Scott’s job promises don’t match reality

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Tampa Bay Times Editorial
Friday, December 6, 2013 6:13pm

Gov. Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign promise to create jobs was compelling to many voters because of its simplicity: 700,000 new jobs in seven years. But three years into Scott’s tenure, an analysis from the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reveals he has been more successful winning promises for jobs some future day in return for tax breaks than actually creating jobs. Just a tiny fraction of the new jobs Scott boasts about have materialized, while exponentially more private sector jobs have been lost. The governor’s never-ending self-promotion campaign does not reflect Florida’s economic reality.

The facts reflect the complexity of the economy and the error in the governor’s obsession on one narrow approach to improve it. Scott always makes time for another ribbon-cutting announcement, another call to an out-of-state CEO, or another appearance on conservative news outlets to tout his jobs efforts. But he fails to pay close attention to public schools, aggressively push for expanding health care access to uninsured Floridians, address the rising cost of utilities and property insurance, or show any interest in protecting the environment. Employers need more than a future tax break to see a future in expanding here. They also want a state that invests in its people, its public institutions and its long-term future.

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Editorial: Florida’s neglected priorities

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Tampa Bay Times Editorial

Monday, November 25, 2013 5:20pm

Gov. Rick Scott’s budget priorities for next year don’t add up — and it’s not just his numbers that don’t make sense. With the economic picture brightening, Florida should be reinvesting after years of devastating spending cuts that hurt higher education, social services and law enforcement. Yet the governor wants to keep starving government and hand a half-billion dollars in tax breaks to special interests.

Scott issued a position paper this fall calling for $500 million in unspecified tax cuts and $100 million more in state spending cuts for 2014-15. Never mind that Florida cut $9 billion in spending in recent years because of the recession and home mortgage crisis that caused dramatic drops in tax revenue. Never mind the state still spends less per public school student than it did before the economic collapse, or that the portion of higher education costs covered by the state has been declining while college tuition has been rising. Never mind there is little or no money to meet the demand for new roads, to fix and repair schools, or to buy environmentally sensitive land.

While Scott jets around Florida in his private plane to brag about promised jobs in return for business tax breaks, the state faces more than one expensive crisis. Two examples: At least 20 children known to the Department of Children and Families have died since April, primarily from abuse or neglect, and the child-protection system needs an overhaul. And the Indian River Lagoon, the St. Lucie River and its estuary are being polluted by an algae slime caused in part by polluted water released from Lake Okeechobee. Legislators are looking at spending a few hundred million dollars to help clean up that environmental mess.

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John F. Kennedy

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We were innocent. We left the years of “old” presidents behind. For a brief moment, time was limitless and full of promise. Even a moon landing seemed plausible. Then President Kennedy was assassinated. On this 50th anniversary of his death, people my age will remember where they were. I was in my fifth grade class. The only room with a television. We sat and watched. We went home speechless, almost disbelieving what we witnessed. Later came Vietnam, the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and then Watergate. For most of us, we were never quite as “young” again.

Mitch Ceasar
Broward County Democratic Executive Committee Chair

GOP “gotcha” getting old

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Sun-Sentinel Letters to the Editor
by Bruce David Wilner
October 29, 2013

In the latest Republican attempt at an Obama administration “gotcha,” it has now been revealed that “Joe Somebody” warned his management about the 2012 Benghazi crisis way ahead of time. Naturally, the Republicans seized upon this like a famished dog seizing a steak.

Of course, the Republicans fail to note that all day, every day, government employees are “warning” their management about this or that. Perhaps one percent of these dire warnings end up materializing.

But when some spectacular fallout or some five-cent misstep is evidenced, the Republicans are there like the Walking Dead to snap it up in a futile attempt to embarrass the Obama administration.

It is so very unfortunate that the Republicans have degenerated into the Petulance Party. You know, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican. Today’s folks are not of such standing.

But it is so very, very entertaining to see Fox’s array of multi-millionnaire co-hosts carping and sniping about this miscellaneous nonsense.

Read the original letter here.