Florida TaxWatch takes aim at state budget 'turkeys'
Jim Turner
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In a sign of how Florida’s economic outlook has changed over the past year, Florida TaxWatch isn’t emphatically calling for Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto all of the “turkeys” it has identified in a record spending plan passed by lawmakers.
With the surprisingly flush $101.5 billion budget proposal expected to formally go to DeSantis soon, TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro said Monday the 116 turkeys on his group’s annual list are “strong suggestions” for vetoes. The turkeys, a Tallahassee term for questionable spending items, total $157.5 million.
Last year, as the state’s economy was hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic, TaxWatch argued for the governor to cut everything on its list of 180 projects that made the budget. Generally, turkeys are projects put into the budget without proper public oversight or that exceed publicly proposed amounts.