Running Government Like A Business …

The Miami Herald reports on the latest outrage: Lawmakers demand Florida budget details from Gov. Scott

Gov. Rick Scott’s bold budget plan wasn’t even 24 hours old Tuesday before state legislators started ripping it apart and leveling a familiar charge against the governor: He wasn’t forthcoming with details.

Whether it was his billions in cuts to Medicaid or to schools, legislators said they weren’t sure what Scott specifically wanted to do in his budget, which would further widen a $3.6 billion shortfall next year due to nearly $2.4 billion in proposed tax cuts.

The criticisms and tough questions weren’t limited to Democrats; Scott’s fellow Republicans were skeptical of what many thought were skimpy details in his $65.9 billion budget.

The bipartisan concerns underscored a growing sense in the Legislature that Scott’s proposal is rooted in unrealistic political calculations, not the subtle calculus it takes to run the nation’s fourth-most populous state. In the House K-12 budget committee on Tuesday morning, eyebrows arched and heads shook as lawmakers tried digesting Scott’s plan to slash state-paid per-student spending by 10 percent.

Details, the Lege “don’t need no stinkin’ details”. CEOs don’t provide details, they just present the broad outlines of what they want the “corporation” to do, and underlings take care of the details.  He doesn’t seem to understand the link between “taxes” and the “revenue” side of the ledger.

As long as you refuse to accept that the problem is one of low demand, and keep messing around on the supply side, things will get worse, not better.