Audio By Carbonatix
Meet Pamela the PTO Mom. If more media covered state politics with the same passion and obsession as national politics and more people cared, she’d be Florida’s anti-Joe the Plumber.
Pamela Hennan, a St. Augustine Realtor and dedicated school volunteer drove all night to address the House Finance and Tax Committee today on education issues. She’s fed up with all the recent cuts to education. To do so she had to sit through hours of mind numbing lobbyist talk, and by the time our old friend Ron Book took to the podium she had about enough. From the Pensacola News Journal:
Only a few minutes before, South Florida lobbyist Ron Book passionately
defended a $4 million sales-tax break for yacht owners who temporarily
put in at Florida marinas for repairs.
…
“I’m finding it incredible. Obviously, these people have a lot of money
to be spending money on these kinds of things,” Hennen said of the
previous speakers. “I’m here to say please help our schools, please
help our economy.”
On another lobbyist who wanted to eliminate taxes on charter boat
rentals: “If you’re going to pay $1,000 to go on a charter boat what
the heck is
$60? If those boaters are going to get in trouble out in the water,
what are they going to do?…Who goes to save them? The police do, the
fire department, the coast guard. And they don’t want to pay taxes.”
According to The Miami Herald/St. Pete Times Tallahasee bureau she also brought a stack of letters from school children, one of whom asked: “How come I can’t get cable
(TV) in my classroom but the prisoners can watch cable in their class?”
Real wisdom from real Floridians.
Hennen’s
story has already attracted the attention of the aforementioned
organizations, and expect her to become one of those rare diversion
from the wonky-wonk of your regular legislative session that actually
brings focus to a problem.
[PNJ: ‘Please Save Our Economy’]
[Naked Politics: Unhappy Mom Tells Legislatures What To Do With Taxes]
