Rubio wants 'agency eliminations'; state Sen. Lawson calls idea 'insane'

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Rubio wants 'agency eliminations'; state Sen. Lawson calls idea 'insane'

01/10/2008 © Tallahassee DemocratHouse Speaker Marco Rubio said Wednesday he will push for "agency eliminations" in the 2008 legislative session.

But Senate President Ken Pruitt was cool to the idea and Sen. Al Lawson, who has represented Tallahassee in the Legislature for 26 years, called it "insane." Rubio said that to deal with severe revenue shortfalls, caused by Florida's real-estate slump and other recessionary economic trends, state lawmakers should prune the size and scope of state government — not just to save tax money, but to reduce regulatory burdens that he said hamper business growth. "I think there's an opportunity for agency eliminations," Rubio told business editors and reporters from across the state. "I think there's an opportunity for consolidation. I think that there's an opportunity to go into our base budget and find things that were put there 30 years ago by legislators who aren't even around any more and remove them." Rubio, R-West Miami, declined to identify any agencies or services he wants to end. He said House committees are doing a "sunset" review of some agencies. The speaker said an aide recently told him the state budget contains staffing for a Metrics Commission to help with conversion to the metric system, a federal idea that enjoyed a brief vogue 30 years ago. But the Department of Management Services was unable to find any such office on Wednesday. "We're working on it right now," Rubio said, deferring to House committees on sunset matters. "If they come back to me and tell me, 'You know what? We've found there's no inefficiencies in state government, there's no duplication of effort, there's no overlap, there's no redundancy,' I would look at them and say, 'I don't believe you.' But we all know they're not going to say that because we all know that's not the case in any endeavor, even the private sector." Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, followed Rubio in addressing the business journalists. "We love our partners in the House," said Pruitt. "Anything that comes over, we will thoughtfully take up and consider." Lawson was blunt. The Democrat blamed eight-year legislative term limits for Rubio's comments. "That's really an insane approach by the speaker," said Lawson, who served 18 years in the pre-term limits House before his election to the Senate in 2000. "Rubio is way off base, and this shows a lack of experience before he was elected to leadership. What we should be doing is strengthening Florida's economy and working on a tax base that is stable and supportive of state government."

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