The K Street gang invades Tallahassee

Campaign like Lions, Vote like Sheep

One day our local Legislators will look back at the 2009 legislative sessions and realize when offered good advice to take it. Although this may come as a shock, the world does not revolve around Tallahassee.

All the rabbits have been pulled from the hat in the state budget. None are left. Next year – the election year – you will have to make the severe cuts. Re-read Machiavelli, do the worst – first. Cut in 2009 so that a break-even 2010 looks good. Assuming the state were even in a break even position next year.

The Clerk’s Office here is hammered. We are down 1/3 of our employees for three months. Perhaps the Legislators can explain why we are gutted 16% when the State is spending $66 billion AGAIN. The Clerk was already heading south about 5% due to the economy and the failure to have a number of fines assessed. Had the rest of the State been cut 16% there would have been a savings of $11 billion.

If Republican Legislators are challenged from the right by a Republican or a moderate Democrat there will be some explaining to do. Right now too many in Tallahassee believe all races are won or lost on Tallahassee money and some alleged Tallahassee genius. All races are local, the smaller the more local, and I am certain we will have a statewide backlash against those who supported all the tax increases (didn’t we have a few signing a no tax increase pledge?).

There are Republicans who smoke and who do not have kids in school. I do not expect them to be voting for any Republican incumbents in the primary and maybe not even the general.

All the new taxes were done to give the schools more money. A school system which increased 40% or more in a few years during the bubble is ‘held harmless’ while taxes are raised and other areas plundered. Of course, the grateful local schools immediately applied School Board Math to show they had been cut again by $30 million, conveniently glossing over the 2,000 less students they’ll have, the fact the idiot state formula still pays a portion of the student money for departed students, and blaming their extensive short and long term borrowing on the State Legislature.

I am not sure what happens to the heads of normally sane people when they go to Tallahassee. Don’t these guys realize they have to come home and here is where their election is held?

I am somewhat amazed at the cowardice in Tallahassee in the junior members kowtowing to ‘Leadership’. A combination of math and backbone shortfall convinces them to vote against their own principles (else ‘leadership’ will exile them and their bills) yet at the same time forget that thanks to term limits, a good thing, those in ‘leadership’ who may be sitting on them will leave first.

Legislators who campaigned on less taxes and smaller government go to the capital and do their damnedest to prevent any decrease in overall state spending.

The national Republicans lost Washington by forgetting their small government roots and moving into the me-toosim of expanding government, using that expansion to rake in campaign dollars for individuals and party organizations.

In 2006, though, the infamous ‘K Street Strategy’, named for the shakedown of the multitude of lobbyists in DC with K Street addresses, blew out as the Democrats swept into power.

We’ll see the same thing at the state level in the coming years. The Republican Party doesn’t have an identity crisis – it has an INTEGRITY crisis.