Main Street

Off the rails in Florida, part 2

With all the action in the Midwest, I’ve been looking south to see what Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has been up to. In 2010, Scott came out of nowhere last year to snatch the GOP nomination from Attorney General Bill McCollum and then squeaked by Democrat and state CFO Alex Sink in November.

How’d he do it? Many credit his bold 7-7-7 campaign promise of 700,000 new jobs in seven years – in a state with 12 percent unemployment.

If I was a Floridian construction worker left jobless by the housing bust, that 7-7-7 Plan probably would’ve gotten my vote.

And if I was that same construction worker still unemployed in March 2011, I’d feel a little hoodwinked by the news that Rick Scott canceled a large rail project that would’ve employed approximately 10,000 people.

And I’d be even more than hoodwinked – enraged, maybe – at his next move:

Florida’s jobless may soon find the going even tougher as the Florida House moves quickly toward passing a bill that would sharply reduce state unemployment benefits.

The plan would cut unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks, then to 12 weeks if unemployment drops below 5 percent. The savings to businesses? A measly $18 per worker in taxes.

Florida already has one of the strictest unemployment eligibility systems in the country – only 22.6 percent of Florida’s unemployed receive benefits. If you’re keeping score, that’s 49th in the U.S.

Numbers don’t lie. The problem is not the lack of will, the problem is the lack of jobs.

Rick Scott promised to create 700,000 jobs, and voters gave him the thumbs up. He took that vote of confidence and immediately began punishing the nearly 1 million unemployed Floridians and literally refusing the opportunity to put them to work.

Honestly, how does he think this ends?

Tags: unemployment