If Congress passes an infrastructure package in coming weeks, it likely will do so with no Republican votes. The caucus has effectively decided that with Democrats pushing billions in spending increases, it’s best to offer no quarter and make the majority in the House and Senate figure the balance to pass a bill without any help from the minority.

If any GOP votes end up getting on board, I suspect it won’t be any of the representatives from this region. Rep. Vern Buchanan, long a balanced budget advocate, has little motivation as he faces a primary challenge in 2022. Rep. Greg Steube, an arch-conservative, has made it clear he sees no reason to help Democrats pass anything whatsoever. Neither of Florida’s U.S. senators, Marco Rubio or Rick Scott, have reason to defect as Democrats can pass a spending bill without having to break a filibuster.

“They’ve got to sort it out on their side, whether they even have anything,” Buchanan said. He said the Democrats might be able to pass the infrastructure bill with some bipartisan votes, but as long as it’s tied to a massive multi-billion-Build Back Better agenda of social spending, there’s little incentive for the GOP to engage.

Politically, that actually makes sense. With conversation almost solely on spending, and any social benefits of the programs likely unrolling in slow-motion well after passage, there’s easy messaging in the midterms when Republicans need to gain just a handful of seats to retake the House, and just one to take over the Senate.

“What we’re doing right now is having alternatives to all these horrible policies the Democrats are doing,” Steube said. “It’s pretty easy to campaign these days when the Democrats have gone so far left and are liberal on all these policies.”

Granted, horrible is in the eye of the beholder. There’s much in Build Back Better, from school spending to family leave and sustainability, that would broadly poll well. But then those aren’t the items where the GOP will bang the drum. In a speech at a Sarasota fundraiser last week, Steube hit on immigration, inflation, Afghanistan flubs and investigations of Americans by the IRS and the FBI. It’s surely frustrating for Republicans to be completely out of power in Washington these days, but being in the minority means never having to explain nuanced policies. Pretty easy indeed.

But what of those popular parts like the infrastructure bill, that will need to be divvied out project by project across the U.S.? Does this mean Sarasota and Manatee will be shafted when it comes time to cut checks? Buchanan, co-chair of the Florida delegation and an eight-term incumbent, doubts that will matter much. Project funding will be based on need. To show favoritism based on who voted for the bill wouldn’t actually plat out that well.

“Once it gets done, these things usually even out pretty good,” Buchanan said. “But I think they (Democrats) got a big hurdle to get there. It’s just so tight in the Senate and in the House. You’re trying to find one vote or three votes. It’s tough to get anything done, and I can tell you that because we’ve been on the other end.”

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor of SRQ MEDIA. 

Photo by Jacob Ogles: Vern Buchanan speaks with Greg Steube at a VIP event at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota.

In an article on www.forbes.com, Steve Olsher wrote, “We’re often told that if we pursue our passion and do what we love as a career, we will, to quote Confucius, never have to work a day in our life.”

At Ringling College of Art and Design, we are guiding our students as they turn their passion into their profession. And these are not just any professions, but highly marketable and in-demand professions with some of the most sought-after companies and brands worldwide.

The creative skills our students are mastering today — visual communication, design thinking, and even virtual reality — are the energy sources of our future. So, what our students at Ringling College are learning today will fuel the world in a whole new way for years to come.

For many of our students, when they step onto Ringling’s campus for the first time, they have already discovered their passion. It is then our job to give them the education and skill sets they need to translate that passion into a lucrative career.

In this new series of columns, we will take a deep dive into the 13 majors offered at Ringling College of Art and Design and learn more about how we are preparing our students to become the next generation of creative visionaries. 

The first step in the process, of course, is discovering your true passion, a process that may happen suddenly or over the course of many years.

Erika Andersen, founding partner of Proteus International, notes in Forbes that while finding your passion is a good starting point, there are other things to consider when setting out to turn that passion into a profession. “When you find something that you are passionate about; something that you’re really good at; and something that can drive your economic engine by providing a unique value to people, you might just have found your professional calling,” she said.

A study from the Deloitte University Press (www.entrepreneur.com) quotes reports that up to 87.7% of America’s workforce is not able to reach their full potential because they lack a passion for their work. “Your passion should be the thing you enjoy and for which you are naturally wired to excel,” Jacqueline Whitmore wrote, adding there is an important difference between a hobby and a passion, and it is crucial that you differentiate between the two when considering a career.

For example, for some, playing computer or video games may just be a fun way to pass the time. While for others, a Cintiq tablet or worldbuilding may be the gateway to unleashing their boundless creativity, their passion, that with the right nurturing and skill sets could translate into a rewarding and highly profitable career.

Ringling College offers a variety of state-of-the-art tools so students may build upon their passion, including: INDEX (Industry Experience at Ringling College), providing students with professional and experiential opportunities; Makerspace, a collection of cross-disciplinary studios on campus; and Ringling College Studio Labs, a 36,000-square-foot professional filming and post-production complex.

It is because of tools and resources such as these and the overall quality of our programs that students and graduates from Ringling are attracting the attention of today’s cutting-edge companies.

Electronic Arts, one of the leading interactive entertainment companies in the world, currently employs 31 Ringling students and alumni. One of their recruiters stated, “When we see the Ringling degree attached to a candidate, we immediately take notice.” And as Ken Maruyama, former executive director at Sony Pictures Imageworks, notes of Ringling College, “The genuine passion for creativity here is at a higher level than any other school from which we recruit.”

And, yes, it all does begin with passion. As local author Stephen King wrote, “Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it … I have written because it fulfilled me … I did it for the buzz … I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

Dr. Larry Thompson is president of Ringling College of Art & Design. 

Photo courtesy Ringling College