First, the good news: Florida’s fiscal forecast hasn’t changed much since the last time state economists met in December.
Now, the bad news: The state’s still facing about a $2.2 billion budget shortfall in its general revenue collections.
In December, the economists estimated about $22.5 billion in sales and other tax collections for 2010-2011.
Now, the legislature’s Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research is predicting that tax collections and other fees will bring in about $2.2 million less than the December projection, close to the Department of Revenue’s estimates that the collections will come in about $65.9 million short.
But Gov. Charlie Crist’s office is revising its estimate in the other direction, a reflection of the governor’s perennial optimism.
Crist’s budget gurus think the state will bring in $257.3 million more than they previously anticipated.
The revenue estimating conference will meet throughout the day and provide their final prognostications this afternoon.
But Gov. Charlie Crist’s office is showing about the about meeting with Gov. Charlie Crist’s budget gurus and the Department of Revenue’s economists
Gov. Charlie Crist, in his appearance on Fox News last night, insinuated that the $135 Rubio spent at a salon might have been on a back wax. (The initial issue with the expenditure, of course, was that Rubio charged it to his Florida Republican Party credit card.)
Crist said Rubio paid the party back “after he got caught.”
“Here’s something else that is really strange about that,” Crist told Greta Van Susteren. “He lists his net worth on his last financial statement as about $8,000. Yet he already said he paid back $16,000 and then another $3,000 on top of that, a total of almost $20,000. If his net worth is really only $8,000, how’s he paying back $20,000. Who’s money is he using now to do that? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s really a house of cards.”
Rubio’s campaign shot back saying he paid the $16,000 in personal expenses several years ago. The campaign also mocked the governor, saying “to Crist, being a fiscal conservative means having the right barber.”
WEST PALM BEACH — After speaking to a packed Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch here today, once and possibly future Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney deflected questions about a 2012 White House run (he says he’ll think about his future after the November midterm elections) and punted on the Charlie Crist-Marco Rubio GOP Senate primary (“Usually I stay out of primaries”).
But Romney, in a brief sit-down with The Palm Beach Post, was a little more expansive in discussing his altercation last month with electro-hop artist Sky Blu on a plane waiting to take off from Vancouver.
Former state Rep. Gayle Harrell of Stuart is in Iraq, where she was part of a seven-member group from the National Foundation for Women Legislators that monitored Sunday’s elections.
Harrell said she was inspired by Iraqi voters who were not intimidated by terrorists who tried to disrupt the elections. Harrell said explosions of home-made “bottle bombs” slowed down voting but didn’t scare away voters.
“They were not intimidated by this. They were very angry…They were in total defiance of the terrorists,” Harrell said by telephone from Baghdad, where she’s staying at the U.S. Embassy.
Florida Rep. Ari Porth, D-Coral Springs, removed his name today from the list of co-sponsors for a tax incentive package for the film industry in Florida. A story today in The Palm Beach Post highlighted a provision in the bill (HB 697) that could prohibit films and TV shows with gay characters from receiving a 5 percent “family-friendly” tax break.
“I believe in the film industry tax incentives, but was uncomfortable with provisions limiting the field of qualified recipients. I hope to be able to support the measure in the future,” Porth said in an e-mail.
Republican Gov. Charlie Crist‘s Senate campaign responded to a jab from primary rival Marco Rubio, who called the Everglades land buy a “bailout” for U.S. Sugar: From Crist spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg:
“Marco Rubio is being supported in this campaign and in previous campaigns by Florida Crystals sugar company, who is the number one opponent to this Everglades restoration purchase. What else would you expect from a lobbyist who is bought and paid for by special interests?”
Rubio has received more thank $14,000 from the Fanjuls family, which owns Florida Crystals, and Gaston Gantens, the company’s chief lobbyist. The company and its subsidiaries gave anotehr $4,500 to Rubio during his nine years in the state House.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said a New York Timesstory has raised “troubling new questions” about the U.S. Sugar purchase negotiated by his primary rival, Gov. Charlie Crist. From Rubio’s press release today:
“This deal is nothing more than a massive taxpayer-funded bailout for a top Charlie Crist campaign donor and a profitable bonanza for Crist’s inner circle.
“Once again, Charlie Crist has put his political ambition ahead of the people of Florida, and once again the results are disastrous for taxpayers. In fact, this bailout plan is the second most expensive photo op Charlie Crist has ever staged.
“Charlie Crist’s bailout plan will require higher taxes and increased debt, and it does nothing for the Everglades. In fact, it actually halts real restoration projects started by Jeb Bush, which were already underway.
“Charlie Crist simply can’t be trusted to go to Washington to fight massive government spending because, more often than not, he’s the one proposing it.”
WEST PALM BEACH — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and former GOP activist and bond underwriter Kevin McCarty are making their first post-scandal Forum Club appearances at today’s sold-out luncheon speech by Mitt Romney.
Foley, once a Forum Club regular, hasn’t been back since he resigned in a 2006 Internet sex scandal.
“People have been begging me to come back to the Forum Club,” Foley said as he worked the Kravis Center ballroom before the lunch.
McCarty was released in January after serving eight months in federal prison for failing to report wife Mary McCarty’s honest services fraud as a Palm Beach County commissioner. She’s serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Kevin McCarty declined to comment.
WEST PALM BEACH — Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was in town this morning to launch a 60-second ad aimed at attracting GOP donors. The spot accuses President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of “experimenting with America” and favoring “massive government expansion, government takeovers, redistribution of wealth and staggering debt to countries like China and the Middle East.”
The GOP is spending less than $1 million nationally on the campaign. The ads will run on cable rather than pricier broadcast TV stations. In addition to the West Palm Beach market, the ads will run in Greensboro, N.C., Cincinnati, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla., a GOP spokesman said.
Steele appeared briefly at the West Palm Beach Marriott before about 30 GOP activists, including Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein, Broward GOP Chairman Chip LaMarca and Republican congressional hopefuls Ed Lynch and Allen West.
So, while this project is being sold as Everglades restoration, it would delay actual restoration efforts by using needed money for land acquisition, while U.S. Sugar would retain the more significant tracts in the natural flow-way. Making matters worse, the deal would give U.S. Sugar an exclusive right to lease back the acreage at below-market rates for 20 years.
I’m asking board Chairman Eric Buermann to be forthcoming about the consequences, including tax increases that will be needed and opportunities that will be lost. Continuing to pursue this purchase is not just fiscally irresponsible; it is nothing short of reckless.
The New York Timesprofiled the deal on Sunday, concluding that the immediate beneficiaries are U.S. Sugar and U.S. Sen. George LeMieux‘s former law firm, Gunster Yoakley.
Like many GOP candidates across the nation, including his pal former House Speaker Marco Rubio, House budget chief David Rivera is working the conservative angle in his Congressional run to replace U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
Rivera was in Palm Beach County on Friday at a Club For Growth meeting at The Breakers.
He met with U.S. Rep. Tom Price, Chairman of the “Republican Study Committee,” the self-proclaimed “Caucus of House Conservatives.” Rivera said Price, a Georgia doctor who’s in charge of recruiting Congressional candidates in the South, promised to give his campaign a hand and gave him tips on how to woo other conservatives.
Rivera’s expected opponent, Senate Republican Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, hasn’t officially entered the race yet. Diaz-Balart is jumping from his district to his brother Lincoln’s, a safer GOP seat. U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart isn’t seeking re-election this year.
“We discussed several policy issues, including health care reform as well as the overall political landscape and outlook for Republicans in the upcoming election,” Rivera, R-Miami, said.
If Palm Beach County Commissioner Jess Santamaria decides to run for reelection despite his complaints that half his job is a “waste of time,” he could face a Democratic primary challenge from Indian Trail Improvement District President Michelle Damone.
Movies and TV shows with gay characters could be ineligible for a “family-friendly” tax credit in Florida under a little-noticed provision tucked into a $75 million incentive package that Republican House leaders hope will attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.
The bill would prohibit productions with “nontraditional family values” from receiving a so-called family-friendly tax credit. But it doesn’t define what “nontraditional family values” are, something the bill’s sponsor had a hard time doing, too.
“Think of it as like Mayberry,” state Rep. Stephen Precourt, R-Orlando, said, referring to The Andy Griffith Show. “That’s when I grew up — the ’60s. That’s what life was like. I want Florida to be known for making those kinds of movies: Disney movies for kids and all that stuff. Like it used to be, you know?”
U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., who was a just another chairman of a major Florida law firm last summer when health care town halls were all the rage, looks to get into the fun Monday when he holds his own in Fort Lauderdale. The event starts at 2:30 p.m. at the Beach Community Center, 3351 NE 33rd Ave.
LeMieux, who Republican state lawmakers hope will bring home a re-up of about $1.2 billion in extra Medicaid money for Florida’s budget hole, has been opposed to President Obama’s suggestions for reducing costs and increasing access to health insurance coverage. From a press release this week:
“This proposal still seeks to cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare. That’s a direct cut in health care benefits for seniors” LeMieux said. ”The proposal fails to achieve its main goal which is to lower the cost of health care for Americans. It takes money from programs, like Medicare, and seeks to create new federal programs. It is clear that the American people do not support this bill.”
Palm Beach County Commissioner Jess Santamaria, wrestling with a decision on whether to seek reelection this year, says half his job is interesting and rewarding, but the other half is “a total waste of time.”
Santamaria, who represents western-county District 6, came into office saying he was focused only on a single term. But he never unequivocally ruled out seeking reelection, and Santamaria now says he and his wife are “seriously discussing my serving a second term.”
Democrats have long touted House Majority Leader Adam Hasner’s Palm Beach-Broward seat as a pickup opportunity when Hasner leaves this year because of term limits. Republicans have roughly a 39-to-35 percent registration edge in District 87 and have been losing ground over the past eight years.
But Democratic hopes suffered a blow in January when candidate Lori Berman, who had raised more money than Republican Bill Hager, quit the race to run in more heavily Democratic District 86.
Now Dems have recruited retired construction manager Laura Rawlins-Blum of Boca Raton to run in District 87. Rawlins-Blum, active in the Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee, was encouraged to run by Dems including former League of Women Voters President Pamela Goodman. Goodman, who had been urged by some Democrats to run for the seat, will host a kickoff fund-raiser for Rawlins-Blum.
U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek on Friday called for a simple majority vote and reconciliation process to approve President Obama’s health care reforms.
“We Floridians deserve an up-and-down vote on health care,” the Democratic candidate said at a campaign rally in Boynton Beach. “There can be no ‘let’s start all over again.’ We can’t move the goal post further and further away. We need health care and we need it to be affordable.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman filed a complaint Friday with the state’s Election Commission, accusing the Florida Republican Party of failing to file accurate finance reports with state officials.
In a Feb. 17 memo circulated Friday the consultant said the South Florida Water Management District — the agency Gov. Charlie Crist tapped to finance the purchase — “must make some very difficult decisions,” including big cuts in operations and maintenance of its 16-county water supply and flood control system.
The reason: deficit projections of $89 million and $110 million in 2011 and 2012.
Democratic state CFO candidate Loranne Ausley hopes to turn the Republican credit card scandal into a few bucks for her campaign against likely Republican candidate Jeff Atwater.
Ausley doesn’t mention Atwater by name, but it’s pretty clear he’s the target of her fundraiser letter. She says Republicans call for transparency, but also have a “second face…The face they try to hide.” From her letter:
These same so-called leaders have been knee-deep in the cover up of campaign expenditures; expenditures that are governed by state law and supposed to be used for very specific purposes. The excuses for a blatant lack of transparency and accountability run the gamut from “not my job” to “not my card.”
Atwater was one of several Republican leaders who had an American Express card through the Florida Republican Party. Atwater insists he had used the card for party business (unlike former House Speakers Ray Sansom and Marco Rubio, who used the cards for personal expenses), but Atwater won’t release it. We wrote about it here and the Herald/Times captured it on video here.
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