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.
Uhhh, isn’t “the arts” (namely Disney and Universal) like, the main money maker of Florida? Not a lot of reasons to go there beyond that, beaches, and the fact that it doesn’t snow.
I hope some of the “artists” that make those photos of “trump” with shirt off and a fake chiseled, glistening physique get unintentionally caught up in this grant cancellation - you know these images, the ones they stare at for hours while locked in the bathroom thinking about how straight they are.
If the goal is to destroy art culture in Florida, I guess the Russian psyops have done their work.
Enjoy brutalist, colorless Florida in a couple of generations.
Florida and her meatball will be textbook evidence of a failed state swallowed by the Ocean and drowned by social conservatism terrorism.
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.
If billionaire real estate magnets say your education system is good, who are we to argue?
I took a look at the first ranking I saw. You a free to have a look for studys or other objective sources that come to a different conclusion.
I don’t wish to invest that time right now, but I’ll be happy to be proven wrong by a better source if you want to look for 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.
#1 for education
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?
This is also the same Florida that now teaches children that black people learned useful skills when they were slaves, right?
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
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonpartisan organization of state legislators, releases an annual report entitled Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, which analyzes economic competitiveness in each state. The report is authored by Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore (chief economist at the Heritage Foundation), and Jonathan Williams, the director of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative 501©(3) nonprofit think tank founded in 1973 and based in Washington, D.C.[1] In 2013, The Atlantic described the organization as “the de facto policy arm of the congressional conservative caucus.”[
failed state swallowed by the Ocean
Not for another 40-150 years. By then local politics will have shifted substantially in the state, and future external fascists can claim Florida was destroyed for being too brown, woke, and gay.
Florida woke and brown? Half the state literally needs to take a nap, and the only brown is in their Depends.
Florida has one of the highest Latin and African American populations in the country. They just aren’t allowed to vote.
And over half of the under 18 population of Florida is non-white. In another twenty years it will be majority minority.
By the time to state is fully fucked by climate change, you’re going to see reactionaries in the Midwest having a field day saying the state failed because it turned into “Detroit” wink wink nudge nudge
Desantis hates culture.
Sure he does. It’s drinking a warm can of Bud at a Lee Greenwood concert.
“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun”
Seems that’s a slight mangling of the line, but it’s a common Nazi trope
