Jobs In The State of Florida

"Outsider Scott’s Campaign Promise To Create Jobs In The State of Florida: Off To A Bad Start So Far" by v.  johns, 3/10/11, 12:27 AM

Last Friday, Governor Rick Scott, a California-hailing outsider, rejected stimulus money from the federal government to begin building a bullet train system in our state that would eventually connect Tampa with Orlando and Miami. That dream is now temporarily deferred. I believe the Florida Legislature will, at some point, do the right thing and make some attempt to revive the project. In the meantime, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson seems to hold a small glimmer of hope as he told the Palm Beach Post’s Dara Kam that “there’s an old proverb: Fall seven times, stand up eight!”

My prediction of a “mass transit nexus” snaking its way through South Florida transitways holds firm. Governor Scot is merely a blip on the map. A potentially dangerous one at that. Make no mistake about it, some damage will be done while Scott is in office, but only if the people of Florida and our famed state legislature allow this damage to occur. So far, while claiming to aspire to create jobs and balance the budget, by rejecting federal grant money to begin building the Tampa to Orlando segment of a federally approved high-speed rail project, Scott has managed to: (1) waste $70 million (money that has already been spent to plan the bullet-train segment), (2) obliterate 20,000 construction jobs that would have been created from building the project, and (3) kill the creation of 1000 permanent jobs that would remain once the project was completed. And according to today’s Palm Beach Post (Mar. 9th) his budget proposal calls for $2 billion in tax cuts for corporations and property holders. Property owners, I can understand, but corporations? Excuse me, corporations are not people and do not require food! 

Clearly, Scott has no understanding of the symbiotic relationship between business and human logistics. He fails to understand that public transportation is the most basic and efficient way to ensure that workers get to work and make their companies profitable. With no car and $1.50 any idiot starting out in life can hop on a bus or train and and begin the process of becoming a productive, tax-paying citizen, rather than a jobless drain on our system. Scott’s party, the once great Republican Party, has done a fantastic job in getting unwitting ordinary people to believe that they are the party of business and industry while simultaneously pushing policies that are essentially harmful to individual liberty and bad for business in the long run. Mr. Scott continues this fleecing of America with unflinching ease.

Mr. Scott’s cold tone and lack of respect for the middle class and the poor combined with his ill-willed plans for our state, should they proceed easily through the legislature, will put Florida’s future in utter limbo for years to come. But while his initial support seems strong, its not bullet-proof, as even some of his own colleagues are questioning the sanity of his proposed budget. Thus, I would hope that, once the true costs of his ideas become clear, the people of Florida will begin to understand and know that whatever reason Scott is in office, its not for real business development and its not for the people of Florida…