"Difficult times require difficult choices"

In times of economic prosperity, even expensive, ineffective, and inefficient government programs can be afforded, if they are desired by the tax paying public. In our current economic crisis, Florida simply can not "afford" everything it's citizens desire. Florida's leaders know that. "We intend to provide essential services to the citizens in a fiscally prudent way." With those words, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House convened a special session of the Florida Legislature in January, 2009, to cut the state budget for the third time in 2 years.

The legislature chose not to discuss whether the death penalty was an "essential" service.

Instead, the "choice" was made to cut other services:

Education
Pre-K - 12	$466.4 million
Colleges	$184.3 million
UF	$23,193,067
FSU	$16,496,354
USF	$14,936,209
UCF	$13,384,192
FAU	$9,303,542
FIU	$9,035,386
FAMU	$4,659,494
UNF	$3,474,586
UWF	$2,662,778
FGC	$2,127,925
New College	$688,700
Health Care
Agency for Health Care Administration	$47.9 million
Agency for Persons with Disabilities	$41.7 million
Contributions to County Health Departments	$7.7 million
Biomedical Research	$3.7 million
Infectious Disease Control	$1.4 million

Florida's Death Penalty System Is A
Poor Choice