The long-awaited internal audit of the Florida Republican Party finances is in, but no one has seen it, except those on the inside. The party’s chairman John Thrasher is talking about suing Gov. Charlie Crist and other ex-party higher-ups, including Jim Greer and Delmar Johnson, for hundreds of thousands of dollars which he says were inappropriately spent. The party will decide over the next ten days whether or not to pursue legal action to recover the money, it says.
Although the IRS earlier this year launched an investigation into the expenses of Republican candidate Marco Rubio, now running neck and neck with Crist, for the U.S. Senate seat, the audit appears to give the former House Speaker a pass. As in the case of Rubio, the IRS is also looking into whether or not Greer and Johnson improperly used party credit cards for personal expenses.
It was not so long ago that newspapers reported that Rubio had charged more than $100,000 to his GOP credit card during his two-year term as House Speaker. These included “political expenses” for groceries, plane tickets for his wife and repairs to the family mini-van. Other charges covered by the party and treated as political expenses included, $767 at Apple’s online store for “computer supplies”, $25.76 from Everglades Lumber for “supplies”, $412.00 at All Fusion Electronics, a music equipment store in Miami, for “supplies”, among other expenses.
The GOP picked up the tab too, for Rubio’s expenses during legislative sessions in 2007 and 2008. Such bills included $4,100 in restaurant tabs, a $409 bill at a Macaroni Grill and a $7.09 charge at a Chick-fil-A.
But here’s what’s interesting, Thrasher said the audit found no wrong doing on Rubio’s part and that he has already reimbursed the party more than $2,400 for plane tickets! In fact, Rubio in February did admit that he had doubled billed taxpayers for thousands of dollars in political travel!
So, who does Rubio think he is fooling, touting himself as a fiscal conservative wanting to go to Washington to take on special interests?
Rubio’s website says that, “Washington has been taken over by big spending politicians from both parties who will say and do anything to get elected” and one of his 12 simple ways to cut spending is to “end the wasteful stimulus program that has failed to create jobs.”
We don’t doubt that Rubio sees himself among the “big spending politicians”, as his track record indicates and presumably, will say and do anything to get elected.
In a state where unemployment is 11.5 percent, two percentage points higher than the national average, Rubio is advocating an end to the stimulus program, as it hasn’t created jobs.
While it was anticipated that more jobs would have been generated from the federal stimulus dollars, the public should know that, to date, over 3 million jobs nationwide were either saved or created.
The total number of Florida workers helped directly or indirectly on account of jobs saved or created since the stimulus bill is 153,000, according to the federal Council of Economic Advisers. Of that, more than 26,000 public school jobs, including more than 18,000 teaching positions were saved. Additionally, more than 2,700 school jobs were created.
So, if Rubio had his way, hundreds of thousands more Floridians would be unemployed than the 1 million currently out of work, as according to him, the stimulus is a waste of money.
Would Rubio, the darling of the Tea Party say and do anything to get elected? As the half-term governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin would say, “You Betcha”!
Meanwhile, the outcome of the criminal investigation, launched by the IRS, FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office into the use of Florida GOP Party credit cards, is being awaited, not the internal party audit.
