Rubio: "I can assure you we have a plan"

This week, House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber has repeatedly questioned whether his GOP counterparts really have a budget plan now that revenue estimators have finalized the bleak budget picture for next year.

After the Legislature finalized roughly $512 million in cuts to this year’s budget Wednesday, Gelber and House Budget Chief Ray Sansom traded jabs over who was being more irresponsible: Republicans rushing through cuts, or Democrats stalling the Legislature’s constitutional mandate to balance the budget.

“We have no idea what principles are guiding their decisions and what they plan on doing next,” Gelber said.

Not so fast, House Speaker Marco Rubio says.

"I can assure you we have a plan,” the speaker said Wednesday after talking with the Central Florida Partnership at the FSU University Club. “We've known this was coming for a long time … We’re going to reduce government to the level the economy can afford to sustain."

While that might not shed much light, Rubio added every area of government would have to absorb the projected $3 billion less in revenue, but that some vital services like courts could be spared from the worst of it.

“Clearly, liver transplant patients’ anti-rejection medication is going to take priority over a water or environmental project somewhere,” Rubio said. “So, there will be prioritization, but everybody is going to feel reductions because the bottom line is the government doesn’t have the money because our economy is doing poorly.”

Another door he left open: trust funds reliant on recurring fees or taxes.

While the GOP Legislature has resisted tapping one-time sources of cash so far, Rubio said his members were willing to look at trust funds that receive regular, yearly income from fees or other charges. He singled out the transportation trust fund lawmakers beefed up when the passed a growth management reform in 2005.

"Some people have set up these recurring trust funds and they’re never examined. They’re isolated from the rest of the budget and never have any scrutiny. They’re budgetary sacred cows,” Rubio said.

“There are recurring transportation dollars, for example, through the growth management bill that we pulled out of general revenue, and now we’re paying the consequences for that.”

Orlando Sentinel