The Republican National Convention will be held this year at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, from August 27 to 30. Nearly 50,000 people are expected at the event. The Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has announced the first list of headliners that would address the Convention; additional speakers will be announced in the next days.

The list includes:

• South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is the youngest sitting governor in the country and South Carolina first female governor. Her official website describes her as “one of the strongest fiscal conservatives in state government.”
• Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is one of the most popular conservatives, author of nine books, and a radio and television show host. He recently organized the Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day.
• Ohio Governor John Kasich, who was elected to the Ohio State Senate at the age of 26 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 at the age of 30, he was also former House Budget Committee chairman
• New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, who has become the first female Hispanic Governor in the country and the first female governor of New Mexico. Her official website explains that “She was elected on November 2, 2010, pledging to cut wasteful spending, lower taxes to create more jobs, end “pay-to-play” practices and other corruption in government and fight to reform education. She was sworn in as Governor of New Mexico on January 1, 2011, making her the first Latina governor in United States history.
• Arizona Senator John McCain, who was the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, he is a war veteran that is now serving his fifth term in the U.S. Senate. McCain was taken as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in 1967, where he was denied medical treatment and was often beaten by the North Vietnamese.
• Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was the first African-American female to hold this position. From 2005 to 2009 she served as the 66th Secretary of State, she also served from 2001 to 2005 as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, becoming the first woman to hold this position. According to her official profile she is currently a “professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business; the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution; and a professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is also a founding partner of Rice Hadley Gates.”
• Florida Governor Rick Scott, representing the convention host state, Scott is Florida’s 45th Governor; his official website explains that “Rick is focused on creating jobs and turning Florida’s economy around.”

Image Courtesy of  NewsHour

The article Republican National Convention Headliners Released appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

In the state of Florida, newly elected Republican Governor Rick Scott is proposing huge cuts to education spending in a state where teachers are already among the lowest paid in the country.  Scott’s announcement was met with statewide protests as educators, parents, and students fear cutting education that drastically will mean big changes for an already floundering school system.

Scott is proposing a K-12 budget for the coming year that is $1.75 billion less than the current education budget.   Nearly half of that reduction, according to Scott, is because the federal government won’t be sending the $873 million stimulus for education that it sent last year.  Claiming austerity measures and the need to balance the budget, Scott urged GOP lawmakers, “don’t blink” when faced with stares from critics.  However, Scott’s slashing of education will not benefit the state in any way.  In his proposed budget, he will gash education funding by $1.75 billion and then give away nearly the same amount on corporate and property tax breaks.  It is reverse Robin Hood.  The money potentially saved by killing education would not close the state budget gap at all.

Under Scott’s proposed budget, teachers would receive a pay cut certainly. But, students would also be affected.  Scott’s $16.5 billion K-12 budget proposal would cut per-student spending to $6,196, $703 less than this year’s $6,899.  The governor’s budget also projects $209 million less from discretionary taxes that school boards are allowed to raise additionally. Overall, that has Scott’s plan delivering $867 million less in property taxes for education.

Some Florida residents accuse Scott of reneging on a campaign pledge to hold education harmless. “Every candidate who ran in this last election ran on a campaign saying, ‘I support education,’ ” said Palm Beach County schools lobbyist Vern Pickup-Crawford. “Nobody ran on a campaign saying, ‘Elect me. I’m going to cut schools 10 percent.’ Including the governor.”

Teachers resent that they are the new scapegoat.  Roosevelt Middle School civics teacher Mike Dowling said he can weather a 5 percent salary reduction even though he, like other Palm Beach County teachers, hasn’t had a pay raise in three years.  But he worries about other teachers who are trying to survive on a tight budget.  “I don’t know that we can afford to make much less than we make,” Dowling said. “We’re talking about teachers not being able to pay the light bill, the phone bill. It scares me that Gov. Scott is trying to balance the budget and give tax breaks to wealthy people on the backs of the teachers.”  Dowling also said he’s concerned that respect for teachers is at an all-time low since he became an educator 18 years ago.  “When did teachers become the enemy?” he asked. “We are the people that you trust your children’s future to.  Society trusts me with their most precious resource, their children. And I’m wondering what we value.”

The article Florida Governor Suggests Slashing Education Funding appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.