I live in Florida but have a house in Mississippi. So I know a lot about the quality of life in both places. Trust me, Florida's is better.
And the incredible part -- Floridadoes a lot more to keep its burden on residents low, yet still live up to many of their highest expectations.
You may have noticed, I never make fun of the Florida Department of Transportation. I stopped doing that after my first week in Mississippi.
Florida has grown-up ambitions and nothing says "We're No. 1" quite like a transportation infrastructure with attitude. Find fault here and there with local roads and construction headaches if you will, but compared to nearby Alabama and especially Mississippi, Florida's highway system is a dream for its residents, tourists, aspirations.
The goal for most states is to have 75 percent of major roads in good condition. In Florida, that percentage is 95.2 percent, one of the highest in the nation; in Mississippi, it's a miserable 42 percent, among the nation's worst, and I'm told prospects are poor for improving on that.
Potholes aren't just common on backroads in Mississippi. They're on interstates, federal highways, main roads, Main Street, everywhere. After major rainfalls, they're a disease.
Potholes and roads that bounce you like a bar of soap on a washboard aren't the scariest of the Magnolia State's transportation woes. According to The Road Information Program (TRIP), a nonprofit research organization that gathers technical data on Americas transportation system, 25 percent of the states bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. This translates to 4,201 bridges, eighth highest in the nation.Florida's bridges? Ranked among the soundest and best-maintained.
Florida's aggressive highway improvement program started in 2000 when Gov. Jeb Bush signed a $4 billion road plan called Mobility 2000. It accelerated dozens of highway projects that had been scheduled to start 15 to 20 years down the line.
The reason I make such a big deal of the transportation comparison between Florida and a so-called "poor Southern state" at the bottom of so many quality lists for decades is because it symbolizes how much better fiscally conservative Florida serves its people -- how much more it does, from a resident's perspective.
Consider this:
-- Mississippi has a state income tax; Florida has none.
-- Mississippi's state sales tax is currently 7 percent; Florida's is 6 percent.
-- Mississippians pay 7 percent on food, but thanks to former Gov. Haley Barbour, get a tax break on cigarettes; Floridians pay no sales tax on food, get no break for smoking.
-- Some 1.8 million Mississippi drivers have an annual tag renewal fee that costs an average $425 per vehicle -- depending on the age of the vehicle. For luxury vehicles fees are easily double the average. You'd think with all that money to drive your car/truck/SUV/van, wouldn't Magnolia State lawmakers rip off a chunk of it to fix those decaying roads and bridges? The answer is no. The money goes into general revenue and there any trail of its usefulness dies. Shame on me for complaining so often about trust fund raids in Florida.
-- In Mississippi 8 percent of gross gaming revenue tax goes to the State of Mississippi, and 3.2 percent is shared in each respective gaming community for such things as the city's general fund, its school system and police department. Last year's Mississippi gaming take was $274.42 million; Florida's was $143.60 million. But remember, Mississippi has been collecting amounts even larger than that since 1994; Florida didn't collect a dime outside of the Lottery until 2006.
My point here is this: Say what you like about the self-serving agenda of Florida lawmakers, they find a way to blend fiscal conservatism with a sense of what the people expect their state can be at its best. They set priorities and serve the people and perform a balancing act that works most of the time. Generally speaking, they rise to the occasion.
I'm sorry to pick on Mississippi, a state my husband and I cherish for its beauty, sweet people and deep cultural and musical heritage.
But while I think Florida is everything positive Gov. Rick Scott says it is, the Magnolia State -- not entirely the empty-pockets backwater it's cracked up to be (with the exception of the impoverished Mississippi Delta region) -- suffers from a chronic inferiority complex, rakes in revenue, spends it poorly and probably needs new management or an attitude adjustment in the state house and the governor's office.
Floridians may gripe but they know it: Taxophobic Florida is better.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (228) 282-2423.
