Kelly Kirschner

Views expressed r mine only.

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

Thanks to Manatee TigerBay for hosting tonight’s Congressional candidate forum. Great to participate and be part of a reinvigoration of American democracy and what’s clearly the start of a reform movement in this nation. #Let’sFixThis

[Thomas Kennedy @tomaskenn]

But the state of Florida can spend a billion in taxpayer dollars on Alligator Alcatraz.

[CathyNotToday2 🌿 @Cathy2NotToday]

( one of the many) The cash cows of Ron DeSantis /richard Corcoran who gets over $1 MILLION salary for 700 student NEW COLLEGE ) just a took over USF with the help of the equally corrupt legislature

“JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY”

Before taking over USF. New College had debt of about $17 million

That’s a lot for a school the size

With the land transfer of USFSM , NEW COLLEGE will take on roughly $53 million in additional debt

It also takes an additional $5 million plus operating expenses

So new college debt has gone from $17 million-$70 million

Well, surely the new buildings will bring in the income to cover that debt, right?

That’s not what the number say

NC Pres Richard Cochran, and his administration like to say the school is undergoing “record growth”

But the numbers they turn into the state say it is not

They also like to say they have a stabilized NC FINANCES

But the number say they have not

But the numbers tell us is that New College is effectively💰💰💰Bribing students to attend with a $10,000 a year scholarship and backfilling all of the students who leave with athletics transfers

The scholarships are paid exclusively by taxpayers

🚩🚩🚩New College’s net income for its tuition is effectively ‼️zero

The added USF Sarasota-Manatee dorms will help because it will keep students from being housed in hotels

However, those 200 beds on the US FSM campus will still be 50 fewer than the number provided by the existing dorms on the new college campus

( UNREAL ⚠️⚠️💰💰) This year’s compromise budget between the Florida house and Senate removed $5 million ear mark for scholarships that new college has had since 2023 thereby allow allowing the money to be used for anything the college administration chooses

Here’s the bottom line:

‼️‼️‼️One school was effectively, no income would quadruple its debt and reduce its ability to attract students….And another school that has served his community. Well for decades will be closed.

At some point in the near future, Corcoran will leave his position as new college president

He will leave as a multimillionaire things largely to all the public money NEW COLLEGE HAS RECEIVED

✅And he will leave two important institutions of fire education in total shambles

@iamjohnoliver

[Thomas Kennedy @tomaskenn]

This is a great question, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, who has been busy for months conducting partisan audits with faulty methodology, refuses to audit actual clear-cut government misspending of more than one billion taxpayer dollars in Alligator Alcatraz.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.

The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.

And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.

Record-breaking temperatures.

A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.

The response?

Yank out the instruments and walk away.

That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.

For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.

The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.

That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

Important reading and sad reaffirmation of having the best state govt that money can buy. #letsFixThis Thx @Jason_Garcia for being one of the few bright lights to shine on Tallahassee

[Jason Garcia @Jason_Garcia]

A tour of Florida's ~$115 billion state budget in four screenshots.

State lawmakers will vote on it all tomorrow.

More details + links at Seeking Rents.

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

College trustee @christopherrufo calling out the political nepotism, waste, fraud and abuse? Where are our passionate defenders of our veterans here locally? #EnoughIsEnough #Let'sFixThis https://t.co/dtLUJwWY6G

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

Today is Memorial Day - and I know I should post. Like so many, I'm tired of the platitudes and performative acts of politicians and elected officials who wear made-in-China American flag lapel pins and talk about supporting veterans, but then have little to no curiosity or drive

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

employed wife who now runs for Congress. *FOUR* local chambers of commerce opposed this. The cost to Florida taxpayers for a New College degree is now $500,000 vs around $60,000 for every other state school. Where is our DOGE? Where is our fiscal conservatism? Where is former New

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

Consequences of an illegal tariff war; compounded by an illegal “excursion”/war with Iran. #let’sFixThis

[Mark Zandi @Markzandi]

We have a year’s worth of economic data since Liberation Day, when President Trump announced much higher tariffs on most imported goods and countries, and the data are definitive; the tariffs have done significant damage to the economy. Since that day, job growth has come to a standstill, with only the non-traded healthcare industry adding meaningfully to payrolls. Also, since that day, inflation has accelerated, with the consumer expenditure deflator increasing at a 3% year-over-year pace, up from 2.5% before the tariffs and well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. And the trend lines don’t look good, especially as the economic fallout from the Iran War hits with full force. The higher energy and other commodity prices caused by the war threaten to do even more economic damage than the tariffs, further undermining growth and pushing inflation higher. The U.S. economy is resilient, but just how resilient is set to be tested.

[Holly Bullard @HollyBullardFL]

“80% of Florida residents were concerned about housing affordability & 43% said they lived paycheck to paycheck. Nearly half said they had considered leaving Florida because of the cost of living.”

[Kelly Kirschner @KellyKirschner]

See this Instagram post by @unidosnow https://t.co/we434iBL7C

[ProPublica @propublica]

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained. We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

A downstream effect of college being so unaffordable is that private equity has bought up youth sports and turned it into a college scholarship hunger games that is ruining communities and putting parents in debt

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

It's time to remove laptops from classrooms.

24 experiments: Students learn more and get better grades after taking notes by hand than typing. It's not just because they're less distracted—writing enables deeper processing and more images.

The pen is mightier than the keyboard.

[Jason Garcia @Jason_Garcia]

A Republican state representative in Florida wants to stop local communities around the state from doing anything at all to deal with WATER, WETLANDS AND POLLUTION

https://t.co/T5UXZvf5ox