Crazy Jim Greer Quote of the Day

Aren't we currently in a budget crisis? Greer doesn't seem to know about it:

"When it comes time to get out and speak around the state, it's important that we have the ability to travel there and that we accomplish as much as we can in any given day... You will see that the party is much more engaged in traveling the state..."

They've spent more than $1 million in private charter jet flights in the last year. Greer wants you to think that these expenses are necessary, but the Sarasota Herald Tribune found otherwise, discovering that they lodged "high-flying expenses from last year with tens of thousands of dollars in ritzy New York hotels, thousands of dollars in limousine services and thousands of dollars more in regular air service."

This is while they are seeking to cut healthcare for more than 40,000 low-income senior, disabled and seriously ill Floridians. And it flies in the face of the rhetoric the members of Greer's party regularly spout off...

Charlie Crist: "We're asking local governments to tighten their belts, too. We are tightening ours. We can do no less... I feel for our students and I feel for their families... They are paying higher insurance rates. They are paying higher property taxes. They are paying higher gas prices."

Durell Peaden on the healthcare cuts: "If we don't get to print money, we're going to have to do with what we've got."

Charlie Crist: "If a family with two young boys can tighten their belts to live within their means certainly our cities and counties can also."

Alan Hays: "We cannot ask our state and local governments to tighten their belts if we continue to support frivolous spending."

Mike Haridopolos: "Experience also proves that government in Florida does not have a revenue problem -- it has a spending problem."

Apparently, it's the Republicans who have a spending problem and have pretty serious problems with hypocrisy. I wonder if any of them will call in their votes to cut healthcare for poor people while riding in a limo or if Crist will sign the bill flying in his a chartered jet?

Legislative Watch -- S2400

S2400: Would require that an ultrasound be performed on any woman obtaining an abortion (Webster): This is a thinly-veiled assault on a woman's right to choose. We talked about this bill on the radio show yesterday and it really does two things. First, it tells women that they aren't wise enough to understand the decision they are making and that if they only saw a picture of the fetus, they'd change their mind. Second, it adds an expensive add-on to the cost of an abortion, pricing poor women out of making this particular choice. These type of laws are never equal. No matter hwo many restrictions you put on abortion, rich women will still be able to get them, but laws like this simply make it harder for por women to exercise their constitutional rights.

Crazy Republican Quote of the Day

"You can put that in your peace pipe and smoke it." - Senator Ronda Storms (R-Brandon), March 06, 2008, erratically explaining why she will vote against a tax cut which would add nearly $300 million to the state's education system.

I'm sure you don't actually know this Ronda, but in addition to being dismissive of the horrible state of our education system, comments like this are racist.

Haridopolos Hates Honesty, Ethics, UF, Students, Taxpayers

Mike Haridopolos paints himself as a person who hates waste and fights wasteful government spending. He's a liar.

A few years back, Haridopolos somehow "earned" himself a full-time salary at Brevard Community College to write a book he doesn't appear to have actually written. Over four years, he amassed $160k in salary for apparently doing nothing. $40k a year is a moderate salary at a school like that -- moderate if you are actually doing the job. When you aren't doing the job, it's government-funded waste.

Now Haridopolos has "earned" himself a full-time "lecturer" gig at the University of Florida. One he isn't qualified for and one he won't really have to do -- during the Spring semester he won't have to teach because of the session. During Summer semester, he won't have to teach. So for one semester a year, he'll teach a few classes and do no research and he'll get paid nearly $30k more than the professors there who are actually doing the job and have the credentials.

Haridopolos claimed he was working on a PhD at the University of Arkansas -- a PhD is usually one of the basic requirements to get a job like this -- but apparently that was a lie, too, since he hasn't been enrolled there since 2000.

At a time when Florida's colleges and universities are in financial crises and many are turning away students, t his kind of wasteful political spending should not just be unethical, it should illegal.

I wonder if he'd gotten this latest deal if he wasn't in line to be Senate president? Using your political position to enhance your own personal wealth at the expense of the taxpayers, while offering nothing in return is the height of unethical behavior. Haridopolos seems to have mastered it.

Good Saunders

Following in the steps of Nancy Argenziano, Sen. Burt Saunders is doing the right thing. Tallahassee Democrat:

Sen. Burt Saunders, chairman of the Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, says he expects to file a bill to establish a pilot program requiring springs protection zones where advanced wastewater treatment and improved septic tanks are required.

This is a good bill, even if it isn't strong enough. Not suprisingly, it was killed last year by developers and ag interests, and they want to do the same this time. Their argument is nonsensical:

Frank Matthews, a lobbyist representing the Association of Florida Community Developers, said the bill would add to the cost of housing at a time when the real-estate market is in a slump.

As always, these people only care about their own short-term financial interests, and everything else be damned. The long-term health of our environment is more important than a minor blip on the economic cycle. Their arguments get worse:

Matthews said Saunders' draft legislation would duplicate the state's current process of establishing pollution limits on waterways.

"We think it's premature," Matthews said. "There is a lot of overlay regulation that already exists or is in place that should satisfactorily address springs."

Obviously, this isn't true. Otherwise we wouldn't have the problem. And Saunders wouldn't be proposing this bill. Let's hope he sticks to it and fights to push this through.

Campbell Hates Taxes, Honesty...Republicans?

House District 32 Special Election Candidate Sean Campbell has been going on and on about his "top priority" -- property taxes. And he warns that his opponent, Tony Sasso, will raise taxes if elected. This ignores, of course, the fact that Sasso actually voted repeatedly to cut taxes as Cocoa Beach City Commissioner. While Sasso did vote to increase tax revenue, what this really means is that he voted to support real estate improvements and new growth, things that generate additional tax revenue while maintaining or even cutting tax rates.

So, while Campbell is dishonest in going after Sasso, he is on target in attacking people who say they favor lower taxes but actually vote to increase taxes. It's good to see that he's takign on the Republicans in the legislature, who love to talk about cutting taxes, but actually have done quite a bit to increase them. Like last year when they required local governments to increase their share of education funding -- something they could only do by raising taxes.

But lets not just talk about this in generalities, lets get some numbers, using the Republican way of looking at this, tax "revenue" increases:
*Will Weatherford (R-Land O' Lakes) - Voted to increase property tax revenues more than $550 million
*Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) - Voted to increase annual property tax revenues more than $1.5 billion, for a total of nearly $3 billion
*Ray Sansom (R-Gulf Breeze) - Voted to increase annual property tax revenues by $2.7 billion for a total of nearly $7 billion
*Marco Rubio (R-Miami) - Voted to increase annual property tax revenues by $3.8 billion for a total of more than $40 billion
*Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) - Voted to increase tax revenues so many times that its hard to keep track, but the total is certainly more than Rubio's

This is the problem with so much of the Republican rhetoric, they create dishonest standards by which to judge their opponents, and don't apply these same standards to themselves.

Gaetz Hates Kids, Knowledge, Education, Common Sense

We have an early front-runner for stupidest political quote of the year, from Sen. Don Gaetz:

Insiders are not bad. They’re good, because it’s a complicated world, and you have to be able to navigate that world. But education is too important to be left to educators.

The fact that non-educators are so heavily involved with education in Florida is the primary reason that the whole thing is so messed up. Education should be left up to educators. Parents and students should have a role as well. Politicians and businessmen really shouldn't. The purpose of education isn't simply to create good little worker bees for corporations to exploit for profit, which is exactly how Gaetz sees our school system.