Florida cutting services for the poor and elderly to the bone. Shocking, heartless.

[madfloridian]

I have been reading about some of these cuts daily. They will NOT back off their tax cuts, which are so deep that even our infrastructure and schools will go begging. They are cutting food programs for needy children, cutting back hiring of teachers.

In one county alone they are hiring 900 fewer teachers this year. Yet the student population went up. There is just no money for them.

I could go on.

The Orlando Sentinel has a column that puts in perspective.

Ask yourself: What would Jesus cut?

Florida lawmakers are slashing services to the poor with a rusty sling blade. They do that rather than eliminate special-interest tax exemptions for corporations and wealthy residents.

And how better to press the case than with Jesus' own words:

Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me. Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto me.

Would the "least of these" be the 8,000 terminal Medicaid patients who may be eliminated from hospice care because of budget cuts? In their final days do we deny them some small measure of comfort, even if it is nothing more than a caring face at the end?

Would the "least of these" be low-income transplant patients, whose medications are on the budget chopping block?

They are not sparing any group.

No needy group is spared, including the elderly. Back in the early 2000s, after reports of rampant abuse of nursing-home patients, the state enacted reforms designed to increase staffing. Now nursing homes are about to get cut, and staffing levels will go down.

The inevitable result will once again be frail old people suffering in their beds, some ignored, some abused, some dying.

The saddest thing to hear are the Republicans on TV defending these tax cuts and cutbacks. They have a mantra....let the people keep their money. Let them keep their money in their own pockets.

Marco Rubio is Jeb's guy in the Florida legislature. Here are his words.

House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, notes that all this cutting will leave us "better off" in the long run. "It is the kind of budget the people of Florida need at a time like this," he said.

The arrogance is stunning.

They don't care what the people think. They don't care what the media thinks. There is a cabal of Jebbites who don't even care what the rest of their Republican cohorts think.

They simply do not care.

God will judge them someday, but the suffering they are unloosing is happening now.

[Clovis Sangrail]

1. amazing

I was just looking up some stuff on Amendment 1 and was reading a bunch of comments on blogs about it from before it passed.
Comments like "there won't BE any cuts... that's just a liberal bogeyman" were all over the place.

I'm really curious if these people are now realizing how incredibly wrong they were or if they are just going to try to ignore the issue.

It's sad but it made me laugh at the utter stupidity of the people who bought that line.

[Submariner]

2. Of course

It only makes sense that they do this. With the baby boomers, like myself, coming down the pike, it's time to start cutting back on the services that would help us live longer. Just like the 401(k)'s tanking so that the boomers cannot retire as comfortably as we thought we could. Just like the coincidental timing of loss of equity in homes. Can;t have us be able to claim bankruptcy, so they change the laws to screw the middle class. Can't have boomers having a nest egg to fall back on when there are so many burgers to be flipped by elderly workers.

Corporate Amerika health insurance companies raising premium rates through the roof, or in my case, take away my guaranteed for life VA health care, and then hit me with a mandatory health insurance premium that amounts to 22% of my take home pay (Massachusetts/Romney scam). And because I refuse to pay the state they whack me with a fine on my tax return that would cover a doctor visit for a cholesterol/triglyceride blood test (preventative care).

We are being set up people. The corporate whores and their enablers like Hillary are setting us up to take us to the financial cleaners.

[madfloridian]

3. Deepest cuts to services in decades....corporate welfare remains.

Hundreds of millions of corporate tax breaks still in Florida. And there is the corporate welfare involving CSX liability

Unprecedented Cuts Could Deflate Services

Now with the Legislature looking at $2 billion or more in new cuts for the 2008-09 budget year, some state agencies and local programs feel like they are facing their final overload, having gone through a series of cuts earlier this budget year. And the cumulative impact of those reductions is what has employees and advocates of those programs so concerned.

They say the cuts could make a real difference in the lives of Floridians who rely on their government for everything from getting a decent education to having a defense lawyer represent them in court.

"I haven't figured out how I'm going to manage next year with the cuts," said Richard Parker, president of the Florida Public Defender Association, Inc. "It's almost inconceivable."

"Quite frankly, public libraries and academic libraries, are being hit from all sides," said Ruth O'Donnell, executive director of the Florida Library Association.

Lawmakers will try to soften the budget cuts for schools but, reflecting the severity of the state's slumping finances, even education programs will see their deepest cuts in decades.

Jeb's Florida.

[magellan]

4. This story won't raise too many eyebrows

...among those who voted for Amendment 1 (property tax cut). They believe the have-nots deserve their lot. Anyone who can't afford food or healthcare is obviously a lazy freeloader.

I know who the freeloaders are, and they're the ones who voted themselves a tax cut and still insist that their schools be left alone and their emergency services stop charging them up front.

[JCMach1]

5. And yet the repigs have a stranglehold on the legislature and most are JEBtm fans

like marco... :puke:

[Hannah Bell]

6. "Marco Rubio is Jeb's guy in the Florida legislature. Here are his words."

Ironic, since the bushes never made an honest dollar in their lives.

Funneling government money into their own pockets is their specialty.

Every last freaking one of them.

[Hannah Bell]

7. Let me guess. State funds were invested in mortgage securities, derivatives,

or some other exotic financial instruments designed to profit the financial class.

and now the losses must be redeemed on the backs of the most vulnerable.

Do i win the prize?

[madfloridian]

8. You do.

win the prize, that is. We may never know the full extent of the harm done by the Bush policy of cutting taxes to the bone and letting the poor get along on their own.

[madfloridian]

9. More on the cuts to nursing homes.

http://www.jcfloridan.com/jcf/news/local/article/funding_cuts_threaten_nursing_homes_medicaid_already_cut/10187/

"Legislative cuts in Medicaid funding would “let our seniors down,” says the administrator of the Marianna Health and Rehabilitative Center, Jonnie Cloud.

Speaking about proposed state budget cuts this week, Cloud said she understands that the state must spend less, because state revenues are down, but it would be a shame to regress in the area of senior citizens’ health care.

“These cuts to nursing homes would put an undue hardship on not only our facility but on every other skilled nursing home in the state,” Cloud said.

This week both the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee and the House Healthcare Council introduced their 2008-09 budgets. The Senate reduced nursing home funding $163 million and the House reduced funding $278 million. This could severely impact nursing homes like the one the City of Marianna owns, which maintains a 98 percent occupancy of its 180 beds. Cloud said that 87 percent of the occupants are Medicaid recipients and action of the Legislature last year reduced Medicaid reimbursement."