Imagine that you are one of the owners in an all employee-owned company. Things are going along pretty well and despite the fact that the company is terribly inefficient, it still makes a profit. 

About 25% of the employees in the company are "liberals", another 25% are conservatives and the remaining 50% are "moderates". Over time, employees have gravitated to one of two major camps that have formed in the company. Let's call one camp the "Democrats" and the other the "Republicans". Liberals tended to align with the democratic camp, while conservatives tended to align with the republican camp. Moderates move back and forth depending on which of the camps executes a superior public relations campaign.

Every year the board of directors is elected by the shareholders, in this case all of the employees. The board appoints the president. The president appoints the management team.

For years, customers have been complaining about the high prices of the products, the poor quality of the products, the length of time it takes to get a delivery and terrible customer service. Everyone in the company is aware of this problem.

For years, conservatives have been urging management and their fellow employees to improve the company's operations and customer service. They have been telling their management and their fellow employees that with improved customer service, improved quality and faster delivery, the company's sales would increase. This would make the company more profitable and since everyone is a shareholder, everyone's wealth would improve.

For years, liberals have realized that the recommendations of the conservatives probably make sense, but that the conservative plan would definitely cause some short term pain in terms of hard work and sacrifice on the part of employees. Lazy employees would be exposed and probably fired.

Liberals saw an opportunity to gain the support of the majority of employees and get elected to management by claiming that the conservative plan would never work and only bring long term hardship to the employees. They also promised raises to everyone in the company, regardless of performance. Even though the liberals knew the conservative plan would help the company grow in sales and profitability, they could not stand the thought of conservatives being proven right and probably gaining control of management. Their own desire for power outweighed the good of the company and the rest of the employees.

The tug of war continued over the years with neither the democrat nor republicans having enough power to implement either approach. Moderates in both camps kept the ruling camp from going too far liberal or conservative. The company survived and stayed moderately profitable.

Eventually, the democratic camp was firmly controlled by liberals. The republican camp was still a mixture of conservatives, moderates and even some liberals. No one group had enough influence in the republican camp to claim control.

Along comes a major economic downturn. Sales began to spiral downward and profits followed. Cash flow was drying up. Bills were not being paid. Everyone, regardless of camp affiliation, was worried about the immediate future of the company.

In response to the economic downturn, the democratic camp, controlled by the liberals, recommended that the company increase prices and that everyone's salary be lumped into a pool and evenly distributed to all employees to help their families evenly cope with the economic crisis in the country. They claimed that it was for the good of the children. The liberals in charge of the program would be exempt for this wealth redistribution in order not to be distracted and focus on solutions.

The democrats refused to address the fact that the quality of the company's products had not improved and did not warrant a price increase. Deliveries were still late and customer service was still terrible. However, Democrats felt that their plan would assure them the presidency.

Republican managers did not know how to respond. Fear of losing power gripped them to the point of inaction. Many of them sided with the ideas proposed by the democrats thinking it would at least save their own management positions.

Conservatives, regardless of which camp they were in, recommended that the company immediately cut costs. They recommended that product quality be improved to six sigma levels immediately and deliveries be measured to high on time standards. They suggested that the customer service dept be reorganized and measured against customer satisfaction. Compensation for all employees, including the president and management would be restructured to where 30% would be strictly performance based. Positions rendered unnecessary due to the economic downturn would have to be eliminated and employees laid off. Product pricing would not increase. If anything, it would be reduced to match the quality and delivery service. This was the only way to save the company.

Democrats, hearing this conservative proposal, engaged in a campaign of labeling the conservatives as evil people out to destroy jobs and insensitive to the children. When faced with the hard economic facts that the company was running out of money and that their own plan would not generate any cash for the company, the democrats finally resorted to demanding that the citizens of the country be mandated to buy more of the company's poor quality products at higher prices.

Like in the above story, an economic downturn has arrived in Florida. It is caused primarily by the housing slump. Unlike the cowardice behavior of the republicans in the previous story, Florida republicans in the state house passed HB5001C and those in the senate passed SB2C, which cut $1.1 billion out of the state $71 billion budget. All of the elected democrats, except for two, voted against the cuts trying instead to push an agenda of higher taxes on the people of Florida.