Spending Down, Taxes Cut, Credit Rating Up

Florida shows the way:

While the United States credit rating with Standard & Poor's may have been downgraded recently, Florida's jumped from AA+ to AAA.

S&P upgraded Florida in July, which means now the state can refinance its old debt, thereby saving millions of dollars. Since July Florida has refinanced $1.5 billion in bonds, totaling $135 million in savings for the state...

Tax reductions and state budget cuts were the keys to Governor Rick Scott convincing S&P to upgrate Florida's credit rating.

The GOP still has a long way to go to redeem itself in the eyes of fiscal conservatives, but at least a few GOP governors have shown that they've mastered basic math.

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Great News: More Power For Parents in Florida

Via Libertarian Republican, big news from Florida:

The latest buzz-phrase at the capitol in Tallahassee is "Educational Savings Accounts."

Libertarian Republican Governor-elect Rick Scott is hinting at a major overhaul of Florida's education system. The liberal-leaning St. Pete Times is calling his plan one of the "most radical... ever considered."

What's so radical? Let a bed-wetting liberal explain:

It is clearer than ever that Republicans intend to mount a frontal assault next year on Florida's public schools. Legislators show no interest in building consensus...

In Scott's fuzzy vision, every parent would be given public education money to spend on "whatever education system they believe in, whether it's this public school or that public school or this private school or that private school…''

Blum, BLUM, BLUMMMMM! Letting parents take back their tax dollars to educate their own children as they see fit ― what an insidiously diabolical idea!

Seriously ... its time for America to catch up. Socialists in Europe embraced marked-based reforms in education long ago:

Take the case of Swedish school vouchers and pensions. School vouchers were enacted by a conservative-led government in 1992. Initially, every Swedish student had the option of using a private school voucher equivalent to 85 percent of per-pupil spending at the local public school. When the Social Democrats took power in 1994, they could have repealed this law. Instead, they chose to increase the amount of the voucher to 100 percent of public school expenditures...

Let the money follow the students. There's no reason why government-run schools should have a monopoly.

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