So, yes, for the first time in two years or so, my column wasn't around last week, because I wasn't around. I was out in the Southwest, hiking at the Grand Canyon and Sedona, Ariz.
During that time, I didn't read any newspapers and watched almost no television news. It wasn't because I was trying to isolate myself from political affairs as much as it was an attempt to avoid hearing anything about the last two episodes of The Sopranos before I could return to Tampa and watch them on my digital recorder.
So that left me nine days where I was clueless about goings-on in the Sunshine State, politics-wise. But I'm less interested about what I did miss in those nine days than what I didn't miss. For starters:
The Legislature didn't arrive at a fair and full answer to Florida's tax problem. We will still have an unfair (maybe even unconstitutional) Save Our Homes tax cap that rewards longtime residents (like me) by keeping their taxes low but forcing them to stay in their homes, neither upsizing nor downsizing as needs dictate. Their neighbors still can pay higher taxes for the same government services, based on how long they have lived in their homes and how fast their property values have appreciated.
The solution — a complicated, two-part rigamarole of rolling back local taxes and increasing homestead exemptions to as much as $195,000 — requires advanced calculus to figure out, upset local governments (who felt their budgets were being arbitrarily whacked) and angered anti-tax leaders (who felt the cuts weren't nearly enough). The worst part is that the higher homestead exemptions equate to nearly a $2-billion-a-year cut in public education funding.
Local governments didn't have an honest and open discussion of what services are necessary and which ones aren't. The Florida Association of Counties hired an Orlando-based economist to figure out the damage, and his report didn't look as much at actual bang-for-the-buck spending as much as it posited cuts in parks, recreation and other voter-friendly services. The truth lies somewhere between the Legislature's insistence that there is rampant and runaway waste at the local level and the city and county leaders who act as if they are running models of efficiency.
Tampa Bay's transit problems didn't get closer to a solution, despite an effort to create a regional board with the muscle to remake our transportation system and our runaway suburban sprawl. When Charlie Crist vetoed a $1 million startup budget for the agency, he not only delayed its work but may have killed the important momentum that regional business leaders had built.
Florida Democrats didn't back down on their decision to go with the early primary in January, in order to give the nation's fourth-most-populous state a bigger say in choosing the president than, oh, New Hampshire and Iowa.
Howard Dean didn't back down on his promise to disregard the results if Florida went ahead and cut ahead in the primary line.
Florida's importance to presidential candidates didn't change, despite Dean's move.
Fred Thompson didn't announce his candidacy — unless you count his Leno appearance. (Does this mean no Hunt for Red October 2?)
Michael Bloomberg didn't announce his candidacy — but that didn't stop the mainstream media from obsessing about his presidential aspirations or the overly intrepid Brian Williams on NBC from riding along with the NYC mayor on a crowded subway car.
Harry Reid didn't rise to the challenge of crafting an immigration bill that would win approval in the U.S. Senate. When the GOP members loaded up with pending amendments, he folded. His promise to take up the legislation again doesn't change his poor performance.
The weather here didn't improve. It was 102 dry degrees in Vegas when I was there. Stepping back out into Tampa's humid 90s was worse. Much worse.
Can't wait for more info about Florida media and politics? Check my blog, thepoliticalwhore.com, for a daily dose or to leave a comment about this column.
This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2007.