Matt Walsh: Why they won't cut spending

Matt Walsh: Why they won't cut spending

"If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled."

Ayn Rand

The Nature of Government

Aren't you sick of the whining?

That's what it is.

Whenever anyone attempts to cut a government's revenues, the spenders and socialist media types come out howling.

"You can't do that!"

"Who's going to pay for these tax cuts!?"

"Do you realize this means we're going to have to starve widows and children, end all health care for pregnant women, shut down day-care centers, eliminate high school football, close fire departments, release prisoners and go weeks at a time without drinking water?"

It's all so sickeningly predictable and tired.

And then, the legislators cave.

Nearly every elected official knows in his heart that he wants to be liked and loved and hosanna'd at home. And the best and easiest way to be liked and loved is to keep giving out other people's money and to let other elected officials keep giving it out, too.

It simply doesn't pay to cut. You lose your power. You lose your popularity. You don't get invited to the big parties.

Such is the day-to-day thinking going on in Tallahassee as lawmakers attempt to come to grips with the awful mess that Ken Wilkinson never intended. Wilkinson is the Lee County property appraiser who led the campaign in the early 1990s for the Save Our Homes constitutional amendment.

At the time, in his heart of hearts, Wilkinson believed he was doing good - helping fixed-income widows from being taxed out of their homes. He also believed that another consequence of Save Our Homes - capping homesteaded valuations at 3% a year - would be restraints on local government spending.

But now we know.

And now our legislators know. They know they've got to amend and reform Florida's property tax system, or there'll be an economic hurricane the likes of which Florida hasn't seen since the 1920s land-boom crash.

So far, it's a Category 2, and it's gaining momentum. Factoid: Last year, United Van Lines recorded that it conducted 17,000 moves out of the state and 16,200 moves into the state. This is a reflection of the rising cost of property taxes and insurance.

In response, as the state's emergency management team, our lawmakers aren't doing so swell. They're trying, we all know that. But they keep avoiding the obvious: When a junkie needs to get off the hooch, you take away the supply.

As Ayn Rand put it: Government has to be controlled.

Cap spending. That's all there is to it.

Sure, it sounds great to eliminate property taxes, to replace them with a higher sales tax, to give counties the option to raise sales taxes on the basis of their own needs. But so far, lawmakers haven't addressed what happens on the back end:

How will the additional state sales tax money be distributed?

This much is sure: The further away the handlers are, the greater the misappropriation, mishandling and mischief.

Put it this way: If you had a pot of money and gave it to 160 men and women to figure out how to redistribute, what would you expect to get?

Here's what you'd get: Florida's education system and Florida's highway system. These are the two primary roles that Florida voters have entrusted to lawmakers and state government, and look at the results - $72 billion a year later.

So while it may be appealing to eliminate county property taxes, the alternative du juor - higher sales taxes - is a frightening proposition. To give more power to Tallahassee would be worse than what we have now.

Keep it simple. The problems with the current system are quite clear: the unfair treatment of non-homesteaded and commercial property owners and the onerous penalties imposed on homesteaded property owners when they sell and move.

If the Legislature is intent on providing property-tax relief, that relief should contain three elements now:

• Portability for homesteaded property owners.

• The same 3% annual cap on non-homesteaded and commercial valuations as is given with Save Our Homes.

• And an adjustment in appraisals to account for current uses, not highest uses.

For now, the Legislature should take these steps - because lawmakers can handle these measures. They are adjustments that play to what lawmakers do best: government in the margins.

Save the big, bold moves for the next time around. If Gov. Crist and House and Senate leaders were leaders, they'd assign the state's smartest people to study Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights - the law that capped that state's annual spending - and apply it to Florida.

GENIUS EDITORS

Editor's note: A great American patriot, Marine Col. John Saputo (Ret.), owner of Sarasota-based Gold Coast Eagle Distributing, is not a fan of the popular press. He forwarded this gem recently:

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers!

"In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late.

"Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact."

Gen. Robert E. Lee, 1863

SELL THE HIGHWAYS, TOLLWAYS

Just as they are whining about the effects of property tax cuts on government budgets, the statists are bellyaching about the idea of leasing and selling the state's tollroads to the private sector.

They're afraid the tolls would rise.

They ignore, of course, that no one forces motorists to drive on a toll road. It's a choice.

In spite of the protests against privatizing highways and toll roads, the overwhelming trends throughout the world are toward complete privatization of highways - from their construction to their management and maintenance. The accompanying list is just a sampling of the states and countries that have sold lease rights to private companies and/or have turned to private capital to build superhighways.

To put it mildly, Florida is a half-decade behind this fast-moving wave of the future.

This is not a revolutionary concept. In the 1800s, turnpikes proliferated in the United States. Between 1794 and 1840, 238 private companies built and operated about 3,750 miles of roads in New England. New York state had 4,000 miles of privately owned and operated roads by 1821. And between 1810 and 1845 there were more than 400 private turnpikes chartered and built in the United States, according to economist Daniel Klein.

This is the way the Gulf Coast of Florida should go.

If lawmakers want to keep Florida's economy going and help bring down the cost of housing, they must authorize the laissez-faire construction and operation of privately owned roads - in particular a privately built superhighway east of I-75, from Tampa to Naples to Broward County.

Who's privatizing roads

California

Chicago

Georgia

Indiana

New Jersey

New York

Texas

Virginia

Ontario

Argentina

Australia

Brazil

Columbia

Chile

China

France

Germany

Great Britain

Greece

Malaysia

Mexico

Philippines

So. Africa

Spain