If Rick Scott is trying to best Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for nation’s most isolated elected official then he’s headed down the right street.
A few weeks ago Rick released his very first budget for the state of Florida where he’s proposing to cut over $700 million dollars from education, removing over 1800 jobs from the Department of Children and Families, and the most egregious proposal of all, according to some, is that Scott wants all school, county, and state employees to contribute 5 percent of their salaries for the state pension fund.
Now mind you, Scott’s proposing these cuts in an attempt to close the Texas-sized hole in the state’s budget.
When we face hard times everyone has to sacrifice to try and get things back on track, right? I mean, isn’t that what our parents always taught us? We all have to take responsibility for our actions, so if we are to blame for the missing $3 billion dollars in the budget we are the one’s that have to foot the bill to pay for it, correct?
So if I’m a child in need of assistance because of the irresponsibility of others, like a parent or adult, and the state of Florida has a program to satisfy my need, because I’m the result of the aforementioned irresponsibility I should help foot the bill for the $178 million dollars the Department of Children and Families stand to lose under Scott’s budget, yes?
If I’m a recent homeowner who made the ill fated mistake of entering into an adjustable rate mortgage because of the advice of maybe my realtor and mortgage company and now I’m going to lose my home because my mortgage has gone as high as Charlie Sheen on a Wednesday afternoon, I should be happy that Scott wants to decrease the amount of income tax corporations pay by a full 2.5 percent, right?
I recently lost my job because of the carelessness of a corporate Chief Executive Officer or due to my company making bad investments so I am forced to take unemployment from the state of Florida. I am rewarded with $275 a week until I can find a job or my unemployment benefits have run out. I’ve filled out a countless number of applications and passed my resume along to so many people I think that every company in Central Florida should know who I am. Yet I’m still unemployed and receive my reward of $275 a week.
So Governor Scott wants to cut my unemployment by 6 weeks and make me work community service to earn the unemployment check that I’ve been receiving. I guess all of those years of paying unemployment insurance were meaningless.
In response to Scott’s callousness, on March 8th a series of local rallies entitled “Awake the State” are planned across the state of Florida to send a message to Governor Rick Scott and his so-called job friendly budget proposals.
Educators, public employees, minorities, and the poor take a swift kick in the gut from Scott’s budget and these rallies will send a loud message to Rick and those in his office ready to shut out the sick and shut in.
Rick wants to open Florida for business, but right now he has a huge out-of-business sign sprawled across the front door.
-JH
