Florida Republicans Equate Unemployed With Pigs.

Florida Sen. Nancy Detert sent out this gag-inducing press release.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Senator Nancy Detert, R-Venice, released the following statement today on the passage of Unemployment Compensation reform:

“As Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce and Tourism, I worked with and included provisions requested by my colleagues in the House, the business community, the Governor and his agencies, and advocates for the unemployed, to ensure our state’s unemployment compensation system remains a solvent safety net for those in need.

“The proposed reforms provide relief to employers by weeding out individuals taking undue advantage of the system and provide relief to the unemployed by offering additional assistance to help them get back to work. The bill also saves administrative costs which can be reallocated to make sure those receiving benefits are meeting the requirements of the program. By modernizing and streamlining the current system we will be able to help more Floridians who are struggling to find work.

“Through an innovative concept of using a sliding scale to adjust the available weeks of unemployment compensation benefits based on the unemployment rate, the reforms include tax relief for businesses while ensuring we continue to provide for those actively seeking employment.

“Unemployed Floridians are hurting, and so is our state’s business community, which finances our state’s Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund. We have a responsibility to uphold our commitment to out-of-work Floridians while providing tax relief to our state’s businesses as they continue to weather the difficult economy.

“I want to thank Chair Dorothy Hukill and Rep. Doug Holder for the joint package. This is a big step toward helping our small businesses to stay in business and to hire more employees.”

Before the passage of this legislation Florida had one of the worst unemployment systems in the country.Getting unemployment compensation is a paperwork nightmare. The National Employment Law Project ranked Florida's weekly $275 check as the 46th lowest in the country. Detert's legislation does not increase weekly unemployment checks.

Deter had a
uncompassionate answer to her critics.

“Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered,” Detert said. “Learn to like it or get nothing.”

Detert feels that the unemployed are pigs. Detert desribed her bill as "gift of the year" to the business community. It isn't hard to figure out where Detert's priorities lie.

Florida has one of the nation's highest unemployment rates at 11.5 percent. Mark Wilson of the Florida Chamber of Commerce pushed this bill through the Florida legislature. Wilson's reason is the less unemployment compensation businesses have to pay the more profits can be held onto. Wilson has fought for businesses to pay less for unemployment insurance and the workers to pay a bigger share. Wilson succeeded in getting the legislature to make Florida the only state with a sliding unemployment scale.

Under the House version, the national standard of 26 weeks of benefits would no longer be available to unemployed Florida workers. Instead, the maximum number of weeks would vary from 23 weeks when the state’s unemployment rate is as high as 10.5 percent to as low as 12 weeks when the rate drops to 5 percent.

What the Florida legislature is doing is creating a homeless stimulus program. The Florida economy has been in the tank for several years. Homelessness increased by 11 percent from 2008 to 2009. The national average during that time was 3 percent.

In Florida, unemployment increased by 67 percent from 2008 to 2009. Similarly, foreclosures went up by 34 percent and the number of households below the federal poverty line and paying more than half their income for rent went up by 18 percent. These rates were all higher than the national average.

"Not only did Florida have these increases, but it also had levels of risk factors that were high to begin with," Sermons said. "And that resulted in increased homelessness."

If people have no form of income coming in they are headed towards homelessness. Like Sen. Detert said, "Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered." The people in Florida getting slaughtered are the unemployed. As long as Mark Wilson is happy the Republicans in the Florida legislature are happy.

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.

How Republicans Are Waging Class Warfare In Florida

This shows you the alternate reality Florida Republicans live in. Tom Clendenning of the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation testified before the Senate Commerce & Tourism Committee. Clendenning told the committee Florida could save $800,000 per year by adding five employees to the Agency for Workforce Innovation to investigate people who are not looking for work.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said he wants to know how many Floridians are turning down jobs in favor of keeping their unemployment checks. Gaetz asked AWI to "distinguish between those who can't get off the couch ... and those who won't get off the couch," Gaetz said.

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.

It is obvious Clendenning just made up the $800,000 figure. Otherwise Gaetz and Detert would know how many so-called slackers there are. Clendenning is using Republican contempt for the unemployed to add five staffers to his department. If Clendenning was really serious he would tell the senators his office would have to hire workers to go out in the field and check up on people collecting unemployment. We are talking about a significant number of people the Agency for Workforce Innovation would need to hire. Put it this way. Do you believe Florida could conduct a Census check on people on probation with only five employees?

What makes matters worse is that Agency for Workforce Innovation is denying Floridians a legally required a six cent increase in minimum wage. Workers have filed a class action lawsuit against the Agency for Workforce Innovation.

On Monday, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of minimum wage earners in Florida against the state’s Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI). The suit claims the agency has refused to raise the state’s minimum wage to keep pace with the rising cost of living, as required by state law since a constitutional amendment was passed in 2004.

The National Employment Law Project and Florida Legal Service say the agency is denying workers a six-cent raise to $7.31 an hour.

Although the Florida Supreme Court said that the law did not provide for decreases in the minimum wage in times of deflation, the plaintiffs say that have seen internal documents that show that AWI reduced the minimum wage in 2010 to $7.06 per hour from 2009’s $7.21 because of deflation that happened in 2008-2009. They say that the rate should have stayed at $7.21 But because Congress raised the federal minimum wage to $7.25, minimum wage earners didn’t suffer that “erroneous” wage cut.

Republicans are cutting services. One of the few things Republicans are willing to hire new government employees for is to search for people who enjoy collecting unemployment. Most people can't pay their bills with what they collect from their unemployment checks. Republicans have no idea how bad the job market is on how miserable it is to be unemployed. Yet they will not lift a finger to help the poorest employed workers. Republicans are actually trying to decrease the pay of the working poor. These people are really fucking sick.