donsu

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Tue Jan-15-08 12:21 PM
Original message

Jeb’s Economic Time Bomb Ready To Blow

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=538

(be sure and read the last paragraph)

During his eight-year reign as governor of Florida, Jeb Bush fashioned an economic time bomb. On his way out the door he lit the fuse. His handiwork will soon devastate this state and visit unprecedented suffering on its people. It will be a nightmare, part of which will imperil the public schools, the operation of local governments and the state retirement system.

The government of the State of Florida realizes most of its revenues by way of sales and use taxes, intangible taxes and corporate income taxes. Sales and use taxes are the most regressive and hit poor, working and retired people the hardest. These taxes have done nothing but increase and when they are discussed it is in the context of raising them.

-snip-

When investments went bad the working people of Florida ate the loss. In 2002 the state’s short-term investment and pension funds lost $334 million as Enron collapsed, three times the loss of any other fund in the nation. Jeb Bush’s minions invested in Edison charter schools when the stock was valued at $37 and got out when it was worth 14 cents. Another $500 million of the public’s money was lost to enable other corporate adventures.

But the worst was yet to come! Because although term limits forced Jeb Bush to give up his Tallahassee office in 2006, it did not thwart his plan for turning the apparatus of state government into his own personal cash cow. First he put one of his stooges, Coleman Stipanovich, in charge of making decisions for the multi-billion dollar Local Government Investment Pool and the Florida Retirement System. Then he got himself a spot on the Board of Directors of Lehman Brothers, the giant Wall Street financial services corporation. This unholy alliance has borne bitter fruits.

-snip-

This fiscal year the state treasury suffered the first waves of the tsunami that is coming. The servile Florida State Legislature was called back into special session barely six months after passing a $71 billion budget to address a 1.1 billion dollar revenue shortfall. Among other things these servants of the wealthy took $100 from each of Florida’s public school children to rebalance the budget. The lights had not been turned out in the Capitol Building when the Office of Policy and Budget projected an additional $2.5 billion revenue shortfall over the next 18 months.

-snip-

“We’re not in any old drought. We’re in what I like to call the biblical drought.” -Shannon Estenoz, member of the South Florida Water Management District’s (SFWMD) governing board.

“We are facing Armageddon. I think we are going to see massive crop losses we have never seen before.” - Malcolm Wade, member of the SFWMD and a Vice-President of U.S. Sugar.

-snip-

The men in charge in Florida have looked over the horizon and seen the inferno that lies ahead. They fear only one force-their victims united and mobilized in acts of resistance. They have already begun sowing seeds of division hoping to block any uprising as human misery and deprivation spread across the state. They don’t expect their sham property tax proposals to result in lower property tax bills. They expect the measure to pit desperate homeowners against teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and other workers living paycheck to paycheck. In their campaign for Amendment 1, as always, they will attempt to sharpen racial divisions. They will point the finger at immigrant workers, local governments, and district school boards. Any scapegoat will do to divert attention from them as they make their getaway with the loot.
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may Jeb fall down

Jeb’s Economic Time Bomb Ready To Blow

Wake up America!:kick: