Floridians just got a lesson in -- or perhaps a reminder of -- why they can't trust their deadbeat dad of a federal government.
Dad doesn't keep his promises.
The latest broken promise cropped up during Tuesday's Cabinet meeting when Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam had to come back to Cabinet members -- literally go begging -- for the $1.5 million the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service promised us. The money comes on top of the $3.7 million Scott and the Cabinet approved in September.
The feds said they would pick up a share of the 1,617 acres of ranch land and panther habitat in eastern Collier County but -- surprise, surprise -- they reneged.
"After they had gone through four layers of approval, a new hire decided they were not going to approve it," Putnam told reporters after the meeting. The bogus excuse was mineral rights.
The deal involves what is known as a "conservation easement," which typically allows exactly what I like best -- landowners to continue longstanding uses of their property, such as farming and ranching. The easements are a way for the state to preserve natural land by preventing development.
An embarrassed and frustrated Putnam repeated his point: "So, after Gainesville approved it, Atlanta approved it and Washington approved it, they bailed."
The rest of the Cabinet made good Dad's promise anyway.
How bogus was the excuse? "The environmental groups that stood up continue to support the state purchasing the easement," Putnam said, "because it's valuable panther habitat, wetlands, water recharge and (habitat for) other wildlife in a critical part of a rapidly developing part of Southwest Florida."
It's like the states live in a big house with a dad they want to look up to, but over and over he turns his back on them. He goes AWOL. They can't trust him. He doesn't do what he says, or sometimes he does, but you can never be sure when or if. He falls behind on child support, over and over.
Tuesday was only the latest reminder. I remember so many of the feds' deadbeat occasions, I don't even have to look them up.
Sometimes dad is just lazy or inept.
I remember in 2011, a year after Sunshine State News started, I covered a story about the feds cheating Florida out of fuel taxes, consistently allowing us fewer shares than we paid into the fuel trust fund. The source of the problem was a reporting flaw. The flaw was corrected by the Bush Administration, and accurate numbers were reported for 2007. But when the new Obama team came in, it reverted to the incorrect equity calculations and failed to report the correct ones when the 2008 and 2009 data were released.
Floridians never did get their money back.
Mostly, though, when the Sunshine State has a crisis, or when it has a vast project of national consequence -- Everglades restoration and Everglades National Park are the best examples -- that's when dad does his most dramatic blustering and makes his biggest promises and ultimately lets us down the hardest.
You might remember the letter Gov. Rick Scott wrote to President Obama on Sept. 25, 2013, in which he told him, "Unfortunately, our state has seen investments in the Lake Okeechobee dike system decrease under your watch. In 2013, you funded maintenance at $130 million, but your 2014 budget proposes a reduction to $86 million. This funding reduction is astonishing considering the federal government has yet to deliver on its responsibility of supporting a dike system that can keep families safe while mitigating environmental impacts. ..."
Do you remember Earth Day 2015, when President Obama chose to spend it at Everglades National Park talking about climate change? I cheered Gov. Scott's comment afterward, trying to make the president own up to his deadbeat dad administration: Rather than coming to Florida with empty pockets, Obama, said Scott, "needs to live up to his commitment on the Everglades and find a way to fund the $58 million in backlog funding Everglades National Park hasn’t received from the federal government."
Scott was right both times.
Every Florida official I know going back two decades has his or her own personal deadbeat dad story about money promised for something important -- a bridge, an interstate improvement, a dredging project, you name it.
You only have to look at Obamacare. Is the Affordable Care Act operating as it was sold to you?
Deadbeat dads are a product of an arrogant, out-of-control, far-removed-from-real-America Big Government culture. It's that simple.
And it's something to bear in mind when the Florida Senate tries to revive Medicaid expansion, as surely it will in 2017. If you're for Medicaid expansion, all I ask is that you stay wise to the vagaries of dad's promises and realize, as Commissioner Putnam had to on Tuesday, dad might not be there with the cash when he said he would.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
