State Gov Fl Car Insurance Gov

Florida studying a possible universal ID for everyone

Gov. Rick Scott is on the prowl for new ways to reduce the cost and size of government.

He has a group patrolling for duplication in law enforcement. He wants agencies to scrutinize their budgets.

And he helped create a Government Efficiency Task Force of 15 business leaders and legislators, who will suggest cuts in state spending by up to $3 billion.

Your input is welcome at floridaefficiency.com .

Now, see what you think of this cost-cutting idea:

Issue Floridians a single ID card that would hold several kinds of vital information: your driver's license, car insurance, health insurance and voter registration.

Good idea?

Yes, says Julie Jones, executive director of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, who briefed Scott and Cabinet members on the plan in one-on-one meetings.

"This was my attempt to want to save money and create a product that's convenient for our customers," Jones said. "An individual has to carry three or four types of identification just to exist in Florida society.

"I've discussed it with all four of my bosses, and no one has pushed back with a no. But it's in an exploratory phase. … It may not go anywhere."

Not anytime soon.

For one thing, the vendor that manufactures Florida driver's licenses has four years remaining on its contract.

And Jones says Texas studied the idea for a long time before deciding against it.

How much would a one-size-fits-all ID save? Too soon to know, Jones said.

How much would it cost taxpayers? Nothing, Jones says, beyond what people already pay for a driver's license, which costs $48 and is valid for eight years. That's her goal.

Jones has begun shopping the concept to other agencies, and Secretary of State Kurt Browning, Florida's chief elections official, is concerned.

First of all, not everybody who drives a car is registered to vote, Browning notes, and not everyone who votes has a driver's license.

Florida privatization push can be rush job – Orlando ... - Car Insurance

TALLAHASSEE — What do policymakers do when they discover they’ve grown the size of government too much to avoid culpability for its bulging budgets? In Florida, and virtually everywhere else in America during the past four decades, the answer has been a simple one: privatize.

Henry Louis Mencken said for every complex problem, there’s a simple solution, and it’s usually wrong. Privatization of government services is a complex phenomenon, driven by radically different partisan perceptions of public goods and private markets.

This year, Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers have proposed a raft of privatization ideas: from Tri-Rail and prisons in South Florida to Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

But there are some things government does because the private sector can’t or won’t, such as put out fires and provide a justice system. Many goods and services make more sense for the private sector to provide.

Then there exists a vast and expanding space in between, where government shifts the borders because politicians have directed it to remedy a perceived market failure, protect consumers and public safety, or offer new services such as prescription drugs for the elderly.

For decades, Republican and Democratic policymakers alike have responded to government growth not by scrapping services the public expects, but handing them over to private companies to try to get the job done more cheaply.

Sometimes it works. Then there are disasters such as Project Aspire, the 2004 attempt to privatize Florida government’s accounting systems, which was scrapped three years later by former Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink after wasting $89 million in taxpayer money.

Mindful of such failures, the Florida Legislature in 2006 passed a law requiring state agencies to develop a “business case” before privatizing to determine whether companies “can more effectively and efficiently provide services and reduce the cost of government.

The state, its nature, development, and prospects

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