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

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      #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?

      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

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        4 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.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            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.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                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.

            • Jojo, Lady of the West@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              4 months ago

              Their whole methodology is not well outlined, and it’s unclear how they calculated anything. For example, they ranked Florida as having cheaper college than Wyoming, but on average college in Florida costs 3 times as much as in Wyoming?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I’m sort of wondering if the ranking is based on how much money the state has given U.S. News to rank them where they’re ranked.

                Because DeSantis using money that could have otherwise been used as arts funding to pay off organizations to give Florida high education rankings would be pretty on brand for him.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          4 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.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Well he’s already axing that 1% in education by cutting all the arts funding. Science will probably be next.

    • solomon42069@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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.

      • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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        4 months ago

        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.”[

        • Jojo, Lady of the West@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          It’s more than half though. It really is very heavily implied here that taxes are the main way you can tell an economy is doing well.

          How the state taxes you:

          Vs how the money is spent:

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          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.