Nice story in the Naples News Thursday about how pleased Southwest Florida legislators are over this year's recent session. 

Good to know they're happy to give themselves a pat on the back for capping the amount Big Tobacco has to set aside for lawsuits; trying to loosen the class size amendment, eliminate public art funding, and open the eastern Gulf up to reckless drilling; and making it even easier for Big Developers to promote sprawl and wreck the environment.  All in all, apparently not a bad session's worth of work. 

Ah, but in comparison to other states, maybe Florida's session wasn't so bad.

"Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said California and Illinois both started their fiscal years on July 1 without a balanced budget.  Florida did pass its budget, despite the fact that they were hit with a $6 billion deficit at the start of the session."

Yeah, and come to think of it, New York's legislature has grinded to a complete standstill recently.  So Florida's legislature looks pretty good in comparison, right?  Right?

Wrong.

Just because other state legislatures could possibly be more screwed up than Florida's doesn't mean we should all be happy about what we've got.  And what we've got is a legislature beholden to special interests, a governor who's bailing for D.C and selling out the state in the process, and a bunch of really bad new public policies.

So before we go hailing our legislative session as a success simply because it got a budget passed (late, by the way, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of extra dollars), let's stop for a minute and think about what good really was done.

Then it's easy to wonder if what's happening in New York is really such a bad thing after all...