Opinion

The Economic News Isn't All Bad

The recent economic news has been dismal, and it's now almost universally assumed things will get worse before they get better. Conventional wisdom also dictates that this recession will be longer, deeper and cause more long-term pain than any financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Economic News Isn't All Bad/Wall St. Journal

Opinion

Jeb Bush Considers U.S. Senate Bid

In January 2007, when Jeb Bush stepped down after two terms as governor of Florida, he had cut taxes, enacted the most extensive public school reform in any state, restructured health care and, after dealing with some three dozen hurricanes and tropical storms, earned high marks for crisis management. In a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans, Bush held an approval rating of an astonishing 63%.

Warm, self-deprecating, well-read and articulate, Bush stood in a commanding position to capture the 2008 Republican nomination for president--or would have but for his last name. Conscious that the nation was in no mood to award the White House to a third member of his family, Bush traded the governor's mansion in Tallahassee for a home in Coral Gables, disappearing, aside from the occasional after-dinner speech, into private life. One of the most compelling figures in the GOP--gone.

Photo:  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush/FrontPageFlorida.com photo

  Jeb Bush Considers Senate Bid/Forbes.com

Global Economic Downturn Hits Florida's Economy; Population Growth Stalls

TALLAHASSEE — For the dozen state economists huddled around a table this month to fine-tune Florida's annual revenue forecast, something was different and disturbing.

Their projections from just a year ago were way off. Their new math: In the next four years, the state will take in $31.4-billion less in taxes than expected. That's more than six times the Pinellas and Hillsborough county budgets combined, the cost of more than 60 waterfront stadiums for the Tampa Bay Rays, and almost half this year's state budget.

The freefall in revenues the economists saw Nov. 21 was not as shocking as what caused it: Fewer newcomers were moving to the state for the first time in decades. The state's legendary growth machine had ground to a halt, compounding the troubles brought on by the global recession.

Growth won't pay the bills/Times-Herald bureau

Opinion

Property Tax Relief

Link home appraisals to foreclosure sales

A look back from an earlier article

Florida's I-4 Corridor Is key Election Battleground

Margel Zukunft, 81 years old, pulled weeds from around a for-sale sign on a recent evening outside her three-bedroom home in the Sun City retirement community near Tampa.

Alone for the past decade, she longs to move to a condominium offering dinner companions and lawn care. But in this panic-stricken economy, Zukunft has no offers -- and shaky confidence in both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

''I can almost remember in 1929 when people went to the bank and took their money out, and I can't help but wonder if I should do that,'' she said. ``I wonder if either candidate is capable of getting this mess straightened out.''

Zukunft's anxiety about the economy is a strong current that runs through the disparate communities clustered along Interstate 4, the Central Florida highway considered a gateway to one-tenth of the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Florida's I-4 corridor is key election battleground/Miami Herald

Up-to-date coverge of Decision '08