Ah, come on, give us a break. Jeb said 15 years ago that he thought that State government should be dismantled - he said that the whole thing could be run out of a mobile home on the Crawfordville Highway. And he said it again at his most recent inaugural address - did you think that his almost wistful talk of empty buildings was hyperbole? Or maybe you thought that only services you didn't use or care about would be cut? The only part that the class-size amendment plays in this mess is the cover it gives Jeb is wiping out State government - now he gets to blame it on the voters. I blame them, too - for re-electing this bozo. And I am getting a little sick of hearing about how the 53% or so of the citizens of Florida people who voted for the amendment did so blindly or "unthinkingly". Have you ever considered that maybe they just got tired of being ignored by their officials when they asked that education be made a higher priority? That maybe they saw Jeb's positioning of himself as the "Education Governor" as the hypocritical electioneering that it really was and decided to force a response. You need to wake up and smell the coffee - you are now seeing the devious plans that Bush said that would use should the amendment pass. He will threaten dire consequences in his budget, then one of his cronies will propose that the amendment be repealed because "see, we told you that we can't afford it". The hope will be that we will all then rush out to undo the damage that we so "unthinkingly" did. Oh, and I have made a very useful suggestion to the Governor, but I doubt that he will resign just because I asked him to. Jack Butler ----- Original Message ----- From: "J B" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 12:32 PM Subject: [FLORIDA] Nail the perpetrator > The demand to cut back class size that necessitates the rabid cutback in > so many state services really put a cog in the plans of Bush to enhance > this state's progress. > The persons or person responsible should be the recipient of the > blame. I am as devasted as anyone of the plan to bury the history > library and archives, but the persons who voted for the measure to > reduce classes were the masses who unthinkingly vote for anything that > sounds good, without a thought for the expenses it might incur. The > library is not the only cutback that will cause an uproar, I'm sure; but > how else will Bush raise the money to finance such a cutback in classes? > As a teacher, I remember the days when I had 45 in a class--true that > was in high school. but the three years in elementary school teaching, > the classes contained 30 and more (in second grade). > Perhaps if the ridiculously exorbitant salaries paid to the powers > that exist in the county education systems were cut in half, and many of > the dead wood employees released from duty, surely millions of dollars > could be reaped to help the system. > Please don't think that I am not as concerned as anyone about the > demise of the library. As a genealogist, I will suffer also. It is > simply that I deem it a shame to beat the wrong horse. > It is time for thinking persons to offer solutions to the governor to > help keep the state running smoothly by demanding a revote and killing > some of these bills passed---as the reduction in class size and the > bullet train---and relieve some of Florida's financial woes. > JB >