Charlie Crist will have his hands full with Rubio and Donna Arduin.

[madfloridian]

Who is going to be a real problem for Charlie Crist? Jeb's buddy, Marco Rubio, Speaker of the Florida House. I noticed today that Rubio's budget advisor is of all people, Donna Arduin. She was Jeb's budget advisor and program axer. She also worked for Governors Pataki and Schwarzennegger cutting budgets as well.


Arduin, 40, known by some as the "Terminator's terminator" for her penchant for cutting budgets for Republican governors in three states over 11 years, faces her biggest fiscal challenge yet in California. Her most recent job was budget director for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush – a state with a budget about half the size of California's. There, she cut some health-care programs for the poor, such as vision and dentistry programs, and the state bureaucracy, while borrowing money for road building.

From the Florida Politics blog, a great site for all things Florida, here is a piece about the tax changes they tried to get through. I think they are on hold for now. It is Rubio's passion with Donna's help.

Rubio and Jeb and the tax changes

Two years ago, Gov. Jeb Bush led lawmakers in a pillaging raid on Sadowski, ransacking the now almost $1 billion trust fund to pay for pet projects. They 'capped' Sadowski at $243 million, not nearly enough to offset Florida's critical workforce housing shortage. Now, their midnight raid is about to take effect.

So instead of the nation's most innovative and progressive solution to our dire workforce housing crisis, we get a warmed-over talk radio tax scam whose biggest beneficiaries are Rubio's wealthy condo-owner buddies. This year housing advocates --- along with every major industry and economic development group in Florida, even the Chamber of Commerce --- want to "Scrap the Cap" on Sadowski before Florida faces financial ruin.

Rubio claims that will upset his tax scam, and his poor, neglected millionaire friends will be forced to pay property taxes on oceanfront condos they bought at laughably inflated prices at the height of Florida's real estate bubble."


Photo courtesy of Republican Party of Florida
Marco Rubio (R), who will be sworn in as the Florida Speaker of the House today, holds up a blank copy of "100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future" at the ceremony where he was elected last September. He asked Republican House members to find ideas to put in the book.

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Arduin called Crist plan too costly.

Guess who is advising Florida's Speaker of the House? One of Jeb Bush's closest strategists. She is the same one Jeb sent to California to help Arnold Schwarzenegger win.

Crist has his detractors outside of the Democratic Party, but for the most part they keep their criticism quiet. Last month the Florida House unanimously approved Crist's "antimurder" bill.

But when a St. Petersburg Times editorial cited the law's high cost, Donna Arduin, a policy adviser to House Speaker Marco Rubio, sent colleagues an e-mail that said: "There is a first time for everything. ... I agree with the Times."

The most notable exception to all the silence is Attorney General Bill McCollum, who called it "a grave mistake" and "very liberal" for Crist to advocate automatic restoration of some civil rights to felons.

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Most of this article is now a paid article...but here is the free part from 2003:

"Donna Arduin, the loyal, true believing financial whiz who has shaped Gov. Jeb Bush's fiscal policy for the past five years, has taken her budget ax to California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has named her finance director.

Arduin was first recruited to be the independent auditor for Schwarzenegger's transition team, charged with finding flab in California's mammoth $100-billion state budget. Despite the enormity of the task--California faces a $38-billion shortfall--she decided to stay.

A protege of supply-side guru David Stockman of the Ronald Reagan era, Arduin, 40, took a personal leave."

Jeb sends Arduin to Arnie to balance his budget

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Here is a little more from a blog from 2003 which links to mostly dead links...but worth reading anyway.

The Jeb Bush-Arnold Schwarzenegger Connection

The Forida Blog asks (and answers) a real good question, one which will be of particular interest to Californians and to polticial junkies everywhere,

“Who is Donna Arduin? And how is it she’s advising Arnold Schwarzenegger while on Florida’s payroll?”.

Earlier Orlando Sentinel coverage (also via the Florida Blog) contains this gem:

Those who know Arduin predict Californians will soon be handed a conservative diet of program cuts, the use of one-time tax dollars to pay for recurring state services, the privatizing of state work, and tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

Some creative math might also be thrown in to help balance the books, as well as a few clashes with lawmakers, observers said.

So, would that be Bush-Schwarzenegger, or Schwarzenegger-Bush in ‘08?"

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A Massive Whack

"A MASSIVE WHACK
But Arduin may have met her match with California's state finances. For starters, there's no getting around Proposition 98, which requires K-12 education expenditures to increase in proportion to the growing student population, even during years when state revenues fall. Similarly, health and welfare spending mandated by federal rules are also immune from cuts. Together, education and health care comprise about 65% of total state spending in any one year. That means Arduin will need to take a massive whack to remaining areas -- including such basic services as universities, courts, and police -- to bring spending down.

So what is there to cut? Arduin will consider merging several overlapping state agencies, including two state tax units and several that handle education programs, according to a member of her transition team. Even before his recall, Davis had asked his agencies to recommend how to cut 20% out of the $10 billion in general government spending through layoffs, outsourcing, and other measures. In all, Schwarzenegger will probably find at least $1.5 billion in such cuts, says former Senate budget staffer Fred Silva. And former Controller Kathleen Connell argues that Davis created 12 agencies, such as the Office of Inspector General, that could be scaled back."

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Also worked with Pataki.
Pataki and Arduin

"Chic, yellow-checked suit, pearls at neck and wrist, matching animal print shoes and purse, stylish sandy-blonde hair, clear brown eyes and a quick smile – this tall, slim, 40-year-old hardly looks like an economics guru. But don't let the fashion sense and friendly demeanor be misleading. Donna Arduin, California's new director of the Department of Finance, is an assertive, determined woman who has proven she can play hardball in the big leagues. Arduin assisted Governor George Pataki in solving some of New York's tax woes and most recently gave Florida Governor Jeb Bush a hand in reformulating the state's budget system."

Crist has his hands full pleasing this bunch which appears to be leftover from Jeb's rule.

They still want to make our government bathtub-sized.

[madfloridian]

1. Arduin strkes again.... supply side economics. Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer are partners.

Excellent blog. Carries a very telling article about Donna Arduin. Remember Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth...and the latte-drinking, birkenstock wearing ad against Dean in Iowa? I do.

Usual Suspect Strikes Again in Florida Tax Scheme

Donna Arduin, former advisor to Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is at it again, according to investigative reporter Shirish Date (pronounced DAH-tay).

Arduin…is a partner in a consulting firm with Arthur Laffer - as in the Laffer Curve, the justification of President Reagan’s massive tax cuts in 1981 - and Stephen Moore, former head of the anti-tax Club for Growth.

Florida is paying the firm of Arduin, Laffer and Moore Econometrics $10,000 a month under a six-month contract with the state House for Arduin’s service, which so far has included delivery of a 16-page treatise that argues that taxes on wealth are bad for the economy while taxes on consumption are good… Rubio spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin said Arduin also has given oral advice to Rubio and other House leaders on numerous occasions…

Arduin did not return phone calls for this article."

Yep, Charlie has his hands full being a moderate Republican. Good luck, Charlies.

[Ignacio Upton]

2. I'll hand it to Crist

He's actually been pretty decent for a Republican, and worlds better than Jeb. At least he supports a paper trail and in the principle of, ya know, giving people their voting rights back once they've paid their debt to society.

[madfloridian]

3. He's fighting a real battle though.

The Jeb style Republicans are in control here still. They are irrational in their hate of taxes. They will privatize everything rather than raise taxes. They just turned toll roads over to private companies. And only God knows what else Jeb turned over to them. He said during his inauguration that he wanted to empty the government buildings. We don't know how far he got.

Local governments are running scared now. They are going to start losing much needed financing for their area if Rubio succeeds in cutting or doing away with property taxes. It is scary stuff.

[Colobo]

7. I hate taxes too. I think most people do.

That's why it's easy for Republicans to fool so many people with the "party of lower taxes" mantra.

[plgoldsmith]

4. Fantastic post!

The Working Families party here in New York recently made the point that if Spitzer increased taxes on only those New Yorkers who earn more than $1M a year, we could fund everything w/o raising taxes on the middle or lower classes. They said if the 21,000 New Yorkers who make $1M plus per year kicked in ONE DAY's pay, the problem is solved. We need to bring that kind of common-sense analysis to every state and locality.

[Dr.Phool]

5. We can help by supporting this woman in next months special election.

Suzan is running for the seat vacated by Nancy Argenziano in District 3.

Read her resume in the press release. She's highly qualified. And a great person.




http://fl-kossacks.blogspot.com/2007/05/suzan-franks-announces-for-senate.html

http://www.suzanfranksforfloridasenate.com/

We've gotta get Jebthro's thugs out of Florida Gov't.

[annabanana]

9. OK. . I'll throw her a coupla bucks. . n/t

[graywarrior]

6. ! ! ! Great post. Thanks for this.

[madfloridian]

13. You are welcome. Donna Arduin doesn't care about people...

She just cares about cutting taxes.

[Alexander]

8. It would be ironic if Crist becomes more effective than Davis would've been...

And successfully pushed through a similar agenda, simply because of the (R) after his name.

[madfloridian]

10. If you don't go along you get banished to political purgatrory....

Just like Dennis Ross did. He spoke out about the Citizen's Insurance bill just put through early on because the people would have to bail the state out. Here's what happened.

It is the 2nd article on this page.

Redemption?

Rep. Dennis Ross' banishment to political purgatory was well documented after he and only one other member of the 120-member Florida House voted against the new property insurance legislation in the January special session. He warned that if hurricanes hit this summer, the state coffers could be wiped out and every homeowner would be required to spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars bailing out the state insurance program.

He was sacked from his high level House leadership jobs along with Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, who also lost a chairmanship. Ross' bills systematically died in committees without ever getting to the floor.

"I had five of my 11 funding requests get passed, but that was because other members ran them for me or they got through on the Senate side,'' he said.

...."He even ran for House speaker for a while until backing out in favor of the man who later would punish him for his vote, Rep. Marco Rubio. But the Lakeland Republican has remained stoic about his fate, and maybe it is paying off.

On Friday, the last day of the 2007 session, just an hour or so before the House ended its session, Rubio allowed Ross to introduce an amendment to a property insurance cleanup bill.

Hie amendment would have required if the state insurer of last resort, Citizens Property and Casualty, should go bust and in debt from another hurricane, instead of using money from the state coffers and assessing every homeowner in the state to bail it out, only the premium holders of Citizens would be assessed to relieve the deficit.

Meanwhile, since the amendment failed, even those of who pay State Farm hundreds a month would have to pay to bail out Citizens. Ross is a decent man who did not deserve this.

[Dr.Phool]

11. I was just looking at my State Farm bills.

Not only are they charging me for bailing out Citizens on my homeowners policy, but also on my car and motorcycle policies.

[madfloridian]

12. Our rates are so unbelievably high with State Farm.

I have known our agent for years, and I asked him one day how he felt about the way his company was treating people...and I mentioned some specific areas. He sort of shrugged and said to effect what are you gonna do? Like so what.

I have not tried to analyze the bill lately, I just pay it. It is like our income taxes. They just keep going up...even though we are retired on fixed income. Trying to figure it out upsets me more than just paying it right now.

And don't even get me started on property taxes.