than the previous one.
He also assumes voters will weaken the class-size amendment to save the state money. (We think they should, but counting on it is crazy).
The governor's budget also raids trust funds and depletes reserves beyond what's reasonable in a recession emergency.
Meanwhile the governor refuses to consider layoffs, pay cuts, furloughs or increases in insurance premiums for state workers, and insists on paying bonuses to teachers.
That's not going to sit well with private-sector employers and workers who have seen their pay and benefits shrink - or their businesses go under and their jobs disappear.
The governor wants to increase spending for education, children's health insurance, Everglades restoration and conservation land purchases.
He wants to stimulate job growth by cutting taxes on corporate income and reducing an increase in the unemployment tax.
All these are fine ideas, but lawmakers across the spectrum are very skeptical about the happy income assumptions that make Crist's budget theoretically possible.
Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, the Senate president-designate, offered the refreshing view of a man who realizes that the Legislature must by law pass a balanced budget: "The Senate will be building a budget on what the actual numbers are. We know that we're in for a long, difficult road. We're going to do what we have to do without any new taxes, (and) live within our revenues."
One has to ask if Crist, in a tough fight with Marco Rubio for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination, is the kind of guy we need in Washington dealing with those much tougher budget decisions
