Florida Knows All About the 1%

[Atman]

My old home state is the poster child for failed Republican policies...

Florida Knows All About the 1%

Florida is the poster child for the tension between "the 1 percent" and "the 99 percent," a microcosm of the deep-seated ills causing our national, economic malaise. It's way bigger and longer than the recent recession. Our problems have been festering for years, glossed over by ideologues peddling failed policies that an ignorant public has been all-too willing blindly to accept.

In the post-Ayn Rand-Milton Friedman-supply-side-free-market-foolery-everyone-else-be-damned era of unbridled greed, none of the shocking details I'm about to tell you is supposed to matter. We're told to sit back and put our abiding faith in the mystical magic of markets to solve our economic and social problems.

But, like it or not, facts matter — a lot. So, don't read on, or read on and be dismissive, and you'll have to take responsibility for the long-term destruction of the state of Florida — and the nation.

<snip>

Since 1999, when Jeb Bush became governor, Florida has been dominated by the Republican Party, the party of the 1 percent — now hijacked by the tea-party extremist fringe. As a result, we have deep-seated, long-standing problems that their short-sighted, ideologically driven solutions have not only failed to solve, but have created and compounded.

<snip>

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/fl-sgcol-oped0219-20120219,0,51733.column

[DCKit]

1. I left Orlando in 1986 for greener pastures.

It was well on it's way by then.

[Atman]

2. I left Cocoa Beach in 1984.

The quaint little resort town was already in decline, too. I return home a couple of times a year. The southern half of the island has remained in a time warp, largely the same as when I left, with the exception of some business changes. The "downtown" itself is painful to see...most businesses shuttered, taken over by tatoo parlors and bars. The end of the space program destroyed the economy. The northern end, up to Cape Canaveral is HORRENDOUS. Turned into a neon honky-tonk catering to the cruise industry, which turned the former military and shipping port into a kind of floating LA airport, except not as nice. Very sad.

There is no real tax base anymore, and for some reason everyone who moved in from other states has turned hard-core right-wing. Even most of my old friends from school, who used to be pretty liberal back in the seventies (but then, weren't we all?) are now fundies or righties. It's truly sad.

Our son went to school in Orlando. We set him up in off-campus housing, in an apartment complex on the lake. You'd think he'd have loved it after living in the boonies in Connecticut, but he couldn't wait to leave after graduation last year. He hated Orlando. Nothing but Country music and religious stations on the radio, anti-abortion billboards everywhere. He viewed it as very "backward," especially being from New England. But it's worse than that. It's not just backward, the state seems intent on propel itself backwards as quickly as possible.

[Atman]

3. One of my FB friends from school daze, now a rapid Republican...

...was rather upset at this story (I found it on FB, posted by another old school friend who is a fellow Democrat). He said the whole story was stupid, with made-up numbers posted by a "delusional layman" with no qualifications to write such a commentary.

Since GOP friend also didn't bother to back up his assertion that the numbers were bogus, I asked him to explain. So I have to give him credit for this valid response, although he only addressed one point laid out in the article: it doesn't make much sense to measure Florida's education spending on a per capita basis; wouldn't the proper figure to quote be the amount spent per student as a function of the cost of living?

Well, I'm not sure that "as a function of the cost of living" makes total sense, either, but here is where I think he stumbled onto a valid point; statistically, spending per student per capita doesn't make sense in ANY state, but especially not in a state as big as Florida with such a large percentage of its population being childless retirees.

I didn't go through the article again looking for similar statistical tomfoolery, but my ol' GOP friend was correct at least on this one point. Of course, even a broken clock is right twice a day.