Rick Scott's Bogus White Paper

The white paper from Gov. Rick Scott is not an actual white paper. It is a piece of Scott propangda white paper is an academic policy paper. A piece of campaign propaganda contains paragraphs like this. Economic papers don't contain a cute gif of a piggy bank.

Under Governor Scott, the state has fundamentally changed the way it makes decisions with its taxpayers’ money. Florida has rejected the short-sighted state-level policies that worsened the fallout of the economic downturn and Florida now stands in stark contrast to the policies of the federal government that discourage private investment, job creation and stability for families.

If you are a government employee you are not going to get a raise. You might even get a pay cut.

Since October 2012, 16 different state agencies and more than 45 private sector businesses have been recognized for identifying more than $146.3 million in cost savings and $34.2 million in services.

Scott's commit to saving taxpayers money is rather dubious. Scott backed private prisons. Corrections Corporation of America were major campaign donors to Scott and the Republican Party of Florida. Scott wanted private prisons with no-bid contracts. Dr. Michael Hallett, Professor & Chair for the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, warned Sen. Mike Fasano of the dangers of giving a single state prison a no bid contract.

"It renders the state subject to captivity once the contract is awarded, by giving one corporation so much power and control over such a significant segment of the state budget," he said. "You can’t turn this around on a moments notice."

Scott killed to high speed rail project which would mostly be funded with federal and private money. Scott did approve of the Sunrail. Former Sen. JD Alexander was a big backer of the Sun Rail project. I wrote this when the project was approved by Scott.

The blog Stop CSX in Polk County broke the story that Alexander's was purchasing Phoenix Industries. Alexander owns Altantic Blue. The company bought Phoenix Industries, a frozen food vender that does business with CSX. The transporation bill would have placed CSX's new hub near Alexander's warehouse. One needs a scorecard to track Alexander's conflicts of interest.

It should be noted that Alexander was the biggest backer of private prisons in the Florida legislature. Even the Republican controlled Florida Senate would approve of the private prison deal. Scott is not a fiscal conservative. Scott is a crony capitalist.

Florida has serious infrastructure problems. It won't get any better under Scott.

To continue this practice of guarding taxpayer debt obligations, Governor Scott will not allow the State of Florida to take on new long-term debt obligations to fund roads, land purchases or education facility construction without specific and accountable returns on investment for taxpayers. Where possible, the state budget will include the use of cash, rather than bonds to further protect the state from consequences associated with massive amounts of taxpayer funded debt.

Scott promises $500 million in tax cuts. Scott fails to say what taxes he will cut.Scott is a governor who takes pains avoiding policy specifics. Another reason there may be no specific tax cuts is because this bogus white paper was not written by an economist. No author is listed. This is campaign material proclaiming the awesomeness of Rick Scott.

The previous tax cuts Scott lists are a Florida Chamber of Commerce wet dream. Scott fails to say how the tax cut on the surchange phosphate mining or reducing taxes to fund unemployment is creating jobs. Those tax cuts were never about job creation. The tax cuts are about increasing corporate profits.

Rick Scott's Bogus Economic White Paper