At times drawing on biblical references, the new President of the Florida Senate, Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island) in his remarks today at the opening of the legislative session, made clear that the burden to reduce spending and close the gaping budget hole of nearly $4 billion, will fall squarely on the backs of moderate-income and poorer Floridians and even those who are unemployed.
Paying lip service to the many whose “life savings have been swept away” by the recession and the “wave after wave of home foreclosures”, Haridopolos said his top priority would be to reform public sector employees’ pensions and Medicaid.
“Make no mistake: I yield to no one in my high regard for our public employees,” Haridopolos said. “…But while public service may be a calling it is still a job, not a magic cloak that can hide one from reality.”
The Legislature is set to take up several bills, some as earlier as tomorrow, which will require public sector employees to contribute to their pensions plans, tie teacher pay in part to student performance rather than length of time on the job, and proposed cuts to education of as much as 10 percent per student in state spending.
While falsely claiming that competition and managed care in Medicaid can be realized without sacrificing quality and putting patients first, Haridopolos said reforming Medicaid is essential and a duty “we cannot shirk.”
“The increasing Medicaid population, rising health care costs, and unfunded Federal mandates have created a black hole that will swallow the state budget sooner rather than later if we do not act promptly,” Haridopolis said.
The Senate has already proposed a major overhaul of the state’s Medicaid program that will move millions of low-income Floridians to HMO-styled health plans and limit state spending in the health care program, although many have urged caution in moving ahead with sweeping changes to the program.
And even as Haridopolos touted the billions more that would be cut from the state budget, sure to negatively impact, once more those Floridians who depend on state services–low income children and adults and public school students–he not surprisingly suggested that the line be held on new taxes, although Florida remains a low tax state and ranks among the lowest in the nation.
Perhaps with Gov. Rick Scott in mind, who has called for cuts in the corporate income tax rate from 5.5 percent to 3 percent and which would cost the state an initial $1.4 billion in revenues, Haridopolos said, “whether we can actually reduce taxes, at the present time, in a responsible way remains to be seen.”
While indeed it remains to be seen whether or not the Republican-led Legislature further shrinks Florida’s tax yield by cutting corporate and property taxes, one thing is certain, a bill to reduce the length of time the state would pay benefits to the unemployed, currently 26 weeks, to as little as 12 weeks, will undoubtedly find favor among the many mean-spirited and callous who make up the majority in the House and Senate Chambers.
