Gov Rick Scott making strides

Aside from the $2,500 raises across the board to "effective" school teachers, (Democrats are screaming about that) Rick Scott is making strides in Florida.

Education budget
The more than $1 billion allows for:
• A $405 million increase in per-student funding or roughly $150 per student.
• An extra $47 million for enhanced reading programs.
• $663 million to fill funding gaps due to the influx of 31,000 expected new students next year and lower property taxes.
• Funding that will enable districts to reward the best teachers.

Gov. Rick Scott has made a three year agreement to eliminate the tax on manufacturers' sales tax on equipment purchases. The figure is estimated at $141 million and it may require a super-majority in both chambers. This might be tricky as it reduces the percentage tax-rate collected by local governments.

Florida has created 282,200 private-sector jobs and Florida’s January unemployment rate decreased below the national average to 7.8 percent – down from the revised December 2012 rate of 7.9 percent. This is Florida’s lowest unemployment rate since November 2008, and falls below the national average unemployment rate for the first time since January 2008.

The 2012-13 budget makes ends meet in spite of a budget gap in excess of $1 billion, on top of a $3.7-billion gap during the current budget year. Governor Scott vetoed $142.7 million from the budget, adding to Florida’s reserves.

Now if he will just veto the campaign finance reform which raises contribution limits from $500 per person to $3,000 for statewide candidates and $1,000 for legislative ones, we will be on our way with attracting manufacturing, creating more jobs, and keeping more special interest money out of campaigns.