HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
TWILIGHT IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
“THE RETIRED FOLKS AROUND HERE
HAVE DONE JUST FINE. IT’S THE YOUNG
PEOPLE WHO GOT IN TROUBLE.”
child care, computer classes, resume writing classes and free
meals. It even loaned Hebert a
suit for a recent job interview,
which he aced: Coca-Cola offered
him a $12 an hour job in the sales
department. His family is moving
out of the shelter and into subsidized housing August.
The state’s unemployment rate
has been falling, down to 8.6 percent in May from a peak of more
than 11 percent in 2010. But there
is still a deep jobs hole to fill. To return to pre-recession employment
levels, and accounting for population growth, the economy needs to
create 1 million jobs — roughly the
populations of Miami, Tampa and
St. Petersburg combined.
State tax revenue is also in a
hole. Sales tax collections, which
account for 73 percent of general
revenue, are down 14 percent from
the peak. Property taxes, which
fund local governments and provide about one third of public
school aid, are off nearly as much.
To bridge the gap, Gov. Rick Scott,
a Republican and Tea Party favorite who was elected in 2010, has
hacked away at the budget with a
true believer’s zeal. The hardest
hit: the state’s children.
For the 2007-08 school year
Florida spent an anemic $7,036
per student, 34th best nationally.
Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana
— hardly the poster children for
progressive education — all spent
more. Since 2010, Scott (who declined to comment for this story)
and the Republican-led legislature
have slashed $2.1 billion from the
public school budget. In the upcoming school year, the state will
spend $6,375 per student, or 12
percent less than it did five years
ago. (This is, alas, actually an increase from last year).
Scott has refused to consider
tax increases, or broadening the
sales tax to cover items that are
currently excluded, like bottled
water and Internet sales, in order
to replace lost revenue. (As for a
state income tax, God forbid: “It’s
sort of over our dead bodies,”
Ray Sansom, a former Republican state legislator from Destin,
and head of the state legislature’s
budget committee, told the Asso-