Unshrunk

So this is it? This is all that small-government advocates can deliver after eight years of an overwhelmingly Republican Legislature and a governor devoted to the cause?

"He has succeeded in shifting the terms of the debate," says Robert McClure, president of the libertarian-leaning James Madison Institute. "Clearly this governor who has big ideas is constrained by the system in which he works."

During a period when Gov. Bob Graham was having trouble getting some proposals through a Legislature controlled by his own party, he was branded "Governor Jell-O." And that was from an editorial board that liked him (the St. Petersburg Times). Today such a governor is simply "constrained by the system." The fact is that Bush hasn't really pushed very hard.

"There's no big revolution," says TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic L. Calabro. "This is a testament that the power of government to grow is overwhelming."

Every function of government has a constituency, which rises up in opposition whenever its piece of government is threatened. Rare is the politician who wants to take that system on. That's why politicians focus on procedural change, like "sunset" legislation and "zero-based budgeting" and a "65% solution for schools" to demonstrate their commitment to tighter budgets. The mindset, whether you're Republican or Democrat, is to prescribe conduct and monitor activities instead of focusing on outcome.

Are we expecting too much? Has Bush done about all that any governor could?

"State government is a huge, huge, huge ship," says Bush's former chief of staff, Denver Stutler Jr., now secretary of transportation. "If you can move that thing a couple of degrees, that's huge success. You move the needle three degrees and travel eight years, and then you look back at the difference you've made."

Bush has consistently kept pressure on spending. But his techniques are more temporary than structural, like suppressing pay raises or deferring the infrastructure needs that accompany all the economic growth he has been encouraging. His Medicaid reform seeks a significant change in that huge program, but after seven years it's a small "pilot" program. State budgeting is mostly add-on budgeting -- last year's money, plus. It still doesn't clearly distinguish investment from cost. Government is not noticeably simpler, nor its effectiveness noticeably higher.

"Real change requires real change," Gingrich, now a presidential prospect, tells his audiences. But it's a career-killer for politicians. Four years after his triumphant rise to speaker, Gingrich was booted out by his own party because his aggressiveness, including a government shutdown in the spending debate, turned voters off and hurt Republicans in the 1998 elections.

The same thing happened to Claude Kirk. Everybody loves to hate Claude Kirk, who was governor 1967-71 (and is now retired, living in Palm Beach County). He was a clown, people say. He didn't keep his word, they say. But Claude Kirk basically created environmentalism as state policy, and he was relentless about it. He didn't have "a program" to buy out rich property owners so they wouldn't develop fragile lands. He had a crusade. Somebody's building a jetport in the Everglades? Shut it down. Dredge and fill developments? No more. Corruption in alcohol licenses? Appoint a division director with integrity and clean it up. Want to break the teachers union? Let 'em strike (they did, in 1968).

Tags: Politics & Law, Around Florida, Government/Politics & Law