So with all of the tax-day Tea Parties, all of the outrage at the explosive growth of government, and all of the opposition to the inevitable demand for more taxes on middle America, one might think that the Republicans might start paying more mind to their smaller-government rhetoric. Not in Florida. The Republican-controlled state Senate unanimously passed a budget that includes new cigarette and gambling taxes, as well as higher fees for motorists and lawsuits:
The Florida Senate passed a stitched-together $65.6 billion spending plan Thursday that pays the bills with a huge infusion of federal stimulus cash, higher taxes on tobacco and fees on motorists and court-filers, along with a dramatic expansion of gambling.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 39-0 to send its budget plan to the House, where GOP leaders are proposing higher fees, deeper cuts, and no trace of higher tobacco taxes or the gambling expansion favored by senators.
With the House budget debate getting rancorous across the hall, senators from both parties congratulated each other for turning to higher taxes and fees to avoid deeper cuts for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The state’s budget was $73.7 billion in the peak of the housing boom in 2006, but has been slashed by $8 billion in a procession of special sessions and regular ones as revenues from the sales tax and real estate sales plummeted.
Florida plans to get an extra billion dollars through tobacco taxes, which include cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco. As we have noted endlessly, tobacco taxes are the worst class of regressive taxes. Florida Republicans say that they need it to have those who put a burden on the state health care system to reimburse the state — but if we didn’t have the state funding health care, they wouldn’t need to worry about the personal habits of their citizens. Make no mistake about it — elitist, autocratic government comes through the health-care excuse that government has the right to take away your personal choices based on the preferences of a few bureaucrats looking to conduct social engineering through punitive taxation.
Florida Republicans are patting themselves on the back for cutting the budget 11% over the last two years, and they deserve some credit for that. Instead of putting more burden on taxpayers, especially those who can least afford it, perhaps they can find other spending to cut from a $66 billion budget.
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