It is not the time to replace him with a rookie Democrat or mindless Republican droid who would rubber stamp Bush's policies -- if Bush were re-elected. That this droid could be House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, the most nakedly ambitious and duplicitous politician ever to slither out of Tallahassee, is even more disturbing.
MUST READ: "JEB!"'S LEGACY -Thanks to special-interest politics, billion-dollar corporations shoulder less of Florida's tax burden than ever, leaving consumers to carry more. "Unfair share".
HOW LONG BEFORE HE'S SINGING OUT OF THE "JEB!" HYMNAL?[Sen. Tom] Lee is the man most likely to succeed Senate President Jim King a year from now. In the past two years the Legislature has had four special sessions to deal with the budget, and it won't get easier when Lee takes over.
Some estimates of the financial hole Floridians face are as high as several billion dollars, partly because Florida's share of the federal estate tax will dry up. And the cost of reducing class sizes will continue to climb.
Lee has been sounding the alarm about the Legislature's spending habits for a couple of years. He did it again in February as Bush budget director Donna Arduin gave senators a rosy picture.
"Here we are again: building a budget that focuses on getting us out of two years, declaring victory and shifting the liability down the road to the next group of people, without the tools to resolve the problems we know are going to be there," Lee told Arduin and other lawmakers. "We're so political sometimes we don't even want to know the answer," Lee said. "Senator wants Florida to get a financial plan".
SURELY "JEB!", OUR ENVIROMENTSL GOV., WILL ACT ON THIS -Florida is one of the states that haven't weighed in with major global warming legislation. Yet, as a peninsula, it could suffer worse than most. If sea levels rise as predicted, much of South Florida could end up under water. Global warming also could produce more numerous and intense hurricanes. "States Lead Way On Warming".
PRIVATIZATION -Two private health plans said they'll care for Miami-Dade County's uninsured children for less money than the state pays now. Florida did well to accept the low bids. Now it must ensure that cost savings don't come at the expense of the children's well-being.
Come Jan. 1, 2004, Staywell and Amerigroup, for-profit firms, will assume responsibility for 25,000 children in the county's Healthy Kids program.
This, despite the fact that "Audits, surveys and monitoring by state boards have found good health outcomes and satisfied families under the current program."
FORGET THAT "WE CAN DO IT BETTER AT THE STATE LEVEL" STUFF - It's always funny to see the conservative states rights hacks running to the feds whenerver they have a problem. For example:
"There are a lot of people in Iraq who have never had orange juice," [Bob] Crawford said.
The citrus department has enlisted Gov. Jeb Bush to persuade federal agriculture officials to approve the purchase, which is estimated to cost $240 million. Bush's connections as the president's brother will be helpful, Crawford said.