Something You Never Thought You'd Read in Time: How Florida's Government is Destroying Florida
Time magazine's Tim Padgett does something extraordinary with what should have been a standard "Florida women, minorities hardest hit as stimulus proves too small to jump-start local economy" story. He puts the blame for the Sunshine State's falling population, falling real estate values and falling everything else squarely on government:
There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.
And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.
It's not a long piece, but it stays in this vein throughout, and gives no quarter to the sad-but-wise argument that, well children, politics being the art of the possible, we just have no choice but to raise taxes in order to close deficits:
Granted, most local governments often have to raise taxes when they're staring at fiscal craters like the $427 million shortfall in Miami-Dade's proposed $7.83 billion budget. But the less than sunny mood in Miami-Dade is made darker by the feeling among most residents that their fiscal jam is not just a result of falling revenue, but also years of profligate mismanagement.
What's going on here? Much of the focus of the piece is on local and county government screwups, and in the to-be-sure paragraph Padgett cites Gov. Charlie Crist for trying to throttle the "twin vampires" of "skyrocketing property taxes and hurricane-insurance premiums." So it could all be a good-government, Tallahassee-knows-best trojan. But it doesn't seem that way. And the directness of the logic -- when you make it harder to live and do business in a place, people really will leave -- is, well, something I'd like to see more of in Southern California. Welcome to the barricades, Tim.
