(The Orange County News posted the following article by John Kennedy on its website on March 25.)
TALLAHASSEE — The money war between Florida’s Republican leaders toughened Monday, as the House unveiled more details of its $52 billion state budget proposal and accused the Senate of playing politics with its own spending plan.
Included in the House plan is $10 million in seed funding for a $1 billion light-rail system linking Orlando International Airport to Walt Disney World and the International Drive tourist corridor.
The rail “triangle,” pushed by Rep. Randy Johnson, R-Winter Garden, is considered a long shot this tight budget year, with the Senate shunning any mention of the project.
But such differences have become the norm this spring, with ruling Republicans clashing over the state’s scarce dollars.
House leaders accuse the Senate of enacting deep program cuts solely to fuel public support for Senate President Jim King’s pet project — introducing video gambling at racetracks and jai-alai frontons.
“The Senate has taken the budget hostage,” said House Republican Leader Marco Rubio, R-Miami. “It’s not a real budget. It maximizes pain. It maximizes hurt to where people will stand up and say, ‘Let’s raise taxes.’ ”
Rubio said the Senate spending plan smacks of old-style arm-twisting that treats politics “as a sport.”
The two sides are miles apart in funding for education and health-care programs. But even more profound are the differences in how each side puts its budget together.
The Senate calls for deep cuts of about $700 million, including the outright elimination of a Medically Needy program that serves 26,000 transplant recipients and other seriously ill Floridians. Senate leaders insist such moves are necessary unless the House goes along with its plan to either increase taxes or expand gambling at the pari-mutuel sites.
The House shrugs off the Senate’s approach. Its budget was assembled after leaders redirected more than $700 million in trust-fund dollars into general operations and held down spending on the state’s new class-size amendment.
The House also puts in play a controversial cost-saving measure by changing the eligibility of first-time Bright Futures scholarship recipients to college students whose family’s gross income is less than $75,000. Currently there is no financial limit for the scholarships, whose costs to the state have been skyrocketing because of lax eligibility standards.
At the same time, the House tucks millions more into hometown programs and projects sought by key lawmakers.
Included is the $10 million Orlando rail money.