"If you are here to ask for money, I 'll go ahead and scratch you off the list of presenters"...said Senator Carey Baker (R-Eustis) chairing the Lake County Legislative Delegation public hearings last week. You gotta know that the Senator has a whimsical sense of humor not unlike our resident droll politician County Commissioner Welton Cadwell!
Sad...but the tongue-in-cheek comment was true. Florida faces a whopping $5.8 billion budget deficit now and into next fiscal year...and that will cause alot of pain and hurt in our beloved state. And, if you are coming around to ask the legislature for (more) money...forget it...
Advocates for persons with disabilities' best hope is to keep the current cuts where they are and prevent further cuts after a huge 35% loss of funds over the last five years. You have to know that preventing further budget cuts as a major victory...is a sorry state of affairs for people in need. And people with disabilities are among Florida's neediest.
Let's not even get into the federal bailout of our financial institutions (and others) whose greed and avarice fueled by our own worst character defects got us into this mess...
There is no one to do a bailout of Florida except our legislators. Let's face it. Florida has been built upon the sand (quite literally) when it comes to taxation. Several respected think tanks have offered solutions to Florida's mish-mash of taxation policy but it is dobtful that anyone on the Hill will take their recommendations seriously and fix the problem.
Legislators can continue down the path of budget cuts...because they can. Or, they can figure out a better and more equitable tax structure to help ease or solve the financial crisis...because they can. Or is it "will"?
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