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The Jax Files is an interactive, quick-hitting blog devoted to any and all things Pasco, whether whole-heartedly, tangentially or merely psychologically.

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Tom Jackson is in a 12-step program for recovering sports writers; as part of his rehabilitation, he writes a column centered on the people, politics, passions and peculiarities of Pasco County. Email

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Pasco County News | Breaking News

Rubio’s federalist attack on debt, cynicism

Posted May 18, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 18, 2011 at 01:08 AM

As the debate raged over whether Florida should accept federal money for the first leg of a (not-so) high-speed rail network, one argument was notable as much for its cynicism as its repetition. Take the money, the advocates (including prominent editorial pages) said again and again; if we don’t it, other states will. Yes. Other states will get our money.

And indeed they did. Not long after Gov. Rick Scott declined Washington’s borrowed $2.4 billion—saying, among other things, he could not square the Sunshine State’s sense of economic sanity with going even deeper into hock—President Obama’s Department of Transportation began reallocating Florida’s spurned dollars into other black holes where state officials are less circumspect.

What followed was equally predictable and disgusting—gloating elsewhere, snooty toldja-sos locally—neither changing the fundamental truth: The grab-it-while-you-can argument isn’t simply awful (although it is). It also is insidious, reducing Florida and the other states in the choo-choo mix to just so many undignified baby birds in a nest, all gaping maws atop scrawny necks craning for Momma Fed’s morsels.

Worse, the argument encourages Washington’s paternalistic pathology—requiring states to dance to the federal tune (never mind our needs; we’ll spend our money your way) to reclaim some portion of their taxes—while shrugging off our founding principles.

Now a freshman U.S. Senator—Florida’s Marco Rubio—has introduced a bill seeking to eliminate this double-barreled affront to fiscal responsibility and federalism. Rubio’s “REFUND Act” (Returned Exclusively For Unpaid National Debt) would restore rejected, unwanted or otherwise unused federal money designated by state legislatures to the treasury for the purpose of shrinking the national debt.

Said Rubio in a press announcement released Tuesday:

“The REFUND Act ends the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ mentality that encourages states to take debt-financed cash from Washington that will be a crushing burden on our children and grandchildren. Fiscally responsible state officials should be allowed to divert Washington’s spending spree towards debt reduction and do their part to end the practice of spending money we don’t have.

“It takes a great deal of courage for state officials to take the long view and reject debt-financed federal funds, but this legislation will encourage them to make decisions with their state’s and nation’s best interests at heart and without worrying that the money will be spent elsewhere if they don’t. For our children’s and grandchildren’s sake, Washington’s dysfunctional culture of borrowing and misspending has to end, and this is one way states can join the fight for this national cause.”

Like many worthwhile ideas currently knocking around inside the Beltway, this one is (a) desperately overdue and (b) almost certainly doomed … at least until federalist-minded deficit hawks such as Rubio and Montana’s Denny Rehberg, the REFUND Act’s sponsor in the House, command the majority on Capitol Hill, and a like-minded chief executive operates at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Nonetheless, they’re practically giddy over at Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Taxpayers Union, where one less argument for spending borrowed money always is welcome. Besides, they’ve probably heard there’s an existing way to get from Tampa to Orlando at 80 mph—locals call it “Interstate 4”—and it’s paid for.