When former Gov. Jeb Bush was in Tallahassee on Wednesday, he spent two hours getting a briefing from his former budget director Mike Hansen, a House budget chief headed to be the chief of staff for incoming House Speaker Ray Sansom.

Bush was in Tallahassee Wednesday to address a reunion of his staffers, advisers and supporters at the Governor's Club. Bush talked about the budget briefing and said state government's biggest challenge was dealing with the austere and difficult budget. He warned that outside groups shouldn't go asking for new spending, because there were going to be some "tough decisions" this year.

Bush also talked about the U.S. economy and stressed that the United States is "interdependent" on other economies around the world. He talked about the need to support economies in Europe and Asia as a way of getting through this period of financial instability. He also that, domestically, Americans were just going to have to behave differently and try to save more and borrow less.

He didn't say much about Gov. Charlie Crist, except that he thinks it's appropriate that he's quietly remained on the sidelines rather than throwing his two cents in. He also didn't talk about his brother's administration.

He let slip that he and Columba were no longer living in the Coral Gables condo and were now renting a house in a nice neighborhood, close to the Miami International Airport. He said he spends a lot of time at the airport on route to give speeches on a variety of topics, including the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a nonprofit he started aimed at improving classroom education.

About 100 people showed up for the reunion, including: Sally Bradshaw, Mark Kaplan, Cory Tilly, Patricia Levesque, David Griffin, Chris Dudley, Greg Turbeville, Alia Faraj, Kristy Campbell, Albert Martinez, Steve Uhlfelder, Fred Dickinson, Martha Pratt, Stephanie Kopelousos, Slater Bayliss, Jason Unger and judges Brad Thomas and Paul Hawkes.

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