Comments on: Scott Unveils Budget (With Full Speech, Complete Budget PDF)

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:31:40 +0000

I don’t know why Gov. Scott’s proposals come as a surprise to anyone. He is a republican so ideologically by definition he does not work for the majority of Floridians who fall in the middle and lower economic classes. There’s a reason the Republican party is known to be “pro-business”; that’s because they have a long history of deregulation and the removal of consumer protections and rights, and cutting taxes for the wealthy (they throw in a middle class tax-cut to appease the ignorant masses). Look what they did at the national level with the extension of the Bush tax-cuts. Even though our federal government is already bankrupt, they held hostage the extension of unemployment benefits for tens-of-millions of out-of-work Americans who are relying on those benefits to survive, in order that they could shower their wealthy campaign donors with even more money in the form of continued reduced tax rates. It just illustrates how stupid we are as a state and as a country that we continue to elect people we know are ideologically predisposed to screwing us over.

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:50:05 +0000

Way to go Governor Scott! Now that you have made public service even LESS appealing, let’s all see how many young people are willing to work the long hours, do the often dangerous jobs, for the already little pay and hard training that FIRE, EMS and our LEO’s go thru. they have not seen any raises in 4 years, cost of insurance has increased each of those years and what it will pay for has gone down. So now they are going to have even less money in their pockets. Now that makes sense to me!

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:48:06 +0000

To Molested,
It is not fair to compare state employment to the private sector. People in the privatve sector made alot more money. The state employees worked for the retirement benefits. Most of them put their lives on the line daily to protect the public. 5 police officers were killed in the line of duty in the last 2 weeks in Florida, It is an insult to suggest taking away the only real benefit state law enforcement has. The citizens of Florida have been fortunate to have the highly trained, professional staff that they have for public servants, If you reduce their benefits, we may not be able to retain them. In that case how safe will Floridians be? Governor Scott should realize you get what you pay for.

By: eab

eab — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:18:54 +0000

Rick Scott has made his fortune off the taxpayers of this country. Will he give some of that fortune back now that he has religion?

By: bill w

bill w — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:13:56 +0000

It always amazes me that the first thing everyone thinks about ( or talks about ) during budget cutting times is Police,Fire and Ems. I was in California when prop 8 was being considered and it was the same rhetoric.
A lot of fat can be cut from our government from sources other than emergency services. How many of you have have been frustrated by our public servants shuffling papers or talking idly to the person next to them while you wait for help.How many people does it take to file papers, clean our parks,or any of a myriad of non emergency jobs.
The size of government has grown during flush times which might be good, but we are not in those times now and something has to be done. One problem I see is the person who would lose their “fat” job would lose their homes adding to our economic woes.
I have no answers but I’m sure many will be forthcoming.

By: huh

huh — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 04:18:13 +0000

If you cut out all the taxes you bring in no money at all , so in return you have to cut jobs to match all the taxes you just cut

By: Molested

Molested — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:51:28 +0000

What Scott is doing makes sense.
There are a lot of state jobs that do not involve citizen safety. After all the talk about a responsible goverment all we hear is complaining. Tax payers cannot continue to fund out of control goverment. Take that back unaccountable goverment. Rick Scott is not picking on Escambia county. There is no shortage of employees in todays economy, only good employees. More money does not make good employees in only gives human resources more people to interview. If he Rick can create more jobs that will be great. Still to be determined.
No one complained when the sheriff sold the helicopters to create more jobs.
Retirement and benefits has been being reduced for decades for everyone in the private sector. Each generation seems to get less than the generation before them. But this is not the fifties with the boom of new jobs after the war and the creation of new jobs. Those were the best of times when you could simply return home from the service and get a job. This is globalization and lost jobs that did pay taxes to the goverment that no longer exist.
WE are all looking at new realities like this.

By: well

well — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:03:16 +0000

Guess p RICK will walk out of the Govs office able to make a lot more money in the private sector.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:33:00 +0000

Governor Scott’s budget proposal is further proof of how out of touch he is with the needs of the citizens of Florida. To insinuate that the taxpayers should not fund state employees retirement is ridiculous. State employees have worked for far less than the private sector employees because of the retirement and benefit packages. Governor Scott needs to stop comparing state employees with the private sector. Taxpayers pay state employees salaries and benefits, (including retirement), for a service. One of which is the safety of their lives, property and families. To try and justify this insult by doing away with politicians private jets is also ridiculous. They have an expense account that I am sure includes travel expenses. Taking retirement is a lifelong theft. Furthermore I happen to know some of our local state politicians, none of which have a private jet.

By: waste

waste — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:29:55 +0000

He said 700,000 jobs in 7 years. He just terminated 8000 jobs in 1 month. Florida is doomed.