STATE OF THE STATE RESPONSE
House Democratic Leader Pro Tempore Geraldine Thompson and Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Greetings Floridians!
I am State Representative Geraldine F. Thompson, and I represent House District 39 in Central Florida.
As the House Democratic Leader Pro Tempore, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you about the state of our state, and to respond to Governor Crist’s message.
Let me come straight to the point.
We are in perilous times.
Florida is feeling the effects of the national economic recession to a greater degree than most other states.
I know you are cutting back and stretching dollars to get through a tight spell. Businesses are struggling, and many are laying off workers. People are worried…Worried about finding another job…And worried about paying their bills.
In these dire times, Florida House Democrats understand that our citizens want solutions and not political posturing from elected officials.
In this tough economy, we need to make tough choices. We’ll need to collaborate and listen to one another.
Our challenges-- -FLORIDA’s CHALLENGES---need more than one-party solutions. The people need Democrats at the negotiating table alongside Republicans. And we’re going to fight to get those opportunities.
We know help is needed.
Last year, sadly, more than TWO-HUNDRED- FIFTY-THOUSAND Floridians lost their jobs, and countless more may be laid off this year.
Thousands have lost their places of residence due to home foreclosures. And nearly every property owner has been stunned by deep dips in home values.
Uncertainties abound about families’ ability to finance their children’s college education. Many are frightened by having seen their retirement accounts wither.
And shamefully, more than 3.6 million Floridians are without health insurance. That’s one-fifth of our state’s population without coverage.
What’s worse, we still do not know the extent of the economic chaos that awaits us. There’s concern that this may become the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression.
But despite these woes, this is no time for fear. Rather, we believe this is a time for COURAGE and HOPE. Difficult times like these require historic levels of cooperation- --BIPARTISAN COOPERATION.
There are 44 Democrats in the Florida House of Representatives. We are ALL eager to participate and provide solutions.
Democrats in the Legislature will seek to use these next nine weeks of business in Tallahassee to redeem hope. We are confident that there will be a healthier, better prepared and more resilient Florida than what exists today.
We are heartened that a new president and a new year are bringing the promise of change and opportunity.
We know that Floridians have faced challenging times before--some much worse than what we’re going through now. Wars. The Great Depression. Natural disasters. And, at times, falling short in our pursuit of equality, tolerance and social justice for all people.
As we’ve done before, we will meet today’s challenges by not showing cowardice. We will do so by ensuring that we have a better educated workforce. We will THRIVE by ensuring that we protect our natural and cultural landscape…and by investing in public safety without sacrificing the basic health needs of our people.
In these difficult times, many are naturally skeptical of the ability of their government to solve the very real problems they face in their daily lives.
But to restore confidence and to turn unemployment checks into paychecks, we MUST INVEST in our human infrastructure.
One of our top priorities remains education. Only by creating the best trained, the best skilled, the best-educated workforce in America will we be able to create the employment opportunities that are this state’s future.
And that means finding POLITICAL COURAGE to consider raising revenues---but only so long as it doesn’t hurt the middle class and those already struggling with lower incomes.
It also means having courage to say "NO" to more
reductions in state spending on our public schools, colleges and universities. And it means maintaining our commitment to universal pre-kindergarten education.
Of course, some may ask if this is the right time to invest in education and human services.
Friends. The question is, if not now, when?
Today, there are more than FOURTEEN-BILLION dollars coming from Washington, D.C. with Florida’s name on it. These are monies to help cover UNINSURED CHILDREN and adult’s basic health coverage. It’s money to provide for their education. It’s money to help grow jobs.
It’s money that President Barack Obama and Congress have envisioned to give a lift to states like ours. It’s money that FLORIDA TAXPAYERS have already sent to Washington.
Florida House Democrats applaud Governor Charlie Crist for showing courage in writing a budget that puts federal stimulus dollars to work.
Using these economic recovery funds will be a WIN for everyone---- especially our children, the uninsured, and Floridians worried about their jobs.
JOBS are the lifeblood of our economy. When jobs are threatened and businesses shutter, communities suffer and people lose hope.
To turn this economy around, we must take immediate action on our shared goals of putting Floridians back to work.
If we educate our children and keep them healthy, and make sure there are good jobs for their families, Floridians will thrive.
Understandably, the federal economic recovery package is not a panacea or a silver-bullet solution to all that ails Florida. These are one-time funds.
Some states may use these monies to PUSH BACK problems two years—or some states will turn down these funds.
Florida should not do this. We NEED these dollars to soften the blow of the recession, and to be a bridge to better days.
We can focus on the BASICS---education, health care, good jobs—so that our state is positioned well for when the economy breaks through again.
Let us all be proud of our great state of Florida. Let’s use our resources and the power and grace of our state to endure and to thrive. Let’s improve our schools, grow jobs and provide for the health needs of our children and families.
Let’s not let our challenges defeat us. We have hope for a bright future.
On behalf of the Florida House Democratic Caucus, I thank you.
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Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson
Response to State-of-the-State
March 3, 2009
· Good evening. It’s an honor and a pleasure to be here tonight to give you our thoughts on the state of Florida and our outlook for the coming year.
· On behalf of the Senate Democratic Caucus, we welcome the governor’s embrace of the Democratic priorities we have long championed.
· There are no commitments greater than those we owe to our children, our seniors and our disabled and frail.
· Florida is a great and generous state; we know we cannot move forward if we abandon those who depend on us for their education and their well being. We know our prosperity is limited if our children are uneducated and are seniors languish through neglect and illness.
· They represent our history and our future. And it is our responsibility to protect both.
· Florida is also a state facing great challenges. Our homes, through foreclosures, are emptying faster than they were built. Like the bread lines of the 1920’s, our people overflow in long lines at application centers seeking food stamps and jobs.
· At the start of this year, more than 752,000 Floridians were out of work. In just one year’s time, we lost 255,200 jobs, more than 88,000 of them in construction alone.
· More than 400,000 of our citizens were added to the food stamp rolls in January, swelling the ranks to 1.92 million.
· These are people who have never sought government assistance in their lives. They were proud of that independence. They still are. But desperation has set in. There are children to feed. Families to keep intact. And pride will not ease that hunger or shelter them from foreclosures or bankruptcies.
· And it is that ability to regain that independence that concerns us.
· As I said, Senate Democrats welcome the governor’s decision to join us in protecting the priorities for which we have fought for so long.
· But not only do we need to hold the line on any further spending cuts to education, but we need a re-dedication to higher education, especially community colleges.
· Because it is these institutions which have become a beacon to all those laid off construction workers, service-related employees, retail sales clerks, and every displaced job seeker seeking retraining in promising new fields.
· At the same time, we need to ensure that new jobs are created. The shovels that are idle, the cement trucks that have ceased turning, the machinery that sits rusting, the retail stores that have shuttered – all of these people who staffed all of these jobs are desperately seeking work that Florida needs to find a way to create.
· Governor, many of the same hands now reluctantly outstretched for food stamps are the very ones that built this state.
· Eighty-three years ago, three years before the Great Depression, Florida found herself in similar financial turmoil.
· By 1929 nearly 220 banks in the state collapsed, some counties forfeited on their bonds, closed schools, and in some cases declared bankruptcy.
· We may not be to that point yet, but in some communities, we’re coming dangerously close.
· What pulled Florida out of that pit, and will likely pull us out again, was a massive influx of spending from Washington.
· But as we watch very carefully how and where that money is spent, we also urge the governor and the Republican leadership to carefully rethink how we landed in this crisis, and ways to prevent it from ever occurring again.
· There is no doubt that the mortgage meltdown, housing speculation frenzy, and the credit crisis, have helped bring this state to her knees.
· But had our tax policies been fairer, and our spending priorities wiser, our state could have weathered this storm much better than it has.
· Over the past 10 years, we’ve given away more than $12 billion in tax breaks. Not to the average Joe or Jane Public, but to well heeled special interests and large corporations.
· It’s time they paid their fair share.
· We’ve shifted the bills for a good public education from the state – where that responsibility rests – down to local cities and towns and counties, where it helped drive up the property taxes to record levels.
· No wonder they still haven’t dropped like a rock.
· And when the economic clouds began to roll into our state like hurricanes sweep over our shores, we turned not to the wealthy special interests to pony up, but to Joe and Jane Public again.
· We raised fees on court costs, and traffic tickets. We axed 66 probation officers we desperately need to protect our children from predators that threaten them, and we came dangerously close to gutting the government services more and more Floridians have turned to because their jobs have disappeared.
· I wonder about the governor’s commitment to the people when he’ll gamble $10 million on a risky "gardening" program that might create jobs, when he knows pink slips will surely follow because the money was withdrawn from the state’s housing construction program.
· I wonder about his commitment to the people when he says he wants to cut local government spending with no plan to pay for the critical services the people will lose as a result.
· The governor is correct that taxes are still too high for those people in homes that aren’t homesteaded, or small businesses that own the property.
· But you don’t stop someone from bleeding to death by cutting out the heart. You stop the bleeding at the source, and that’s what Florida desperately needs to do.
· The leadership in Florida needs to come to terms with the lopsided priorities that have governed this state for too long. It needs to find the courage to make a few of these special interests a little uncomfortable, and realize that the burden of paying for the services and the protections that this state provides, needs to be shared by all.
· While the federal stimulus money is a godsend, it is not a panacea.
· We’ve been given a little bit of breathing room and a moment to reflect.
· The people’s money needs to be returned to the people in ways not designed to reflect a political ideology or political gimmicks, but a wise investment for the future of Florida.
· Education, health care, retraining and restarting Florida’s workforce. If those priorities are sound, so too will be the state of Florida.
· On behalf of the Senate Democrats, thank you and good night.
