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Governor Charlie Crist today used his veto pen extensively, axing 371 million dollars in state spending. The cuts are angering some top Republicans, but pleasing Democrats and some big industries in Florida. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, Crist both made and lost friends today.

Republicans originally wanted to take more than 400 million out of a road building fund but were forced to settle for just 160 million. They didn’t even get that.

Ironically it was Democrats in the Legislature that teamed up with big business, the Chamber and road builders, to fight the cut for the road building trust fund. Keeping that 160 million dollars in there will create more than 43 hundred jobs.

The Crist veto of the raid on the trust fund pleases dozens of groups including the Florida Trucking Association.

“The way Florida roads are maintained, constructed, built, is hugely important to trucks being able to safely and efficiently deliver,” Florida Trucking Association President Mary Lou Rajchel said.

Crist said no to 3.5 million for new crossing gates in the district of one his biggest critics. At the same time he blessed more than 8 million for a dental clinic in the panhandle, pushed by one of his biggest supporters.

35 million dollars for a branch campus for the University of South Florida in Lakeland also got the ax.

All total, the 70 billion dollar budget spends just under 37 hundred dollars for every one of the 19 million people who live in Florida.

Crist also voided cuts to nursing homes and the developmentally disabled and he axed language that would have prohibited stem cell research in the universities.