MEDICAID GROWTH

But Medicaid rolls are swelling, so expect state payments for charity healthcare to skyrocket and eat up any profit.

Welfare rolls are jumping as well now that Florida leads the nation in job loss -- 115,000 in a year. On Friday, the state's unemployment rate climbed to 7 percent, the highest it has been since 1993.

In a joint statement with House Speaker Ray Sansom, Senate President Jeff Atwater noted the ''gravity'' of the situation and pledged that ``all options will be under consideration and we will work as quickly as possible to determine the best course of action.''

When asked about cigarette taxes in an interview with the group TaxWatch, Atwater said he would be willing to engage ``in a revenue conversation.''

Before touching taxes, lawmakers will likely slash the budget and drain savings accounts, perhaps for road building. They'll probably hike fees as well. If they have to raise taxes, they'll likely do so during the regular lawmaking session in the spring.

Crist and a number of state senators, including Republicans, favor increasing some taxable gambling.

But Friday's forecast from the Revenue Estimating Conference showed that even so-called ''sin taxes'' aren't reliable, either. Tobacco tax collections are $2.2 million lower than last forecast, and forecast parimutuel tax collections are down $700,000.

With tourism slumping, the economists projected that sales-tax collections will be $692 million less than they projected in August and $1.8 billion less than they anticipated in March -- a 10 percent decrease.

The projections for corporate income tax collections declined 10 percent since August, by $1.8 billion.

Amy Baker, head of the conference and the Legislature's office of Economic and Demographic Research, said the revenue projections have been consistently off because the state's economic crisis became a national economic crisis that then became a global economic crisis in September. She said the volatile stock market, tightness of credit and lack off consumer confidence presages at least six more months of declines.

WORST IS AHEAD

''I'm comfortable believing the worst is ahead of us,'' Baker said.

There were 300,000 homes on the market in September, Baker said, up from the traditional inventory of 50,000. Florida ranks second in the nation in the number of home foreclosures, and is also among the highest in residents who are delinquent on payments to credit cards and car loans, she said.

But Crist, a self-described optimist, said the state will improve. ''It'll turn around eventually,'' he said. ``I think Florida will probably come out of it first. I mean the sun always comes up in Florida first.''

Herald staff writers Patty Mazzei and Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report.

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