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Probing Irony Of Tuesday's Vote Results

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By TOM JACKSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 31, 2008

Whether by foresight or sheer serendipity, we who foot the bills for public officials injured on the job can be grateful today that, when it came to government buildings in Pasco County in the latter half of the previous century, architects preferred low profiles to high-rises.

After all, given the rhetoric from most local public officials over the Armageddon-awaiting-passage of Amendment 1, the goofy tinkering with property tax methodology pegged to Tuesday's ballot, we should not have been astonished to discover, come Black Wednesday morning, countless government employees teetering on the edge of window sills.

Happily, given the squat nature of Pasco's newer public structures, little would have awaited the desperate leapers besides ankle sprains and the odd dislocated hip. Who needs that? No, properly doing in oneself from a government-funded height might require a visit to the historic county courthouse clock tower.

Alas, as the upcoming Pasco County Fair will demonstrate, county officials or employees with offices west of U.S. 41 rarely make volunteer appearances east of Interstate 75. Even in an election year. Even to take that ultimate step into eternity, and thereby avoid the privation precipitated by the prospect of enduring a 1.2 percent whack from the county's next spending plan.

There, There, Poor Darlings

Still, it's hard not to sympathize with the poor dears, accustomed as they are to the luxury of redundancies of services and operations, the padding of governmental inefficiencies of scale, the burying of turf skirmishes in the minutiae of the budget, annual 5 percent raises, the public employee quota of a dozen paid holidays annually, unlimited sick-leave carryover and vacation time that piles up faster than beads around pretty girls' necks at Gasparilla.

On second thought, let's rescind that sympathy.

Plus they probably don't need anyone pointing out the irony of Tuesday's voting results. Which is among the reasons it gives This Space so much pleasure.

Don't Tax Me, Bro

More than 2.6 million Florida voters, 64.1 percent of votes cast, chose lower property taxes. (In Pasco, it was 63.8 percent.) Meanwhile, nearly 2.3 million Floridians cast ballots for presidential candidates who either vow to raise taxes (all eight listed Democrats), or denounced both rounds of President Bush's tax cuts. That would be Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican soaring toward Super Tuesday on the momentum of 660,000 Sunshine State GOP votes.

The math suggests we live among, at minimum, nearly 1 million blissful hypocrites: 2.3 million voters for presidential candidates favoring higher tax bites, minus 1.4 million who voted against Amendment 1. Conundrum? Hardly. As Tuesday showed, only the Truest Believers vote against tax cuts; meanwhile, lots of us leap to support candidates who vow to increase taxes.

If all of this simply overwhelms our family members, friends and neighbors toiling in the public sector, there is hope. Perhaps county commissioners will override prevailing sentiment and raise taxes, as is their right.

Of course, they would be like the head football coach who keeps going for it on fourth and 14 deep in his own territory. That's his right, too, but it's not likely he'd get invited back next year.

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219 or tjackson@tampatrib.com.

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