Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no explanation for zeroing out the $32 million in grants that were approved by state lawmakers.
…
Leaders of arts organizations in Florida, many of whom have worked in the state for decades, cannot remember a governor ever eliminating all of their grant funding. Even in the lean years of the Great Recession, at least a nominal amount — say, 5 percent of the recommended total — was approved.
Established arts organizations usually know better than to overly rely on nonrecurring state dollars subject to the discretion of politicians, said Michael Tomor, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art. But to cut funding at a time when arts organizations are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic sends a concerning message “that taxpayer dollars should not be used in support of arts and culture,” he added.
…
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, gave no explanation for zeroing out the arts grants. His office said in a statement that he made veto decisions “that are in the best interests of the State of Florida.”
In all, Mr. DeSantis vetoed nearly $950 million in proposed spending and proclaimed that the remaining $116.5 billion came in under the previous year’s budget.
Might be that they will, but for now they are doing very well on an objective scale, beeing placed on #1 for education and economy compared to the other states and beeing on #9 overall.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/florida
If this is able to hold will remain to be seen.
This is the same Florida where the governor has already gotten rid of some AP courses and has suggested getting rid of them completely, right?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/02/14/desantis-florida-ap-courses-college-board-feud/11250682002/
This is also the same Florida that now teaches children that black people learned useful skills when they were slaves, right?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-florida-standards-teach-black-people-benefited-slavery-taught-usef-rcna95418
Sounds like pretty low bar.
That is one sketchy ranking if I ever saw one.
OP is being dishonest about it too. It’s #1 for higher education in Florida, #10 for K-12. And I’m not sure where they get #10 from because it looks like it’s marginally above average based on their own numbers.
In fact, as far as I can tell, their whole metric for #1 is because Florida college students end up in less debt than in other states. And that is great, don’t get me wrong, but not exactly the best education metric.
It’s a bit silly that Florida ranks above states like Massachusetts and California when it comes to higher education. I don’t know that any Florida university comes close to Harvard or CalTech. Cheaper, sure. A better quality education? I doubt it.
Same for economics. Their metrics are slightly above average, how is that #1?
I hadn’t even looked into it after seeing how bogus the education numbers were, but that also doesn’t shock me.
It also occurred to me that their main metric for K-12 education was high school graduation rate and since there’s no national education standards, that can mean different things for different states. The other metric was a math score based on something I’ve never heard of, but it was not a test my 14-year-old here in Indiana has taken yet and it’s not the SATs.
And part of their education score is “citizens holding degrees” which… That’s not education, that’s attainment rate.
And a lot of those citizens are retirees from other states who can afford to retire in Florida. So of course they’re more likely to hold degrees.
“Your education system is better because it has a lower percentage of school age children”
Brilliant
Well he’s already axing that 1% in education by cutting all the arts funding. Science will probably be next.
A short boost from tax breaks to convince rich people to move there doesn’t make the place financially successful or livable. It just looks better for a bit.
The category is a bit wider than that, but yes, low taxes seem to contribute.
https://www.richstatespoorstates.org/states/FL/
Edit:
Did a little digging after some flaws have been pointed out by @Silentia below. This source is not neutral.
https://ballotpedia.org/ALEC_Rich_States,_Poor_States_Report
I’m assuming that’s the Laffer behind “the Laffer curve,” AKA the unscientific bullshit “graph” he drew on a cocktail napkin that would essentially become the basis for supply-side economics AKA “trickle down.”
That Laffer?
Because ruining the US economy and setting us on a 3+ decade ride towards record (and frankly inhumane) income inequality once just wasn’t enough I guess.
Fucking ghouls.