Florida: Are we ready for the good times? Howard Troxler's St. Pete Times blog.

[madfloridian]

I enjoy Troxler's work, and I missed this column. He makes some great points in a humorous way.

Are we ready for good times?

Editor's note: Columnist Howard Troxler ponders what's needed For a Better Florida and wonders why we're not angrier to be in a state …

• That paid Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway $224 million simply for the privilege of borrowing his money if a hurricane devastated Florida?

• That for a generation has reneged on its promise to use lottery money to add to education funding rather than just replacing it?

• That's so addicted to growth, it stutters and stops when people quit flocking here, even temporarily?

• That tried privatizing Medicaid nursing home diversion programs to discover that it gets only 70 cents of services for every tax dollar spent?

A "What if" comment or two:

What if, in 2004, the state had heeded credible warnings of the coming economic disaster and begun to reform its 1950s-era revenue and spending structure, instead of whistling Dixie and plunging right ahead? Higher and K-12 education. Medicaid and health care. Florida's creaky, loophole-ridden tax system. When times are good, we spend what we have and feel no pressure to make reforms. When there's a crisis, we panic and grab the nearest short-term fix, whether or not it actually works, or is best for the long term.

Many of us remember LeRoy Collins as governor. A good man, a moderate, with sensible views. The institute that bears his name is out with some good news apparently.

Now the institute has just produced an updated report — and you might be surprised at its new warning for Florida. It probably will be equally ignored in the middle of the current crisis. Why? Because the report warns that Florida really needs to be planning now for an astonishing wave of prosperity and in-migration of baby-boomer retirees in the years to come The Florida of 20 years hence, in 2029, will depend to a large extent on the decisions Florida makes in the short-term future.

In a way, this is a chance to get right what Florida got wrong in the last century — or to make some of the same mistakes all over again. Already, some Florida localities are talking about loosening their growth rules as an "incentive" or "stimulus."

Loosening their growth rules? Please tell me I did not read that.

This is a long column, very intriguing.

He concludes:

In a sense, Florida, only now recovering from decades of bulldozer-and-fire-sale growth, has begun to "knit" into a coherent culture with a sense of shared stakeholdership. This is our breathing space before the whole cycle repeats and waves of unrooted newcomers arrive, understandably more focused on their own short-term interest than vested in their adopted state's long-term future.

He says it depends on the legislature which will be conservative Republican for a very long time.

It may just be the same thing all over again.

[exboyfil]

1. Hard to see you getting there from here

when your legislators are seriously talking about raiding the prepaid tuition college fund. My mom now lives in Ormond Beach, and I don't know if Evelyn Lynn is her state representative, but I would like to see my mom run against her.

I have visited your state often to first see my grandmother and now my mother. I love the weather, but feel somewhat uneasy about the crowds.

The way I describe Florida, especially when I fly into Orlando, is that the mouse starts picking your pocket the moment you get off the plane and does not stop until you leave. You have a real blessing with the tourist trade - if you consider your tax structure compared to some of the northern states, it is so much lower. On the flip side, in the past I have looked for engineering jobs in Florida, but I have never found anything that would work for me.

Unless I end up inheriting my mom's house, I really don't see much chance I will ever live in Florida.

''We talked about the possibility if there was such money there, perhaps we could borrow that,'' said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, chairwoman of the Senate higher education appropriations committee. ``We're looking at everything. We're really hurting and we need new sources of income.''

[ddeclue]

2. The problem is that the legislature is mostly made up of Republican hacks and weenies

that are only concerned about themselves and how they can use their office to weasel up the ladder in their law firm or whatever. They put out all sorts of emotional hot button legislation that does nothing important but usually find time to screw average Floridians over.

Here in Central Florida we've had some success in kicking the weenies out and putting in some good Democrats in the last 3 years but over all we are still way down in both the house and senate.

If any DU'er in Florida is seriously interested in learning more about the real nuts and bolts of how to run a Scott Randolph (or Darren Soto or Alan Grayson) style campaign to take back your little corner of Florida from the Republicans who are screwing things up in Tally, send me a message so we can talk. We really need to win back our state legislature in 2010 or we'll have to start all over when the Republicans try to gerrymander us out of office. The good news is that Florida is already "blue" and getting bluer all the time but we need to make that translate into elected offices at the state and local level.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[JCMach1]

3. Lovely thought, but the Democratic party is also part of the problem in the state...

The word 'worthless' comes to mind.

[ddeclue]

4. Not when you get out and get real Democrats elected like we've done here in CFL.

with Grayson, Soto, and Randolph (and briefly Sasso...) Just got to get the grassroots out to take over the world.

Doug D.

[JCMach1]

9. Please note I am referring to the 'official' party structure

not grassroots. In fact, grassroots might have a chance of working simply by ignoring the party structure...

[madfloridian]

10. And you would be right.

I was just watching an interview of Karen Thurman at Pushing Rope, and it was so lacking in passion or anything.

[zonkers]

5. South Floridians have such little respect for the environment. They

trash their waterways. They drive giant cars, waste tons of energy and pollute like there is no tomorrow. It is a town built on greed.

[ddeclue]

6. It's also a region of transplanted New Yorkers who never had any environment to respect

so they don't understand the difference for the most part. They also think that their little corporate built rowhouses are paradise not understanding that they could have had so much more than that.

[zonkers]

7. Plenty of NYers. Plenty of S. Americans. I hate hearing about manatees

getting hit by speed boats.

There has never been a greater urgency for every one to become a citizen-steward... steward of the environment. And many people are. I work with a local wetlands group.
People really need to take "ownership" of their local environments and habitats. We all must put more bite in litter laws. Did you know that cigarette butt litter is the number one form of ocean pollution in the world? It's my pet issue. Currently, four trillion cigarette butts a year wreak havoc on our oceans. They kill millions of fish, birds and mammals yearly.

[onethatcares]

8. well, it's gonna get fixed by making it

easier to develop wetlands and turn the permit process into a walk thru.

I've been here 34 years and watched it change into something horrid. I'm starting to look at those land auctions in New Mexico.