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presents...jEB WATCH ...a family man, the bush family...
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24 Reasons To Whack back at Jeb on Nov. 5
by Stephen Goldstein
Published October 16, 2002, Florida Sun-Sentinal
Bushwhacked-Floridians are worse off than we were four years ago. Thanks to Jeb Bush's voodoo economics, smoke-and-mirrors education reforms, environmental poison pills and right-wing pandering, the state is in shambles. Florida needs regime change. Here are 24 reasons to vote the governor out of office on Nov. 5.
1. Jeb has turned the $3 billion surplus he inherited from Lawton Chiles into a deficit of between $1.4 billion and $4 billion.
2. The governor has engineered multibillion-dollar tax giveaways for corporations and the wealthiest Floridians.
3. Florida's pension fund lost $355 million on its Enron investments, buying shares in the company when everyone was selling.
4. The average wage in Florida has dropped to just 87 percent of the national norm.
5. Florida is one of only 12 states in which median household income declined in 2001.
6. The governor promised to eliminate the backlog of 11,000 seniors on the waiting list for services through the Department of Elder Affairs. Today, the list has swelled to over 14,000.
7. Health insurance costs are spiraling out-of-control.
8. Jeb's prescription drug plan covers only 68,000 seniors, barely 2.5 percent of the state's older population.
9. In spite of Bushian buzzwords about improving education (FCAT, A+ Plan, vouchers and charter schools), Florida's high-school graduation rate has slipped from 44th to the worst in America.
10. SAT scores have dropped from 40th to 47th; ACT scores, from 35th to 38th.
11. Pre-Jeb, Florida was 29th nationally in spending per pupil; in 2001, it fell to 40th.
12. The governor's alleged $3 billion increase in education funding is a figment of his imagination. Factor in inflation and student growth, and the money allocated per student has risen less than one-quarter of one percent.
13. Class size in Florida schools, among the worst in the nation, dropped from 42nd in 1998 to 44th in 2001.
14. Research cited by the U.S. Department of Education concludes that reducing class size to below 20 students leads to higher achievement, but the governor says he has "devious plans" to flout the constitutional amendment reducing class size if it passes Nov. 5 and he is re-elected.
15. Florida's teacher salaries have dropped from 28th to 31st in the nation.
16. A national study of higher education gave Florida a D- because of relatively high college costs and a D+ because comparatively few state residents go to college.
17. The governor has grabbed the power to appoint everyone on the state's 26 judicial nominating commissions, so he can stack the courts with right-wing judges opposed to abortion and likely to push a conservative agenda.
18. Candidate Bush promised to fix Florida's foster-care system in six months; Gov. Bush let the Department of Children & Families become a national scandal.
19. On the environment, Jeb talks the conservation talk, but doesn't walk the walk. In public, he says the right things; behind the scenes, he pushes developers' agendas.
20. The governor has appointed anti-environmentalists to water management districts, the Environmental Regulatory Commission and judgeships.
21. Ignoring the objections of more than 100 environmental and citizens' groups, Jeb signed a law which funds the state's portion of Everglades restoration, but includes a "poison pill" that restricts Floridians' ability to challenge developers who submit anti-environmental permit requests.
22. Violent crime in the state increased at six times the national average from 2001 to 2002.
23. For the first time since 1996, overall crime incidence in Florida increased.
24. The governor claims his 10-20-Life law has led to a decrease in gun crime, but the firearm crime rate was on the decline before 10-20-Life and actually increased in 2001 -- for the first time since 1997.
In 1998, candidate Jeb asked you to give him four years, so he could create a better Florida. Many of you kept your end of the bargain; he didn't. "Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me." -- the truth of the adage should not be lost on voters.
Stop the bushwhacking: Whack Bush out of office on Nov. 5.
Stephen L. Goldstein's commentaries are broadcast on "South Florida Today" on WXEL-Ch. 42. E-mail him at trendsman@aol.com.
It seems Gov. Jeb Bush spends most of his time these days running from one place to another to refute analyses, reports and polls that show his lack of leadership has run Florida's economy into a ditch and broken the back of our public education system - reports from such left-wing think tanks as the Florida Chamber of Commerce that is. Just as Ken Lay hid Enron's fiscal mismanagement from employees and investors, it seems our governor will go to any lengths to mislead Floridians about how the state's economy has gone from surpluses to deficits on his watch. When Jeb Bush took the reigns of power nearly four years ago he spoke of lofty goals such as creating jobs, more efficient government and a world-class education system. Now, near the end of his term, we are back to deficit spending; our school system is at the bottom of the national pile and government graft has become of the order of the day. After promising the most ethical administration in history, Gov. Bush has overseen corruption and nepotism run amok in his administration. It is now estimated that nearly 40 percent of our $48 billion dollar state budget gets kicked back in the form of contracts with private companies - many of which employ former Bush staffers. The "accountability governor" has undercut the oversight and accountability measures in our state contracts and bidding process. He has even gone so far as to cut the funding for the state auditor general and the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability. To take our state so far back in only four years can only be one of two things: gross incompetence or willful mismanagement. Since Enron's collapse, the company has laid off about 5,000 employees worldwide. This international scandal pales in comparison to the job loss experienced in Florida. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 161,000 jobs have been lost in Florida in the last year alone. Bush has single-handedly cut more than 7,000 positions. Gov. Bush is quick to pass the buck, claiming terrorists are to blame for our budget woes in spite of the fact that a revenue estimating conference demonstrated his tax cuts for Florida's wealthiest residents dug us into a $672 million hole well before 9/11. Bush recently stuffed his "terrorism budget" with so many turkeys that even the Republican chair of the Senate Public Security Committee said people would "laugh in our faces" if we had approved some of the governor's requests - such as a quarter of a million dollars for a satellite tracking system for cows and a half a million dollar kickback to a special interest group to print pamphlets on family preparedness. The Chair of the Southeast Florida Security Task Force probably would have found these requests less than amusing. He has had to reassign patrols at Florida ports because Gov. Bush also cut National Guard funding in spite of Florida remaining under a heightened "state of alert." I suppose it's somehow fitting that while Florida's retirement system lost more than any other state in the Enron debacle, Jeb personally benefited from his Enron stock. In the end, Jeb Bush has used Florida to turn a profit for his friends at the expense of our future, just as Ken Lay used the employees and investors at Enron. In four short years, Florida has become the Enron of state governments and Jeb Bush is our very own Ken Lay.
JEB Watch is paid for by Politex, a non-affiliated U.S. citizen.
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