Chamber of Commerce v. Unemployed

Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice is going ahead with her plan to cut unemployment compensation from 26 weeks to 20 weeks.

"The purpose is not to punish the unemployed, it's to replenish the fund," said Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, sponsor of the Senate's main unemployment bill.

Apparently, Detert forgot her comments to Tom Clendenning of Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

Chairwoman Nancy Detert, R-Venice, said unemployment becomes a "lifestyle" after six months. "We'd like your department to get rid of the slackers and malingerers," she told Clendenning.

Florida is suffering from 12 percent unemployment. Gov. Rick Scott will add to the unemployment rolls if he follows through with laying off 5 percent of Florida's state government workforce. The maximum weekly unemployment payment is $275 a week. That is not enough for the average person to live on. Yet Detert on Scott think the unemployed are living like Donald Trump. Scott couldn't prove his assertion so he misquoted Princeton University Prof. Alan Krueger's research.

"The unemployed in the U.S. devote more time searching for a job than unemployed workers in other countries," Krueger wrote in an e-mail, "yet they [Scott's team] make it seem that the unemployed put little effort into finding a job."

The team, he said, "misspelled my name and misused my study!"

The reason Detert and other Republicans are pushing this forward because the Florida Chamber of Commerce doesn't want compnies to have to pay unemployment compensation.

"At first glance it appears to be good for business," said Edie Ousley of the Florida Chamber. "We're looking forward to working with the lawmakers as the issue moves forward."

Translation: the Florida Chamber of Commerce is looking forward to writing the bill for the Florida legislature.

Scott told the Florida Chamber of Commerce he wants to eliminate the 5.5 corporate tax. Scott admits that Florida's corporate tax is one of the lowest in the country. The Florida tax code has loopholes that allow many corporations not to pay state taxes. This isn't enough for the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The FCOC is using unemployment to justify corporations getting tax cuts.

Businesses would like to spread the repayment of those loans over seven or eight years and want the state to pick up $61 million in interest due in June. Chambers of Commerce around the country are also weighing whether to ask the White House to delay the tax hikes by extending interest-free loans to 32 indebted states.

"We had a great system. It wasn't built for 12-percent unemployment," said Florida Chamber of Commerce president Mark Wilson. "Now the system is broken, and we have to get it back to where it was before."

Wilson suggested one solution would be to cut the corporate income-tax rate as a way to offset the unemployment insurance hike.

Floridian are looking at cuts in Medicaid and other services because of the $3.5 billion budget shortfall. The Florida Chamber of Commerce's solution is taxpayers to cover corporate loans at zero percent interest. The Chamber of Commerce also wants corporate tax cuts with no promises of businesses hiring the unemployed. This is a horrible deal for the taxpayers. Odds are Scott will agree to this deal.