What not to do, again

For the third straight year, the Legislature confronts some painful choices as it writes the state budget, and those decisions are likely to be felt by every man, woman and child in Florida.

The state's debt level of $24 billion is precariously high. A growing Medicaid caseload now swallows more than 25 percent of the entire budget. And billions of federal stimulus dollars will soon flame out, leaving a gaping hole of unfunded programs on the horizon.

Even unadjusted for inflation, today's budget is about $7 billion less than it was a few years ago. After wave after wave of cuts, and an infusion of $5.5 billion in stimulus money this year alone, lawmakers say they must cut more.

"If I don't make reductions," said Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, "I have made it far more difficult for a family to make ends meet."

Florida's Constitution requires a balanced budget. When cash runs dry, lawmakers can't print money. They must cut expenses or raise taxes. Because Republicans violated their no-new taxes pledge last year — with more than $2 billion of increased taxes and fees — they won't raise taxes again. Especially in an election year.

To complicate matters, lawmakers have limited direct control over state spending as the general revenue portion of the budget, which is paid for with state taxes, accounts for only about one-third of the overall total. And more than half of it goes to education, a sacred category that politicians want to be viewed as supporting, not cutting.

The rest of the budget, which lawmakers don't control, is federal money or dedicated to specific programs, such as a gas tax that pays for road construction and repair.

Which means in the limited areas of the budget where lawmakers can maneuver, the cuts will have to be significant.

"What we do in Tallahassee is take money from one group and give it to another group," said Rep. Franklin Sands, D-Weston, the House minority leader. "Will it be the middle class and small businesses or will it be more of the same with special interests — the wealthy being protected by the ruling party?"

Gov. Charlie Crist has proposed a $69.2 billion budget that the Legislature doesn't take seriously, because it would rely on $433 million from a Seminole Indian tribe gambling compact that has not been approved, and would leave only $250 million in cash reserves for emergencies — an amount some lawmakers consider recklessly small.

But Crist, who is in a dogfight for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, is not about to propose a tax increase in an election year. His proposal includes a few modest tax cuts, including a revival of the back-to-school sales tax holiday for shoppers and a small cut in the corporate income tax paid by businesses.

The governor also counts on savings from voter approval of a less-costly class size amendment, and a $1.4 billion check from Washington from a federal reauthorization of Medicaid stimulus money.

"We believe this is the right thing to do as opposed to proposing more cuts," said Crist's budget director, Jerry McDaniel, as he outlined Crist's spending plan to a skeptical panel of House members.

"I'm disappointed that we can't start on a budget proposal together because our assumptions are so far apart," said Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, the chief budget writer in the House.

"I can't really use what you have to start my budget," Rep. Denise Grimsley, R-Lake Placid, who oversees health care spending, told McDaniel. "It's like saying we'll go out and buy Christmas presents with a Christmas bonus we might get."