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Mississippi Governor and Presidential hopeful Haley Barbour met with Florida Governor Rick Scott today. After their meeting they spoke to reporters about the stale-mate in Congress that could force a government shutdown. Both the Republican Governors side the GOP controlled House and say Congress needs to cut spending.

“Washington doesn’t have one and a half trillion dollar deficit because it taxes too little; its cause they spend too much and the minor spending cuts that are being discussed at…done by the House of Representatives are a fraction of what ultimately has to be done,” said Barbour.

“It doesn’t make any sense. We know we have to live with in budgets. Im going through my budget right now and the expectation for all…everybody in this country is that the Federal Government watch how they spend money,” said Scott.

Barbour also addressed Florida’s importance in the 2012 presidential primary election. He says if he runs, he’ll campaign in Florida regardless of whether or not the state moves its primary back from January to March to appease the Republican National Committee.

Florida hospitals are facing a 1.8 billion dollar budget cut in the budgets being contemplated by state lawmakers. Included in the cuts is the elimination of the Medically Needy program. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the cut could hurt as many as two hundred thousand Floridians who depend on the program for their lives.

Mary Ellen Ross had a liver and bone marrow transplant in 1999. She was in the capitol to tell the story of the medically needy.

“I don’t want to die,” Ross said.

Kidney recipient German Vivas is in the same dire straits.

“I will not survive,” Vivas said.

200,000 Floridians depend on the Medically Needy program to survive. The program costs the state 671 million dollars a year. It was completely eliminated in the Senate’s budget.

In German’s case, his 18 hundred dollar a month income doesn’t come close to leaving enough to cover the cost of medications to keep him from rejecting his transplanted kidney. He says health shouldn’t be for just the the wealthy.

“Low income people also donate their organs,” he said. “They need to have a right to receive transplanted organs.”

If the program goes away, there’s only one place for people to get care, the emergency room, and the public is still going to pay.

But after spending hundreds of thousands on each transplant, the state is saying it is too poor to take care of the medical investments it has made. Ross says that doesn’t make sense.

“Wouldn’t it be better to keep us in good health, so we wouldn’t have to use the hospital system?” Ross asked.

There is one ray of hope. It is early in the budget process and the Senate President says the medically needy will survive once lawmakers start negotiating.

Teachers, Police, Firefighters and state employees continue to fight against changes to their pension plan. In Tallahassee today, both the House and Senate moved forward with budget’s calling for different levels of pension contributions, and requiring at least some contribution seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Anger has been building since Rick Scott first announced he wanted a 5% pension contributions from employees who haven’t had a raise in as many years. It has been 36 years since the state took over all funding of the pension fund. Many, like correctional officer Jim Baiardi, see the contributions as a foregone conclusion.

“It seems like the word of the day up here is contributions”, says Baiardi.

Under the House plan, everyone would pay 3% of their salary. The 3% would take more than 700 million in buying power out of public employees hands.

The Senate has a tiered plan:

2 percent for anyone making twenty five thousand or less

4 percent for salaries between 25 and 50 thousand

and 6 percent for anyone making more than 50 k.

Even moderate Republicans like state Senator Paula Dockery of Lakeland balked at the plan during floor debate. “I’m not to be able to support a budget that balances itself on the backs of our state employees”, says Dockery.

The Budget containing the contribution requirements passed 33 to 6.

What happens next is that House and Senate leaders will spend the next three or four weeks negotiation, trying to decide if the pension contribution is as low as two percent or as high as six percent.

Rich Workman has been handling the House plan. For now, he’s not budging on a firm 3%. “Currently, their tiered plan is. I think, is more harmful than the three percent across the board”, says Workman.  And while negotiations continue…public employees plan to keep the pressure on.

Opponents of the pension contribution pointed out the state will spend more than 700 million dollars next year buying right of way for roads. that’s enough to cover the cash the pension contribution will bring in.

An angry crowd of teachers, nurses, and unemployed people stormed the governor’s office today to ask Rick Scott, where are the jobs? Scott was out of town, but as Whitney Ray tells us, the crowd delivered hundreds of pink slips to his secretary and told him the governor’s got to go.

With signs in their hands, a song on their hearts, and pink slips ready to be delivered, an angry mob of five hundred nurses, teachers, and unemployed people took over Governor Rick Scott’s office Thursday.

One-by-one, the working class Floridians handed pink slips to Governor Rick Scott’s staff. Their question for the governor, “where are the jobs?”

The group claims Scott has eliminated 330-thousand jobs, and has yet to create one. Here’s how they came up with the figure.

First they say Scott’s rejection of federal dollars for high speed rail cost the state 113-thousand jobs. Then they say that Scott’s plan to privatize Medicaid, which could deprive the state of billions of federal matching dollars, would eliminate 135-thousand. That brings the total about 250-thousand. The rest, they say, would come from privatizing prisons, cutting education funding, and laying off state workers.

Amos Irvin says if Scott doesn’t change his tune soon, the voters will change it for him.

“His polling numbers are going down so he’d better pay attention to us,” said Amos.

Others says Scott’s policies will make the rich richer and the poor suffer more.

“The corporations will have an easier time in Florida and it will all be on the backs of the workers,” said Pat Butman.

While the workers packed Scott’s office, he was in Port St. Lucie meeting with the unemployed and talking about his plan to create 700-thousand jobs. A spokesman for the governor says Scott respects the rights of the protesters to rally at the capitol, but says their claims are false.

Florida’s 15 public, children’s, and teaching hospitals are being targeted by state lawmakers for millions of dollars in budget cuts.

So is the medically needy program. Hospital CEOs joined transplant survivors at the state capitol today to talk about the ramifications of the cuts. Mary Ellen Ross had a liver transplant. Ross relies on the Medically Needy program to pay for medicine that keeps her body from rejecting the organ. She says if the program is cut, she will die.

“My life will be shut down more quickly if this program is not here as something I can rely on to the day that God wants to take me, not the state of Florida,” said MaryEllen Ross.

Union workers from Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami-Dade County fear cuts to the public hospitals are an attempt by the legislature to privatize the facility.

200-thousand Florida public school students take at least one class online.

That number could skyrocket if legislation expanding the program passes this legislative session. The bill would expand the program the private schools and home schools. It would also require every student to take at least one class online before graduation. State Representative Erik Fresen says the changes will give students more learning options.

“We have these tools that are available that a certain child wants to learn in a certain grade at a certain pace and we can offer that in a virtual environment which they are living in every single day outside the classroom anyway. It’s something we should offer to our kids,” said Fresen.

Opponents of virtual schools worry about the quality of the classes and the supervision of the students enrolled in the online courses.

Hundreds of disabled people are calling on Governor Rick Scott to restore money he cut last week from the Agency for Persons with Disabilities. People with mental retardation, cerebral palsy and spina bifida were at the capitol today protesting the emergency cuts. As Whitney Ray tells us, they invited the governor, but he left the capitol before the rally began.

Yliana Eberts pulled her disabled daughter, Carmon, out of a group home after she discovered scrapes and bruises all over her body.

Yliana applied for a Medicaid waiver and now her daughter lives on her own. Medicaid pays for caregivers to watch Carmon, but last week Governor Rick Scott cut funds that pay for her care.

“I don’t have any options because I cannot care for her. That is why she is where she is,” said Yliana.

The 15 percent cut is affecting thousands of Floridians with disabilities.

Wednesday, hundreds rallied at the state capitol to tell Scott to restore the funds. Some of them, like Philip Wojtas, who will lose his rides to therapy because of the cuts, needed help sharing their stories.

Interpreter: Do you want to live in an institution?
Philip: No
Interpreter: No, you don’t want to live in an institution, you would rather live in your apartment, right?”
Philip: Yes

The crowd invited the Governor to the rally to explain his cuts, but he was no where to be found. Scott had a meeting in Palm Beach and left minutes before the rally began, but Tuesday he told reporters spending at the Agency for Persons with Disabilities was out of control.

“That agency has not lived within its budget as far as I can tell it never did and so everybody just kicked the can and never really held them accountable,” said Scott.

Scott says the decisions he makes won’t earn him a lot of friends. This crowd is proof positive the governor’s right. But the governor is making friends with the Tea Party and business groups, and even though a poll released today shows Scott’s approval ratings low, political experts say if he’s able to turn the economy around… voters will change their tune.

Governor Rick Scott’s job approval rating has stayed the same, at 35 percent, but according to a Quinnipiac Poll released today, the percentage of voters who disapprove of the new governor has more than doubled.

48 percent of the 15-hundred voters polled say Scott is doing a poor job governing. Pollster Peter Brown says the Scott brand is down right now, but he has plenty of time to repair his image before the next election in 2014.

“Currently, Scott is a four letter word in the state of Florida. But he doesn’t come up for reelection in the state of Florida for another 41 months. That’s a long time,” said Brown.

But not all of Scott’s plans are unpopular with the public. 80 percent of people polled agree with Scott’s decision to drug test state workers.

A giant skillet of Paella fed lawmakers, lobbyists and regular folks at the state capitol today.

The Attorney General, Commissioner of Agriculture and Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll helped serve the food as part of the Miami-Dade Days celebration. The governor traditionally serves the paella, but Governor Rick Scott was out of town. Carroll was more than happy to fill in.

“Anytime you’re feeding people, you’re going to draw a crowd. But this is special food from Miami-Dade. The cook, I was serving next to him, and he was out here all night long, preparing the meal. Which smells very good, but I haven’t tasted it yet,” said Carroll.

The huge batch of paella could have served three thousand people, but this year just under a thousand showed up to be fed.

Nurses are roaming the halls of the state capitol today asking lawmakers for more money for public hospitals. The nurses fear with the governor and legislative leaders so eager to privatize public services… hospitals like Jackson Memorial in Miami-Dade County could be next. Martha Baker, a nurse and President of SEIU (Service Employees International Union), says its time for all public employees to fight back.

“Statewide, it’s about the attack on the public altogether. Public safety net hospitals, such as Jackson, throughout the state. Attacks on education. Rick Scott has been a wrecking ball on the public sector in Florida. We’re up here objecting to that today. Main focus: save Jackson Memorial Hospital, save our public health system, save safety net hospitals,” said Baker.

Around one today a hundred nurses rallied in the capitol then split into groups to lobby lawmakers.

Just days after publicly threatening a shutdown, the Florida court system is receiving emergency funds from Governor Rick Scott. Scott gave the courts a 20 million dollar loan this morning. Without the money judges say the courts would have to close for 14 days over the next two months. Attorney General Pam Bondi is praising the move by Scott. She says a shut down would have been devastating.

“We would have had to furlough people, our courts, our prosecutors. Crimes happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And when someone is arrested, they legally have to come before a judge within 24 hours. So, the courts have to operate, civil and criminal,” said Bondi.

Now the courts turn their attention to the legislature where next year’s budget faces reductions.

State lawmakers want to crack down on kids who wear their pants too low. Legislation banning saggy pants students from sports, band, and choir classes is close to becoming Florida law. As Whitney Ray tells us, the sponsor of the baggy britches bill says students need to learn how to dress for a more competitive job market.

Sophomore Bern Mustian prefers to wear his pants the way they were meant to be worn. Above his hips. If Bern does bust a sag… it’s an accident.

“Sometimes it just happens,” said Bern.

In the hallways he sees classmates who sag their pants… but says it bothers the teachers more than it does him.

“I just don’t look at that person. The first thing I don’t look at is their pants,” said Bern.

But in extreme situations in schools throughout the state sagging is so bad… underwear or even backsides can be scene. State lawmakers say its too much.

“If we teach them how to read, writting, and arithmetic, we can teach them how to dress,” said Siplin.

State Senator Gary Siplin is proposing legislation that would require public school students to pull their pants up.

Caught with their pants down the first time and the principal would call the student’s parents. The second time would result in a face to face meeting with the principal and the student would be banned from sports, arts and music classes for five days.

The third time a student was caught showing their underwear… would result in 30 days without the fun classes…. and in school suspension. Some lawmakers think it’s too much.

“We may be concerned that this is addressing a larger social issue. The true addressing of that issues begins at home,” said Representative Dwight Bullard.

The baggy britches bill has failed several years running… this year it appears to have more support. The bill has already passed the full Senate. Today it made it through its final House committee stop and could heard by the full House early next week.

Local governments around Florida are losing an estimated 28 million dollars to online travel companies. The Reason: Florida law is unclear over when tourist related sales taxes should be paid when rooms are purchased online.

On Expedia, you can book a room at a Disney World hotel for 139 dollars… a 92 dollar saving. Expedia bought the room a lot cheaper than that…and the only tax paid is on what Expedia paid for the room…not what the guest eventually paid.

Counties are losing an estimated 28 million dollars in tourism taxes because of the way the tax is being collected.This House committee killed legislation aimed at giving Expedia and others a pass on paying taxes at the higher rate…but then this member…Debbie Mayfield, changed her vote.

“I don’t know that leadership worked hard to make it not fail” says Mayfield  ”That wasn’t my purpose of reconsidering it. After I thought about it, I thought there were a lot of questions.”This fight is a whole lot more than just Expedia or other travel companies on line. It’s really a battle between Disney and Universal against all the other hotels in Florida.

The Theme parks and on line travel agents have mounted a full court Pr effort. Expedia’s lobbyist, Jennifer Greene, says all they want is certainty in the tax law.“The law is ambiguous and nobody knows what to follow, and businesses can’t function, and hotels can’t offer rooms and customers can’t buy rooms,” says Greene.

Hazelle Rogers voted no the first time and is sticking to her guns.

“For me”, says the Broward County representative, “I think we’re leaving a lot of revenue on the table. And at the time when we need to look at all the funding sources that we can”.

If the bill does become law, counties will continue to have less money for tourist related activity.

The House Finance and Tax committee turned last week’s 12 to11 vote against the bill into an 18 to 6 vote for it, sending the 28 million dollar tax break to the House Floor.

This is the 16th annual Children’s Week at the state capitol. The annual event highlights the needs of Florida’s kids, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the needs have never been greater.

A hundred thousand paper hands hang in the Capitol for Children’s Week. The bright colors offer hope for the future, but advocates say the 2011 budget will be anything but kind to kids.

“We’re gonna knock kids out of healthcare,” Roy Miller with the Children’s Campaign said. “We’re gonna put more kids in incarcerated situations because we’re not going to care for them properly in the community.”

Healthy Families, which helps troubled families stay together, is being cut…again. School readiness is on the chopping block. And rich, poor, or middle class, a nearly 7 percent cut to public schools will affect millions of children.

800,000 Florida children already live below the poverty level. That’s defined as a family of four making less than 22,000.

But there are bright spots. 16-year-old Brianna Thomas is about to be adopted. Brianna was at the Capitol with her soon-to-be mother to give hope to other older foster children.

“I was abused and neglected by my grandma,” she said. “She did these things because she is an alcoholic.”

In foster care for three and a half years, Brianna says she knew she would have a family someday.

“I knew God had a family for me but I didn’t actually know that it was this soon,” she said.

As part of Children’s Week, the Department of Children and Families announced a three-hundred-thousand dollar gift of the book, Victor’s Dream. The book paints a picture of hope for children like Brianna in foster care.

The Department of Children and Families has sent $174,000 originally slated to be spent for administering federal homeless money to seven counties. The money will be used to keep families in their homes. DCF Secretary David Wilkins says he was able to keep the money in the field by reviewing how the agency administered the funds.

“The homeless grant money, the way the federal program works, is that goes to the community organizations,” Wilkins said. “So our focus is get as much of that money to the communities as we can. And what we did in that exercise is really what costs can we take out of the administrative function of how we administer that program, so really all that money can get down to local programs. So I was really pleased that we were able to accomplish that.”

The money is going Kids Central, which serves Citrus, Hernando, Lake and Sumpter counties, and to the Okaloosa Walton Continuum, serving those two panhandle counties.