After enduring Fox News host Glenn Beck’s finely-tuned delusions about the supposed alliance between Islamic extremism and socialism, fellow conservative Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol derided Beck for his unhealthy “hysteria.” “When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East…and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left,” he is “marginalizing himself” with the likes of the John Birch Society, Kristol wrote this weekend. Never one to smolder quietly, Beck launched a scathing, sarcastic rant against Kristol on his radio show this morning and accused “Billy” of “betraying conservatism and missing the significance” of his conspiratorial warnings about Egypt. Convinced Kristol can’t “understand what conservatives are anymore,” Beck said that conservatives like him are just doing “anything to keep their little fiefdom together“:

BECK:…I don’t even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy….People like Bill Kristol, I don’t think they stand for anything any more. All they stand for is power. They’ll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together and they’ll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched. I’m sorry, the system doesn’t work….I think you’ve confused conservative principles with conservative progressive principles. Times have changed, Bill. Times have changed. It’s time to see the world how it really is.

Listen here:

Beck later feigned apology for his rancor because “I get really testy when I hear people who should get it come after me. It’s like really, have you done a minute of research, Bill?” Offering to “dumb it down,” Beck told Kristol exactly where he could find all the research to prove socialists and Islamists are in “phase 2″ of their plot to take over the world — “just watch the show in the next week,” Beck instructed.

Today, at a Tea Party event in tiny Eustis, Florida, Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) unveiled his new state budget. Since his time on the campaign trail, Scott has been promising to pair steep budget cuts with reductions in both the corporate and property tax rates. “It’s not daunting. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be exciting,” Scott said when asked about tackling his state’s budget woes. He has said that he plans to make Florida the “most fiscally conservative” state in the nation.

True to his word, Scott’s budget slashes corporate taxes, while raiding Medicaid services for low-income residents in order to come up with savings:

Gov. Rick Scott on Monday afternoon will unveil a proposed state budget that includes deep spending cuts of an estimated $5 billion and will ask lawmakers to approved a dramatic reduction in property taxes…He also wants to trim about $700 million in corporate income taxes in Florida, which already has one of the nation’s lowest rates. [...]

Another big target for savings: the growing health insurance program for the poor and financially challenged, Medicaid. More than half of Medicaid’s $20.3 billion tab is picked up by the federal government, which can halt some wholesale changes. Scott and the Legislature can cut up to half of the program’s so-called optional services, many of which are popular and are designed to save money, however. Regardless, the state would lose hundreds of millions in federal matching money.

Scott already presides over a state with one of the most regressive tax systems in the country. The average tax rate on a low-income individual in Florida is 13.5 percent, while the average tax rate on the someone in the richest one percent of Floridians is a paltry 2.6 percent. Instead of finding new sources of revenue, Scott decided to cut into services designed to help those who are already bearing the burden of financing the state, while lavishing tax breaks on corporations.

Republican lawmakers in Florida have already cast doubt on whether or not Scott’s spending cuts will actually come to pass, and Republican school officials worry that his plan to reduce property taxes will be “devastating” to the state’s schools. Ultimately, as the Orlando Sentinel reported, the GOP leadership in the legislature has said that it’s “unlikely to approve tax cuts this year.” This is likely a wise course of action, considering what happened the last time the Tea Party got its hands on a local budget.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Last month, the newly formed Senate Tea Party Caucus held its first meeting, but conspicuously absent were some high-profile senators who got elected last year with the strong backing of the tea party, including Marco Rubio (R-FL). Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) founded the caucus soon after arriving in Washington, but Rubio has long questioned the need for a formal caucus, saying he prefered the movement be left to grass roots activists, not Washington politicians. But in a radio interview Friday, Rubio leveled even harsher words at the caucus, dismissing it as a “little club[]” run by politicians that could cause the real movement “to lose its energy”:

HOST: When Michele Bachmann began to create this Tea Party Caucus, I got this really bad taste in my mouth. … You and I see eye-to-eye on this, right? It’s a grassroots movement, right? [...]

RUBIO: Now, specifically about the Tea Party Caucus, the concern that I’ve expressed, is that what I think gives the tea party its strength and its legitimacy in the American political process is that it’s a grassroots movement of everyday Americans. … My fear has always been that if you start creating these little clubs or organizations in Washington run by politicians, the movement starts to lose its energy. Basically, the media will jump on that and start paying attention to that instead of the grass roots movement which is really what has given the tea party its voice. … I don’t want us to anything that kind of changes its grassroots nature.

Listen here:

In the other chamber of Congress, a number of leading House Republicans have criticized Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for founding the House Tea Party Caucus (which inspired the Senate version). House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) refused to join the caucus, saying the tea party movement is “certainly not of Washington and in that respect it’s better left with the people.” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who also refused to join despite his closeness to the tea party, said the movement “should be kept outside Congress.” “The more you try to put structure around the tea party, the more compromised it will be,” Chaffetz wrote warned.