http://www.flapolitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2356The following commentary was written by Paul A. Moore, a Miami teacher. He sends his superb commentaries to a small email list, but they deserve to be more widely read.
During his eight-year reign as governor of Florida, Jeb Bush fashioned an economic time bomb. On his way out the door he lit the fuse. His handiwork will soon devastate this state and visit unprecedented suffering on its people. It will be a nightmare, part of which will imperil the public schools, the operation of local governments and the state retirement system.
Meanwhile, if he could have, Jeb Bush would have relieved Florida's wealthy persons and corporate entities of their entire tax burden. As it stands he came very near his goal. Tax loopholes created during his administration for corporate income now shelter between $500 and $600 million that was counted as revenue before. $600 million more was lost to the state when Bush eliminated the tax on intangible properties (stocks and bonds) in January 2007.
Jeb Bush tried to privatize all things profitable and make the people assume all risk associated with investment. His program gave a leg up to charter schools and turned elements of the state's water supply, public roads and social services over to wealthy investors. The lynchpin of his healthcare agenda was to turn Medicaid into a private managed health care system. That program was piloted in five counties. The Department of Children and Families was turned into a massive private gamble that money could be made off Florida's most vulnerable children.
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This fiscal year the state treasury suffered the first waves of the tsunami that is coming. The servile Florida State Legislature was called back into special session barely six months after passing a $71 billion budget to address a 1.1 billion dollar revenue shortfall. Among other things these servants of the wealthy took $100 from each of Florida's public school children to rebalance the budget. The lights had not been turned out in the Capitol Building when the Office of Policy and Budget projected an additional $2.5 billion revenue shortfall over the next 18 months.