BARTOW (AP) - U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam would rather be in Florida. Joined by friends and family Thursday in his Bartow hometown, the 34-year-old former state legislator and five-term Republican congressman formally announced his plans to run for Florida agriculture commissioner. ...more

February 20, 2009

Jon Kueny of New Port Richey says Democrat's Community Redevelopment Act, not George W. Bush, the big reason for "the mess we're in." ...more

February 18, 2009

I've been reading the newspapers and watching the news reports on TV about President Obama and his stimulus package. Everyone who is against the plan seems to have forgotten why we're in the position we're in now, but no one wants to put the blame where it really is. ...more

February 17, 2009

At 11:59 tonight, about half the TV stations in the Tampa Bay area will unplug their traditional analog broadcasts and send only new and improved digital TV signals. ...more

February 17, 2009

President Barack Obama's senior White House adviser says Americans will soon see positive effects of the massive economic stimulus plan passed last week by Congress. ...more

February 15, 2009

A generally accepted premise is expecting different results from the same behavior is completely irrational. During the Reagan administration, David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, persuaded the Republicans to embrace the concepts of supply side economics and the theory that if the top earners earn more it will "trickle down" to the rest of the economy. To achieve this result, major tax cuts for those in the highest tax brackets were implemented, with the result that the national debt was doubled during the Reagan years. ...more

February 14, 2009

General Motors says it's cutting 10,000 salaried jobs, blaming the need to restructure the company amid the continued drop in new vehicle sales. ...more

February 10, 2009

The director of Pinellas County's visitors bureau is scheduled to testify before a congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday and deliver the message that drilling along the Gulf Coast could unnecessarily cripple the area's mainstay tourism economy. ...more

February 9, 2009

Between illegals and America's guest worker programs we may be looking at 20 million jobs, jobs held by the many guest workers and illegals. I would ask that the government look at all programs that bring foreign employees to our shores. The E-Verify program, if used, could ferret out most all of the illegal workers, which I suspect could be close to 20 million jobs that are lost to our citizens. This could re-employ millions of American laid-off workers. Many American industries refuse to hire American workers, claiming that they are "over educated for the job." Many engineers in American industry were laid off in the early 1980s by the aircraft and auto industries, etc. They were replaced with foreign engineers from India, China and nations of low wages. ...more

February 7, 2009

President Barack Obama is coming to Fort Myers on Tuesday for a town hall-style meeting to tell residents what his $900 billion stimulus plan would mean for them. ...more

February 6, 2009