What Should Be the Democratic Message on Rick Scott's Budget

I am getting emails from the Florida Democratic Party of news articles of how Rick Scott's budget didn't keep his campaign promises or how the budget will never pass. This is horrible messaging which is standard operating procedure of the Florida Democratic Party. FDP chair Rod Smith delivered this highly uninspiring message.

This budget is a frontial assault on the quality of life of every Floridian and will not create a single job nor spur our economy forward; instead it takes us further into the economic ditch," Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith said in a statement.

The right message is Scott's budget is going to increase the tax burden on the poor and middle class. Here is a breakdown of the current tax increase of the poor, middle class and top 1 percent.

Lowest 20% - 13.5 percent

Middle - 9.2 percent

Top 1% - 2.6 percent

If you make over $509,000-a-year expect Scott to back tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Not exactly a "I feel your pain" moment.

Florida has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country. Scott has proposed lowering the corporate tax from 5.0 percent to 3.5 percent. Scott hopes to eventually eliminate the corporate tax. Never mind Scott is proposing this when Florida is facing a $3.5 billion budget shortfall.

Scott has proposed repealing the drug tracking law designed to deal with pill mills. Scott refused to give a reason. Considering Scott's shady past at HCA/Columbia, this should give people concern. Can anyone think of a mainstream politician that is against cracking down on drugs? Seriously.

Scott has accused the unemployed of being too lazy to look for work. The Florida legislature is working on bills to cut unemployment compensation from 26 to 20 weeks. Scott will sign the bill if it hits his desk. The 12 percent of unemployed in Florida could be looking at homelessness.

Scott proposes to eliminate $1 billion from Medically Needy program. Pregnant women and children lives will be at risk from not getting health care. These are people that do not have private insurance. Patients will be denied organ transplants from the cuts to the Medically Needy program. Arizona citizens have died from Gov. Jan Brewer denied patients transplants.

Scott's budget proposes $3.3 billion in education cuts. The result would mean layoffs of teachers. The cuts would mean there would not be enough teachers to follow the constitutional guidelines of the class size amendment. Scott education budget would violate the Florida constitution and set up legal battles.

Scott is a horrible politician. Scott has low poll numbers and needed to unveil the budget to a mainstream audience. Instead, Scott chose a Tea Party rally. Scott is politically operating as if he is still running in the Republican primary. Scott is governing a state with a Democratic voter advantage. These Democrats stayed home in 2010. They didn't switch over and vote for Scott. High approval for Scott's policies is not going to happen with regressive proposals and poor communication.

Scott is an unconfident politican that barely beat the poor campaigners known as Bill McCollum and Alex Sink. Scott has alienated the media and they are now hammering his budget. The Tea Party doesn't make up the majority of Republican voters. Republican and Democratic voters are going to be angry when there aren't enough teachers for their children. These voters will also be angry when they can't get Medicaid or other state heath care. I'm guessing a lot of these voters won't be too happy about Scott making it harder to go after pill mills.

It is absolutely sad that the Florida Democratic Party can't hammer Scott on his budget. Scott's base of support is weak and even other Republicans won't back Scott's budget. (Florida Republicans knows Scott isn't popular.) The Florida Democratic Party should attack Scott for waging class warfare against the poor and middle class. Democrats should be pounding the message that people could die because of Scott's health care proposals. Many people are hurting in the economy and Rod Smith and Eric Jotkoff haven't attacked Scott and other Republicans for their insensitivity to the unemployed. And the Florida Democratic Party wonders why they keep losing elections.