The upside: The cash would be a reprieve from the punishing rounds of cuts to education, health care for the poor and elderly, programs for the disabled, hospice patients and foster children.

But it has a big catch. House and Senate leaders say they still can't get answers from Washington about exactly how stimulus dollars may be spent, so it would be irresponsible to plan to use the money.

They've also argued Florida's economy is unlikely to bounce back by the time the federal cash runs out in 2011. "We're just delaying the inevitable," says incoming House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala. "I'm very cautious about being lured into what would appear to be a momentary fix."

The plan has other problems. It uses $3 billion in one-time federal funds, $400 million in more raids on trust funds, and other one-time cash on ongoing budget expenses like classrooms, child-care, welfare checks and Head Start programs.

Devoting that much one-time money to ongoing costs requires a three-fifths vote of the Legislature.

Another big winner in Crist's spending plan would be schools, which would be propped up by $880 million in federal stimulus money and would otherwise face another round of cuts.

"That's our vision," Crist budget director Jerry McDaniel said of avoiding additional education cuts this year. "The Legislature might not have that same philosophy, but that's ours."

A centerpiece to the Crist plan is a series of property tax cuts for commercial properties, new homeowners, and non-homesteaded property owners that would go on the 2010 election ballot.

"We all know how important the real estate market is to Florida, to getting this economy going again," Crist said. "The more we can encourage people to buy more Florida homes, the better opportunity we're going to have."

But Florida's situation owes mostly to a decades-long over-reliance on the state's appeal to retirees and tourists.

With no personal income tax, the sales tax has been king. Much as Wall Street thought rising home values were a safe investment hedge, Florida's housing boom allowed government to grow like gangbusters in the early 2000s, fueled by sales and real estate taxes many assumed would stay on an upward trajectory.

The Florida Legislature cut $19 billion in taxes, gave seed money to high-tech companies like the Burnham Institute, funded new medical schools in Orlando, Miami and Tallahassee and built more roads, work-force housing and classrooms.

"The reality is we just had a red-hot economy, and everyone presumed what went up would only go up further," said Dominic Calabro, president of Florida TaxWatch, a business-backed watchdog group in Tallahassee.

These days, the gravy train has become a fiscal famine. Since 2007, legislators have kept government running by burning through more than $2 billion from cash reserves and the state's tobacco settlement, while slashing $3.5 billion from education, $1 billion from health care for the poor and elderly, and another $1 billion from road projects.

The crashing halt came after home prices peaked in the summer of 2006. Senate Ways and Means Chairman J.D. Alexander, R- Lake Wales, and other lawmakers have used the fiscal crisis to launch a top-to-bottom review of state government agencies, programs and staff.

But few expect the exercise to wring much new savings out of a $65 billion budget that's already more than $8 billion less than the budget lawmakers passed in 2006.

"There will be additional cuts," said Senate President Jeff Atwater, R- North Palm Beach. "Nobody has a read on how deep this trough is and how long it will last."

SOURCE: southflorida.sun-sentinel.com