The Political Whore

Former state Rep. Carlos Lacasa, a Republican from Miami, is making a quick tour through Tampa Bay on Wednesday and Thursday in a scenario that, at first blush, resembles a discussion of the best way to shut the barn door after the horse has already escaped: Lacasa is soliciting input on reforming Florida’s tax system from local governments.

But even though the Legislature completed a substantial (if flawed) reform package in special session last week, Lacasa believes the visit is still timely and necessary.

I talked this afternoon with the Miami lawyer about why he’s coming, given that the Legislature has (to some degree) preempted the work of Florida’s Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, of which Lacasa is a member. Lacasa said the issue is neither over nor cut-and-dried, and additional work by the Commission could be needed to gauge fully the impacts of what the Legislature did last week and (if needed) to recommend some tweaks for possible unintended consequences.

Those problems could include, for instance, the fiscal impact on a poor, rural county if most of its homes are under $200,000 in value?  In the proposal that will go to voters on Jan. 29, a super-homestead exemption would leave 75 percent of that value untaxed.

“Based on what I have read so far it is my impression that there may still be some work to be done,” Lacasa said. “I don’t know what that is yet. I’m looking forward to hearing what the city of Tampa and the county of Hillsborough has to say about it.”

The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is constituted every 20 years under a Constitutional provision that requires members to:

[E]xamine the state budgetary process, the revenue needs and expenditure processes of the state, the appropriateness of the tax structure of the state, and governmental productivity and efficiency; review policy as it relates to the ability of state and local government to tax and adequately fund governmental operations and capital facilities required to meet the state’s needs during the next twenty year period; determine methods favored by the citizens of the state to fund the needs of the state, including alternative methods for raising sufficient revenues for the needs of the state; determine measures that could be instituted to effectively gather funds from existing tax sources; examine constitutional limitations on taxation and expenditures at the state and local level; and review the state’s comprehensive planning, budgeting and needs assessment processes to determine whether the resulting information adequately supports a strategic decisionmaking process.

The Commission can put referenda on the ballot in the fall of 2008 without legislative approval. Lacasa said he doesn’t believe that the Commission would put a competing tax-reform proposal on the fall ballot after the January vote, but he also did not rule it out.

Lacasa will address the Hillsborough County Commission on Wednesday and the Tampa City Council on Thursday. His appearances were solicited, in part, by his law firm colleague here, the politically connected Steve Anderson at Ruden McClosky.

Lacasa also said he will try to have the Commission address two other issues near and dear to his heart: school vouchers and term limits.

Lacasa said he would like the Commission to consider asking voters to change the current eight-year term limits to 10 or 12 years. Even though he called himself a “complete and ardent supporter of term limits,” Lacasa said the complicated budgeting process in Tallahassee requires legislators with more experience. “I think you need experience for that” kind of work, he said.

And increasing government vouchers to pay for private schools could be a way to get more mileage out of tax dollars, he added. Doing that would allow government to “access to more infrastructure and funding that is not there right now in the current public education system,” he said. “Competition is the nature of our success. Whenever you take competition out,” you don’t get better results.

Although both issues are only tangentially involved in taxation and budgets, Lacasa said he wants to raise them anyway.

“I will stretch the scope of our work as far as I can stretch it without hitting a brick wall,” he said.

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