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.

Non-paywall link

  • sarcasticsunrise@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    This high heeled tough guy wannabe is the living embodiment of poor and spiteful decision making. Nothing he does helps anybody. It’s fascinating really. Everyday I wake up I count my blessings I escaped that shit hole state

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Nothing he does helps anybody.

      He’s been a real boon for the state’s money laundering, human trafficking, landlord profiteering, and fossil fuel industries.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      When does his tenure as governor end?

      He’s obligated to take a two year hiatus from his current position at the end of eight years. But he’s free to run for another office during the downtime.

      That’s why Rick Scott became a Senator after his gubernatorial tenure.

  • Marthirial@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Florida and her meatball will be textbook evidence of a failed state swallowed by the Ocean and drowned by social conservatism terrorism.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          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.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            It’s a bit silly that Florida ranks above states like Massachusetts and California when it comes to higher education

            The quality of education in these states varies radically by zip code and regional average income.

            In California, the local school board superintendent Joseph Komrosky lost a recall election for trying to ban critical race theory (a thing his district wasn’t formally teaching) on campuses, among other shady bullshit. But his ilk isn’t unusual in the right wing fruit basket of SoCal or the Techbro patriarchy infesting the Stanford campus.

            Education in these states can be better. But it can also be right in line with the Florida reactionary crowd, and for the same reasons. This is a national project by American plutocrats to brainwash the next generation of young people.

        • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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          5 months ago

          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.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I don’t wish to invest that time right now

            Maybe don’t cite something if you have no idea how it reached its conclusions.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      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.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        Florida woke and brown? Half the state literally needs to take a nap, and the only brown is in their Depends.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          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

          • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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            5 months ago

            Detroit failed because of automation and off-shoring. Things that could have been repaired or prevented politically, sure. But not directly caused by policies based in bigotry and ignorance.

            If any correlation can be made, it’s from white-flight. Which would be caused by Detroit’s massive loss of jobs and Florida’s massive loss of land. But white flight, imo, is the reaction, not the catalyst, of its downfall.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Detroit failed because of automation and off-shoring.

              That’s the mechanism behind why it failed, but not the reason for the policy. Automation and off-shoring were tools intended to re-segregate and depress the wealth of the working class. Once the city sufficiently shocked into collapse, financial investment came flooding back into the city in the form of foreclosure sale purchases and low-wage service sector expansion. The modern city is seeing the first population expansion it’s enjoyed in decades, but with an enormous new disparity in income and political organization between the richest and poorest residents. Dan Gilbert, the co-founder of the largest private mortgage lender in the US - Quicken Loans (now Rocket Mortgage) - owns enormous swaths of the downtown district and has his talons in a host of municipal and state political figures.

              He’s revitalized the city with enormous amounts of public money, laundered into private profits, through the private lending racket. And he’s used the depressed wages and real estate values in the town to reap huge margins on the cost of labor, relative to more traditional finance centers like New York or Dallas.