As many of you know, while much of the country is recovering from the recession, Florida continues to face many economic hurdles. Therefore, during the 2010 legislative session, my colleagues and I focused much of our attention on economic development and job creation. In addition, we confronted a number of issues important to District 55, including Florida’s budget, education, and healthcare of Floridians.

• Make property insurance affordable
• Lower property taxes to make home ownership a reality
• Provide better schools
• Safer neighborhoods
• Make good health care a reality for all Floridians

Issues

I was proud this session to support new policies to promote the recovery of our state’s economy. For me, job creation for Floridians was job number one.

I supported legislation to keep Floridians working, prevent layoffs, to bring a measure of economic stability. For instance, we passed a bill on the first day of session to hold down a dramatic increase in unemployment tax rates for businesses for the next two years. These increases would have resulted in layoffs for Floridians.

The Legislature also passed a $200 million jobs package (over 3 years) that is designed to make Florida more economically competitive and to encourage companies to invest in our state and hire Floridians.

Throughout the session, I supported various efforts that help Florida consumers, including a reinstatement of Florida’s back-to-school sales tax holiday that benefits Florida’s families. The tax holiday provides a one-time, three-day sales tax holiday for clothing and other school supplies purchased from August 13-15, 2010.

These are tough economic times, but we must provide for roads and bridges, courtrooms, protect our natural resources, provide for law enforcement and prisons, and fund our schools so that we may soon have a world-class education system for students and educators.