Coral Gables Environment, Politics and Government
January 26, 2011 Leave a comment
Thanks to Eye on Miami for this comments–read the whole post. This should incite a strong reaction, it sure does for me.
The Florida GOP wants war with Florida voters. War, it will get.
via EYE ON MIAMI: The Florida GOP wants war with Florida voters… by gimleteye.
January 25, 2011 Leave a comment
Very concerning that the arrogance of power has led the new Florida administration so quickly to face down the majority who approved the very important amendments. Is this the model of the private sector leadership that we need to lead us out of the recession. Do they think the voters are mere fools?
The Miami Herald and the Orlando Sentinel are both reporting that Gov. Rick Scott instructed the Department of State to ask the federal government to halt its approval of Amendments 5 and 6, the two popular so-called “Fair Districts” amendments that limit the legislature’s ability to gerrymander districts.
Now, via press release, Fair Districts Now — a nonprofit dedicated to overseeing the implementation of 5 and 6 — says that by doing so, Scott and other officials have been caught abusing their power:
Within its first days in power, the new administration of Governor Rick Scott, through its Department of State, took extraordinary steps to thwart the will of the overwhelming majority of Florida voters who voted for redistricting reform in Florida. #
On, November 2, 63% of Florida voters amended the Florida Constitution to include new non-partisan redistricting standards. When new laws affect voting as these do, the Voting Rights Act requires that the standards be reviewed and “pre-cleared” by the Justice Department (DOJ). It is the duty of the state to request DOJ pre-clearance. Governor Crist ordered that a formal request for pre-clearance be filed. The Florida Secretary of State’s office filed that request on December 10, 2010.
On January 7, 2011, as one of its first acts, the new administration of Governor Rick Scott, through its Department of State, in an apparent attempt to thwart the will of the voters, wrote to DOJ withdrawing the amendments from review. [Emphasis in original.]
January 25, 2011 Leave a comment
The departure of Carol Browner is explained simply–the utter failure of the climate change policy of the Obama administration. The US, and especially Florida and Coral Gables, will certainly pay a high price for the lack of a response to global warming, sea rise, weather pattern changes, effects on agriculture, etc.
the catastrophic failure of the administration to pass a climate bill — heck, the failure to even get a vote in the Senate or one…speech from the President on the gravest threat to the health and well-being of our children and future generations — must have taken its toll. And that’s without factoring in months and months of dealing with the BP oil disaster or the prospect of two years of a hostile House of climate zombies.
via Breaking: Carol Browner, Obama’s energy and climate ‘czar’, to leave White House « Climate Progress.
January 21, 2011 Leave a comment
Thanks to this reference by Paul Krugman (New York Times), a fairly long, technical analysis, in which it is argued that the state and local financial problems are greatly exaggerated.
What I don’t see is that if it is recognized that there is a major problem in the localities piling on more taxes now just when people can’t afford them.
A spate of recent articles regarding the fiscal situation of states and localities have lumped together their current fiscal problems, stemming largely from the recession, with longer-term issues relating to debt, pension obligations, and retiree health costs, to create the mistaken impression that drastic and immediate measures are needed to avoid an imminent fiscal meltdown. The large operating deficits that most states are projecting for the 2012 fiscal year, which they have to close before the fiscal year begins on July 1 in most states, are caused largely by the weak economy. State revenues have stabilized after record losses but remain 12 percent below pre-recession levels, and localities also are experiencing diminished revenues. At the same time that revenues have declined, the need for public services has increased due to the rise in poverty and unemployment. Over the past three years, states and localities have used a combination of reserve funds and federal stimulus funds, along with budget cuts and tax increases, to close these recession-induced deficits. While these deficits have caused severe problems and states and localities are struggling to maintain needed services, this is a cyclical problem that ultimately will ease as the economy recovers.Unlike the projected operating deficits for fiscal year 2012, which require near-term solutions to meet states’ and localities’ balanced-budget requirements, longer-term issues related to bond indebtedness, pension obligations, and retiree health insurance — discussed more fully below — can be addressed over the next several decades. It is not appropriate to add these longer-term costs to projected operating deficits. Nor should the size and implications of these longer-term costs be exaggerated, as some recent discussions have done. Such mistakes can lead to inappropriate policy prescriptions.
Coral Gables Watch 