I have an unforgivable character flaw, as far as Florida voters are concerned. I happen to believe that Florida does not take in enough revenue to support the programs it wants and/or needs. I happen to believe that we need...more taxes.
Look at the evidence: Our governments work from one crisis to the next. You can almost predict the next crisis based on what services are cut to solve the current problems. Jails, if I remember right, were built by cutting family services and schools. I believe the "crisis" in school buildings (if we admit to having one) will be solved by shutting down or severely cutting some other "vital" service. This will create another crisis a few years down the road that we will scramble to repair.
Some claim that the problem lies in wasted tax dollars. There is undoubtedly waste, but it's getting less.
Consider Schools: Alachua County School administration costs run 4.89% of the total budget. This is a worthy goal for any business. About 85% of the budget is salaries, and this holds true for administration, too. Further, chances are that teachers supporting a family of 4 qualify for reduced meals. We certainly do not overpay our teachers!
In my elementary school, after fixed expenses, salaries, and books are purchased, we have about $4 per child left over to pay for paper & art supplies, and field trips for the entire year! We have some reasonable class sizes, but 4th and 5th grades are at 31 to 33 kids per class: just a little on the too crowded side.
Our school system increases it's debt load to repair roofs and air conditioners, generally considered routine maintenance that should be handled yearly. We're falling behind in our needs for new school buildings. I don't see any excess funds at all.
Family Services:
You may believe in "no freebies," or think we must guarantee
running water, phones and cable TV for everyone. Either way, research
shows that spending even a little money supporting children's
food, medical, and housing needs improves the odds of producing
citizens that contribute positively to our society. Children that
feel well study better. We cut these family service programs to
the bones last year to put more money into the schools.
Jails:
We found a whole bunch of money a few years back to build and
expand a bunch of jails. We did this by cutting back on preventative
services. Which means when today's families grow up, we'll be
building more jails. We'll have to cut school budgets and family
services again.
Roads:
Funds to expand or extend existing county roads for new business
and homes comes out of our current repair & maintenance funds.
Alachua County tried impact fees on new construction, but decided
it costs too much.
Back to the topic:
We "bubble-fund" routine expenses that have become crisiss.
We don't do anything until we have to. Then, lawmakers shift massive
amounts of funding from other sources to whatever the problem
du juor. We build lots of jails in very short periods of time,
and then move on to tackle education. Our next crisis will be
roads, if our air and water quality, and our Everglades hold out
a little longer.
We, as responsible adults, have several ways to handle our own children's college education. We can starve while educating our child. We can charge all the tuition and books on credit cards and home equity loans, paying it off into our own retirement long after our child is on her own. Or we can shrug our shoulders and tell our kid he's got to do it himself. Florida does all of these things, and not just for children or education. (The legislature itself always seems to be properly funded...)
We need to even out our spending. It's much easier to pay your child's college education by saving a little each year. We save the stresses of radically rearranging our other financial obligations. We won't pay loads of interest that will strap us for years to come. We are much more flexible in meeting other problems as they arise. A tooth ache can be cured now, or let go until we need a full emergency root canal, for example.
How do we stop "bubble-funding" and begin evening out our expenses, saving for anticipated future needs? How do you get started? The only way to relieve the need for jails is to invest dollars in prevention: recreation, schools, and care... But you have to have the jails now to handle the crunch of neglect from the last 10 or 15 years. We need a massive amount of cash to catch everything up right now.
Once we're caught up with past neglect, we can move into a much more rational, careful, thoughtful governing system. We'll save interest expenses, human suffering, governmental bickering. But everything must start at a reasonable state of repair.
I think we just plain do not have
enough revenue in the system to catch everything up to date. We
need more taxes. And therein lies my fatal flaw in the eyes of
Florida voters.