Reply #21: 'Sugar train' outruns the Florida budget ax

[seafan]

'Sugar train' outruns the budget ax

BY GARY FINEOUT
April 11, 2008

While programs for children and healthcare were cut, lawmakers found money for pet projects such as a train that would benefit the sugar industry.

TALLAHASSEE --
About Face is a small 11-year-old mentoring program held in National Guard armories across the state in which teenagers are taught ''life skills'' in small groups and warned about drugs and smoking.
If House Republicans have their way, the program will be scuttled by this summer, a victim of Florida's sagging tax collections.
With less than month to go before signing off on the budget, state legislators are poised to slash state spending by $4 billion to $5 billion, a record drop in one year. The About Face program, which has served more than 5,000 kids since its creation, is one of myriad programs scheduled to be killed completely or cut deeply to balance the budget.

On Thursday, the House approved a $65.1 billion spending plan for the coming year that cuts healthcare programs for the poor, slashes the number of prosecutors and shutters a state-run hospital for tuberculosis patients in Lantana. A juvenile detention center in Monroe County would be closed, and substance-abuse programs in prisons would be eliminated.

But while pushing cuts, lawmakers have found room to pay for pet projects, like spending up to $700,000 for a feasibility study on extending a rail corridor from South Bay to West Miami that could wind up helping the sugar industry.

House Republicans also have put in $12 million intended to ''attract a targeted high-wage industry'' to a controversial new airport in Panama City, whose creation was pushed by Florida's largest private land owner, the St. Joe Co. The House approved its budget Thursday along party lines, as Democrats portrayed Republicans as heartless for refusing to dig more deeply into reserves, increase Florida's cigarette tax or end sales-tax exemptions now enjoyed on such things as bottled water and charter fishing trips.

''This budget takes us down a dangerous path,'' said Rep. Yolly Roberson, a Miami Democrat.

As a handful of Democrats urged a ''no'' vote on the budget, most House Republicans left the chamber for a lunch of meatloaf or tuna salad.

.....

To a mostly empty chamber, Rep. Scott Randolph, an Orlando Democrat, said what the Republicans are doing is immoral.
''God will be the final judge of our deeds,'' said Randolph, who then read from the New Testament books of Matthew and James. ``How will God judge us when we tell him the rich and powerful are more important to us than the poor and elderly?''
Republicans accused Democrats of ``grandstanding.''
GOP lawmakers said they were acting responsibly, and that it would be economically damaging to consider substantial tax increases, or dip too deeply into reserves since there is no clear sign that Florida's economic woes will end anytime soon. The new budget will cover spending for the year beginning July 1.

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(House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, a Delray Beach Republican) said Floridians ''don't want us to balance the budget by increasing taxes'' and that all Democrats want to do is ``reach further into the pockets of Floridians.'' <<< :banghead: >>>

House Republicans, however, have agreed to go along with one Democratic idea: Freeze for one year a state subsidy program that provides up to $2 million a year each to the owners of sports stadiums and arenas.

''We want to be sensitive to people's needs and what's going on,'' said House Speaker Marco Rubio.

<<< :eyes: >>>.....

.....

One other area where both chambers agreed: Money for the ``sugar train.''

Nestled into the Department of Transportation budget is money for a study on extending the rail corridor from South Bay to West Miami. The House approved $500,000, while the Senate seeks $700,000.
The money comes from from the $265 million rail development trust funds. If built, the rail line would serve the sugar industry as well as road builders, said Rep. Dean Cannon, an Orlando Republican who oversees the transportation budget in the House.
''DOT likes the idea because it will enable them to get aggregate materials for road base cheaper and faster over the long haul,'' he said.
The measure also has the support of the South Florida Regional Transit Authority, which wants to move freight traffic from the commuter rails along the coast inland.

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You see, the Florida Regional Transit Authority *wants* to move freight traffic away from the coasts to the inland areas. Funny, that's what Jeb's secretive CSX deal with the state wanted as well...

And, magically, Jeb's secret CSX deal with the state also *survived* the budget cuts. <<< :puke: >>>


April 10, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Billions of dollars short on funding for health care, education and criminal justice, Senate lawmakers tried in vain on Wednesday to narrow the gap by yanking millions of dollars from a commuter rail project for Central Florida.

It was perhaps the most dramatic maneuver yet in the debate over the $4 billion to $5 billion that House and Senate lawmakers are cutting in response to plummeting state revenue.

.....

Under both budgets, however, the state would buy 61 miles of CSX Transportation's tracks in the Orlando area for commuter rail and fund improvements to CSX tracks statewide. In such a tight budget year, said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, the state should spend money on vital state programs, not a half-billion-dollar expansion of a private company.

Dockery and others are concerned the CSX deal would bring more freight trains through downtown Lakeland. Dockery and two other Republican senators sought to transfer $20.1 million from the CSX trust fund to the state court system in hopes of avoiding massive layoffs and long court delays.

The CSX project "is not a top necessity of the state of Florida, whereas the court system most certainly is," said Dockery, chairwoman of the Criminal Justice Committee.

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It's high time for Floridians to end this era of abusive Republican thievery of our state's human and environmental resources and our state treasury, once and for all.