NEWSMAX: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week vetoed a portion of the state budget intended to help fund a youth sports complex that the Tampa Bay Rays might have used as a training facility.
DeSantis cut $3.1 billion in spending while signing the $109.9 billion budget bill on Thursday. The Washington Examiner notes that the facility would have cost about $35 million and that the veto came shortly after the Rays issued a statement calling for an end to gun violence following mass shootings in New York and Texas.
“We all deserve to be safe — in schools, grocery stores, places of worship, our neighborhoods, houses and America. The most recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde have shaken us to the core. The Tampa Bay Rays are mourning these heartbreaking tragedies that took the lives of innocent children and adults,” the team said in the statement. “This cannot become normal. We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way. We all know, if nothing changes, nothing changes.”
OutKick reports that DeSantis made the decision “in response to the Rays politicizing recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde.”
DeSantis previously revoked the special tax and self-governing privileges granted to Disney after the company issued a statement commenting on Florida’s recent controversial education bill.