From the Editor

Sorry, boss, but all I can say is it all started-as so many epiphanies do-with the arts. Every November, we celebrate our star-studded cultural scene with this special issue about the arts, and November is also "Celebrate the Arts" month in Collier County.

But there's not much celebrating going on in many Southwest Florida art circles. That's because, faced with more expenses than income, the state slashed arts funding by 78 percent this spring. As a result, many already lean organizations are becoming downright skeletal. Most are vowing to make it up somehow-lay off an employee here, double up a job description there-without letting audiences see the pain, while they work on building a case for next year's legislature. Besides enriching the lives of citizens, they argue, the arts create jobs and fuel economic activity, from printing to restaurant patronage. They also attract tourists, wealthy retirees and that much-sought-after "creative class," the entrepreneurs and high-tech workers who add to a region's economic clout.

But when arts leaders, including many from Southwest Florida, tried to get that message to Tallahassee this spring, few legislators listened. Though the arts' share of the state budget was just one-sixteenth of one percent, the legislators, faced with the need to cut critical human and social services, saw no political capital in spending money on art.

"They need to think of it as investing, not spending," argues Sherron Long of the Florida Cultural Alliance, since the arts affect "everything they're concerned about-tourism, job growth, attracting business, quality of life, education reform. A minuscule investment in culture can reap tremendous rewards." Long and other arts leaders hope they'll get more attention next spring if that message is delivered by influential business and political leaders from around the state, and they're working to enlist them in the cause.

I hope they'll succeed, but like many others, I'm getting tired of trotting out the same old arguments every time there's a budget crunch, and I'm beginning to wonder if the real problem isn't Florida's finances. There's nothing fuzzy about the math-our costs are rising, and our main source of revenue, the sales tax (Florida doesn't tax personal income, property or inheritances, part of why we rank 43rd in per capita taxation among the 50 states), can't cover them. Slammed by growth, costly ballot initiatives and the increasingly desperate needs of its citizens, the state was also hit this year by the economic downturn. It's not just the arts we're not funding adequately-in areas from education to child welfare, we routinely rank in the bottom third of the 50 states in spending.

The only way we balanced the budget this year was by slashing programs and services, raising fees and fines, and using half a billion dollars in one-time funds-a strategy that would make any business manager shudder.

No politician is eager to raise taxes, and in the past few years, the anti-tax talk has been vehement, especially from our own Gov. Bush. But lately, even some conservative Republicans have been breaking ranks. Financier Warren Buffett made headlines when he pointed out how property taxes in California have been kept ridiculously low, and this fall, Alabama's Republican, born-again Gov. Bob Riley campaigned for re-election vowing to raise taxes by $1.5 billion. "I'm tired of Alabama being first in things that are bad and last in things that are good," he declared. "I believe in a fair tax code."

Here in Florida, even such bastions of moderation as the nonprofit Florida Tax Watch are calling for modernizing our tax system-including starting to collect tax on Internet sales, an estimated $1 billion last year. Closer to home, Bradenton's ex-Florida Senate president John McKay is leading a petition drive to force politicians to review each of the 350 or so exemptions to the sales tax, including such turkeys as exemptions on sky boxes, fertilizer and exotic dancers. In all, such exemptions represented $24 billion in lost revenue last year. Even Tax Watch has compiled a list of 125 questionable exemptions for the legislature to consider. They have so far failed to act on any of those, but the group's president, Dominic M. Calabro, believes "vigilance and persistence" from citizens may force them to reconsider. Let's hope so. If we want to maintain our state's prosperity and quality of life-including the quality of our cultural life-we need to address the tax issue. As McKay has said, "We've got to do something. This is not about Republicans or Democrats or the Green party. It's about Florida."