Rubio Hates Ethics

In addition to being a bad legislator and terrible leader, Marco Rubio is also ethically-challenged.

Apparently, he attempted to help a political ally win FDOT contracts by inserting obscure language into the budget that would've prevented the state from awarding the contracts to other bidders, even if they came up with better bids.

He also received a suspicious home equity loan of $135 thousand. Real estate experts claim the deal is "unusual" at best. Rubio failed to disclose the loan, something he's done in the past.

Crazy Republican Quote of the Day

"Last year, you led the way on property tax reform, because you understood then, as you do now, that we needed to do something meaningful and comprehensive to help Florida prepare for an impending economic downturn." -- Speaker Marco Rubio to the Florida House, 3/4/08

"Last year, our state failed to confront and solve the economic problems before us in a meaningful way. And now, we are facing the consequences." -- Speaker Marco Rubio to the Florida House, 3/4/07, less than a minute later

Campbell Hates Taxes, Honesty...Republicans?

House District 32 Special Election Candidate Sean Campbell has been going on and on about his "top priority" -- property taxes. And he warns that his opponent, Tony Sasso, will raise taxes if elected. This ignores, of course, the fact that Sasso actually voted repeatedly to cut taxes as Cocoa Beach City Commissioner. While Sasso did vote to increase tax revenue, what this really means is that he voted to support real estate improvements and new growth, things that generate additional tax revenue while maintaining or even cutting tax rates.

So, while Campbell is dishonest in going after Sasso, he is on target in attacking people who say they favor lower taxes but actually vote to increase taxes. It's good to see that he's takign on the Republicans in the legislature, who love to talk about cutting taxes, but actually have done quite a bit to increase them. Like last year when they required local governments to increase their share of education funding -- something they could only do by raising taxes.

But lets not just talk about this in generalities, lets get some numbers, using the Republican way of looking at this, tax "revenue" increases:
*Will Weatherford (R-Land O' Lakes) - Voted to increase property tax revenues more than $550 million
*Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) - Voted to increase annual property tax revenues more than $1.5 billion, for a total of nearly $3 billion
*Ray Sansom (R-Gulf Breeze) - Voted to increase annual property tax revenues by $2.7 billion for a total of nearly $7 billion
*Marco Rubio (R-Miami) - Voted to increase annual property tax revenues by $3.8 billion for a total of more than $40 billion
*Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) - Voted to increase tax revenues so many times that its hard to keep track, but the total is certainly more than Rubio's

This is the problem with so much of the Republican rhetoric, they create dishonest standards by which to judge their opponents, and don't apply these same standards to themselves.