U.S. Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio,, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., are backing Rubio’s proposal.
The discussion was moderated by former Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) Chair and Florida State University adjunct faculty member Al Cardenas.
Fried also urged the governor to open vaccines to farmworkers, agricultural and food production workers, and other essential workers who face elevated risk of COVID-19 illness. The governor’s current executive order opens vaccines to teachers only over age 50.
At the end of last week, DeSantis announced the launch of a resiliency initiative for Florida schools to emphasize key character development skills including volunteerism, teamwork and problem-solving.
With Tuesday being World Teen Mental Wellness Day, Bilirakis showcased a proposal he is backing to “encourage schools to implement evidence-based suicide prevention training for students in grades 6 through 12.”
“Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind,” the governor told a joint session of the Florida Legislature while talking about what has happened in the lockdown states. “While so many other states kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up.”
With solid Republican majorities in both chambers, Gov. Ron DeSantis, state House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, and state Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, should not face many challenges from the Democrats. But there will be problems in the days to come, especially as DeSantis pushes a $96.6 proposed budget which includes $625 million for Everglades restoration and a new “Resilient Florida” program to deal with climate change with $1 billion in bonds over the next four years.
Unveiled at Amway Arena, professional sports teams, organizations, and athletes from across Florida are lending their support for these resiliency efforts.
In 2018 and again in 2019, Rubio teamed up with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to on the “Protecting Job Opportunities for Borrowers (Protecting JOBs) Act” which “would help to ensure borrowers are not inhibited from working in their trained field solely because they fell behind on their federal student loan payments” and “would prevent states from suspending, revoking or denying state professional, teaching, or driver’s licenses solely because a borrower falls behind on their federal student loan payments.”
“The Educational Opportunities Act would allow individuals and businesses to contribute to qualified Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs) that award need-based scholarships to students to defray the cost of attending private schools. The bill creates an individual federal tax credit of up to $4,500 and a corporate credit of up to $100,000 for donations to qualifying, non-profit SGOs,” Rubio’s office noted about the proposal.