Rick Scott’s Budget is Tea Stained

Despite that whole separation of church and state thing and calls to tone down partisan political rhetoric, Rick Scott introduced his first budget as governor today at a Tea Party rally in a church in small town Eustis, Florida. The rally took on a defiantly partisan affair as Tea Partiers had also come to celebrate the recent ruling against the Obama-backed health care reform laws. Of course, Scott’s budget was perfectly brewed for the Tea Party set.

While Scott promised no cuts to the state’s struggling eduction system (which is to say no new funding either) his budget aims to slash away at spending by reforming the pension, welfare and corrections systems, while promising to shrink government by eliminating departments and services with an eye towards some privatization.

You can browse through Scott’s budget bill for yourself below, but The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has rounded up some of the highlights:

BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS

–Cuts taxes by over $2 billion

–Reduces state spending by $5 billion

–Reduces biz tax from 5.5 to 3 percent

–Cuts property taxes by $1.4 billion

–Jobs – $800 million over two years for economic development

–Pension reform – saves taxpayers $2.8 billion over two years

–Medicaid reform – saves $4 billion over two years by creating “patient-directed” system

–Corrections – save $600 million through “innovating management” of juvenile offenders

–Education – no cuts

Streamlining Government

— Save $660 million by renegotiating contracts.

–Save $120 million over two years by consolidating, reorganizing, privatizing.

–Save $150 million over two years by eliminating programs not part of government’s “core mission.”

Rick Scott’s 2011 budget bill

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