Well, that might be overstating it a bit but DUHbya's smarter brother signed a bill to eliminate a tax on alcohol that was used to prevent children from developing substance abuse problems. The reason? The restaurant owners said it was too difficult to do the math.
A Florida tax was repealed and few noticed.
On June 9, Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law a bill that would eliminate an approximately 3.3 percent charge for alcohol served by the glass.
When the tax expires on July 1, 2007, so will a trust fund to prevent children and adolescents from developing substance abuse problems.
Restaurateurs and bar owners had tremendous difficulty calculating the surcharge and getting it up to Tallahassee, said Cragin Mosteller, vice president for the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association.
Now this is from a group that says schools must be punished for not having high enough math test scores, and they reward businesses for not even being able to compute percentages?
Of course not all restaurant owners are happy about this.
Franco Iribarren, owner of Bella Maria Cafe on Fifth Avenue South, was somewhat disturbed that a tax benefiting children's health was eliminated.
"When you buy cigarettes, part of the (tax) goes to prevention. Alcohol is much worse, like a drug," Iribarren said, adding that he both drinks and smokes cigarettes, and to do so doesn't make one a bad person.
The tax repeal is good for his business but bad for the children, and it wasn't all that difficult to tally at the end of each month, he said.
Spencer Cootware, owner of Nickel American Bail Bonds, was having a drink at Paddy Murphy's Irish Pub on Friday evening and said he couldn't believe the state cut a tax and is taking the money away from a children's program.
"Just look at it this way. Where are they going to make up the difference? In our property taxes?" Cootware asked warily.
Never fear! JEB says the money will be made up by general revenue funds which means as long as there's money in the general revenue they'll get it. Problem is this money is non-recurring but the people who run these programs are probably too trusting to not trust Bush.
However, in Tallahassee, the longtime head of the Florida Alcoholic and Drug Abuse Association was aware of the legislation.
John Daigle, who retires this month after 30 years, said the cutback will result in virtually no loss of services for children and their families.
"Obviously, there's a large need," he said.
Of the tax money collected, the trust fund only got about $12 million, he said. The state has promised that 95 percent of the lost dollars will be replaced with money from the Florida general revenue fund.
Of course not all people are this nieve.
Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Erin Geraghty agreed that the some $12 million the program got out of the $51 million last year was promised by Bush in his Children and Families budget, and it's actually better this way: it's now a recurring allotment of $11.3 million, whereas before, the Children and Families program was dependent on alcohol intake.
I guess they are.
Trust me when I say JEB will be running for president some day and this guy is far worse than Dubya. His beliefs are just as whacked out but he's far more articulate.
http://www.naplesnews.com/...