Conversations with a couple of right-leaning friends involved in the arts suggest even they were thunderstruck by the sharpness of Lil’ Benito’s veto blade:
Nonprofit arts and culture organizations across Florida, especially South Florida, are still contemplating how to bounce back from $32 million in arts funding slashed from the fiscal year 2024-2025 state budget.
Gov. Ron DeSantis last week vetoed cultural and museum grants secured from state legislators, forcing established organizations scrambling to prevent staff layoffs, cuts to programming or ceasing operations altogether, non-profit leaders told WLRN.
He signed into law a $116.5 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, after vetoing close to $950 million — including the arts funding — in spending approved by lawmakers in March.
“This is historic” for the state’s nearly $3 billion industry, said Jennifer Sullivan, Senior Vice President at the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, an arts support agency for the Palm Beaches.
To explain to philistines how art “enriches” life is like explaining differential equations to a parakeet. I’ve told fellow Democrats to cool it with the Democracy Dies in Darkness twaddle. Voters don’t think in abstractions. The cutting of trans care for children, watching young girls bleed in operating rooms because they had to bring a child to term, the expansion of Obamacare — these things are real. In Miami I know how packed the Adrienne Arsht Center gets during opera season. I’ve elbowed through crowds at the Miami Book Fair. I’ve made stand-by lines at Miami Film Festival. Gutting these programs and telling their leaders to hold out hats for private funding means less community spending. South Florida isn’t unique: the story above mentions the effect on a Black history museums in Delray Beach. Even in blood-red Lee County the arts account for a significant portion of income:
“This veto is not just a budgetary decision,” said Molly Rowan-Deckart, executive director for the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers. “It is a blatant disregard for the thousands of jobs, the educational opportunities and the community enrichment that arts and culture provide.”
That’s why Rowan-Deckart said she’s outraged by the governor’s sweeping veto.
“The state’s own analysis shows a nine-to-one return on investment from these grants ― money that supports local economies and generates tax revenue,” she said. “To dismiss this is shortsighted and destructive.”
I didn’t know this!
Because the governor’s office has remained mum, speculation rules. This man is so petty that it wouldn’t shock me if he vetoed this pittance of the state budget as revenge on the people least likely to have voted for him 2018 and 2022.
Humanizing The Vacuum 
Bingo! What does Occam’s Razor tell us?
These kinds of jerks think that “the arts” should pay for themselves, or people who are into “that kind of thing” should pay for it. Likewise, if you have some kind of health issue, that’s your problem. Doesn’t matter what the problem is or your age, or anything at all. These kind of jerks don’t see anyone else at all. The rest of the world is a faceless blob to them.