The Horribe Tech Services of Deloitte

I wrote about auditing scandals involving Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. I questioned why the Federal Reserve of New York renew the contract with Deloitte after auditing scandal with Adelphia Communications Corp. and companies based in China.

Apparently, government agencies updating their technical services have trusted Deloitte that has proved to be a grave error.

In 2003, the California court system hired Deloitte to connect the computer systems.

Officials hired Deloitte and another firm in 2003 to create a statewide case management system, connecting 58 county courts, as well as appellate courts. By 2010, Deloitte was running the entire job, and the contract had been amended 102 times, ballooning in cost to $310 million from $33 million, according to a state audit.

Worse, the cost to install the software had been wildly underestimated. The total price tag soared to a projected $1.9 billion, so expensive that the courts could not afford to put the system into operation.

The integrated computer system was to be called the California Court Case Management System. The California's Judicial Council ended the contract with Deloitte. The financial loss to California taxpayers is estimated to be $2 billion. Even if the system was installed it would soon be outdated. The worst part was reimbursed for $16 million when the contract was ended.

Deloitte once again had problems with in California in 2013. The state's unemployment website Employment Development Department was backlogged with 300,000 claims.

Now lawmakers want answers. The Assembly is setting up a hearing to determine what went wrong with a system that cost taxpayers $110 million, almost double the original estimate.

Some blame the EDD's slow response to the problem that created the massive backlog of claims. Others are pointing fingers at a familiar name around the halls of Sacramento: Deloitte Consulting.

State employees warned government officials that the system set up by Deloitte would not be ready. Their warnings were ignored. EDD was forced to admit to the Assembly Insurance Committee. CBS Sacramento reported as many as 600 people didn't receive payment on their unemployment claims.

Deloitte set up the unemployment claim system for Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity. Many people were not able to log into the system.

The main contractor of the project, Deloitte Consulting, won the bid to modernize Florida’s unemployment compensation system by beating out nine other firms. In early 2011, the company negotiated with Florida that it could do all the work for $39.8 million and finish by December 2012, a deadline it blew — badly.

As contracts go, this wasn’t a big one for Deloitte Consulting, a U.S. company that’s part of an international British conglomerate better known as Deloitte & Touche. Since 2007, Deloitte Consulting has won $283.4 million in contracts with Florida agencies. Gov Rick Scott has been rather unresponsive to complaints about the glitches in the unemployment website. One reason maybe it is because the lobbyist for Deloitte is Brian Ballard. Mr. Ballard served as Co-Chair of Governor-Elect Rick Scott's Inaugural Committee. Scott was a guest at Ballard's Super Bowl party. Don't expect Scott to say to end Deloitte's contract any time soon.

Obama Urges Extension of Jobless Benefits

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama urged Congress to extend jobless insurance.

So when Congress comes back to work this week, their first order of business should be making this right. Right now, a bipartisan group in Congress is working on a three-month extension of unemployment insurance – and if they pass it, I will sign it. For decades, Republicans and Democrats put partisanship and ideology aside to offer some security for job-seekers, even when the unemployment rate was lower than it is today. Instead of punishing families who can least afford it, Republicans should make it their New Year’s resolution to do the right thing, and restore this vital economic security for their constituents right now.

You can email your member of Congress and urge for the extension of jobless benefits.

Rick Scott Dodges Unemployment Website Question

TV reporter Lori Brown tried to get Gov, Rick Scott to give a straight answer about what he was doing to fix Florida's broken unemployment website. Scott refused to answer the question and then cut Brown off.

"The state's unemployment website has been a disaster, what are you doing to make sure this gets solved?" Brown asked Scott.

"First off, the most important thing we can do is help people get jobs," said Scott.

"What do you want to say to the people who can't pay their bills right now because of this?" Brown asked.

"Again, my biggest job is to make sure people can get a job. We have 279,000 job openings in the state. We're recouping money, holding money back from Deloitte to make sure it gets better quickly," said Scott.

Deloitte is the company the state paid $63 million for the website.

"Isn't it your job to make sure this website is working?" Brown asked Scott.

"Excuse me, bye, thank you," Scott said, and then left.

Scott has waged a war against the unemployed. Scott failed in his attempt to have people receiving unemployment compensation drug tested. Scott could care less about when the unemployment website is fixed.

Bad News For Tampa Job Market

The current Manpower employment survey rates Tampa as second weakest job market in the country. Manpower says only 11 percent of businesses are hiring in the Tampa area. 10 percent of companies are planning to cutback on hiring. The brief WFLA article doesn't indicate if this includes layoffs. The nationwide average for businesses hiring is 22 percent. Tampa is at half that mark.

Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity Off in Conspiracy Theory Land

The state of Florida was caught denying the unemployed benefits. First it was with the drug test that would not save the state money as Gov. Rick Scott claimed. U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven found that Florida making people take drug tests, in order to receive unemployment compensation, does not save the state money.

And about that arithmetic: "These 'non-testers' cannot be reasonably counted as providing twelve months of savings, or so-called 'annualized savings,' because they are otherwise eligible and can begin receiving benefits at any point during the year by submitting a new application and a negative drug test," Scriven wrote. "Even as to those 2 percent of applicants who are known drug users, 'annualized savings' calculations inflate the claimed savings because those applicants do not have to forego an entire year of TANF assistance but may reapply after 6 months."

Scriven concluded the state "has not demonstrated any financial benefit or net savings will accrue as a result" of the law.

In April of last year, the Miami Herald found that the state was losing money because the vast majority of unemployed were passing the drug tests.

The numbers, confirming previous estimates, show that taxpayers spent $118,140 to reimburse people for drug test costs, at an average of $35 per screening.

The state’s net loss? $45,780.

We now see the state's new online testing system. It is not required the you pass the online test of 45 math and reading questions. However, you must take the test to receive unemployment benefits. This is nothing more than creating red tape for the unemployed. If you have a disability or speak Spanish then forget about passing this test.

The new system, it found, was nearly impossible for people with disabilities or limited English skills to navigate. Testers discovered that while the state claimed to have a multilingual telephone hotline to help people who couldn't figure out the online process, virtually no one could get through to a live person—and when they did, they couldn't get an interpreter. Calls were frequently disconnected after playing a recorded message telling people to apply for benefits online. Despite a requirement that the phone line provide a message to people in their native language, testers who selected "Spanish" still got a message in English. One tester speaking Punjabi was told by a hotline operator, "I don't speak gibberish, so call when you learn English."

The Dpartment of Labor rightly cited Florida for violating the civil rights of the unemployment. Scott has the state's Department of Economic Opportunity claiming that the Department of Labor is only picking on Florida out of political bias.

"Rather than serve as a neutral arbiter," DEO wrote in a letter to federal lawmakers, "USDOL appears to have collaborated" with the complainants "to reach a predetermined result."

The DEO is claiming the the Department of Labor has gotten into black helicopters with the unemployed to hatch a conspiracy. The evidence the DEO is citing is an online bio of a Department of Labor employee.

And it accused an official with the Labor Department's Civil Rights Center of political bias, citing a biography posted on a website unrelated to labor issues or government work. The bio, which appears to have been written in 2005, identifies the official as a website contributor.

It says, "In her paying job, she's an attorney working underground (read: within the system) to keep the evil overseers of the Bush administration from dismantling U.S. federal civil rights laws."

"In other words," DEO concludes, the official has acknowledged "she brings a political and ideological agenda to her civil-rights enforcement role in the federal government."

The DEO is going to get laughed out of court. I hope the DEO can come back from their trip in Alex Jones Land soon.

Republican War on State Workers

The Florida legislature is taking the rare good first step of working on a bill that would raise the pay of state workers. The Florida House proposal would raise pay by $1,400.00-a-year.

Republicans have loved to bash state workers. The GOP narrative would have you believe that state workers are making Fortune 500 money off of government salaries. The truth is the best paid state workers are staffers for the governor and members of the legislature. By July of 2011, Gov. Rick Scott had laid off 1,295 state workers. Firing state workers increases unemployment, cost government more by having its services run less efficiently. Yet, Republicans like Senator Rand Paul argue to economist Paul Krugman that there are more government workers than ever.

PAUL: The thing I don't understand is that you're arguing that the government sector is struggling. Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than there were under Bush?

KRUGMAN: Of course. That's a fact. That's a tremendous fact.

PAUL: No, the size of government is enormous under Obama.

KRUGMAN: If government employment had grown as fast under Obama as it did under Bush, we'd have a million and a half more people employed right now - directly.

PAUL: Are there less people employed or more people employed now by the government?

The fact that Paul doesn't know is what happens when Republicans live inside their talking points and make no effort to educate themselves on policy. Unfortunately, these brain dead policies by Republicans have hurt state workers in Florida and across America.

Rick Scott's Job Czar was Jobless

Gov. Rick Scott's job czar Hunting Deutsch resigned after The Florida Current reported Deutsch collected $275-a-week in unemployment benefits for 20 months. Oops.

In resigning, effective Dec. 14, Deutsch told Scott the “current media focus on my personal matters (was) a distraction to the agency and your administration and believe it best for me to leave.” Deutsch earned $140,000-a-year in the job.

Deutsch was entitled to unemployment benefits. I have no problem with Deutdch collecting unemployment. The problem is the hypocrisy of Gov. Scott.

Under Scott, people had to had to submit to an unnecessary drug test to receive unemployment compensation. The courts later found drug testing people applying for unemployment compensation unconstitutional. Scott cut the number of weeks the unemployed could receive benefits from 26 weeks to 23 weeks. Mark Wilson of the Florida Chamber of Commerce pushed for this law. This ads up to a $830 million tax break for Florida bussinesses. Everything Scott does as Governor as as crony capitalist nature.

Scott isn't against one of his appointees collecting unemployment compensation. If you collect unemployment benefits then you are someone not furthering Scott's interests.

Mitt Romney Campaign Lies About Unemployment

Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Rob Portman double down on Paul Ryan's false claim that unemployment is higher today than when President Obama took office.

TAPPER: ‘That’s how it’s going all around America.’ This has been weak economic recovery, without question. but it is a recovery. and unemployment is going down, as a factual matter. Why would Congressman Ryan, in defiance of facts, suggest otherwise?

PORTMAN: I think that what he was saying was the truth: unemployment is higher today than when the president took office. Unfortunately, in the meantime, we’ve created net zero jobs, Jake.

This chart shows just how bad unemployment was when President Obama took office. The Bush administration suffered several months of unemployment. The stock market crash caused massive layoffs.

The unemployment rate today is 7.8 percent. Employment has slowly improved. Portman, Ryan and the Romney campaign will not be honest about it because they're strategy has been to be the anti-Obama. The Romney campaign isn't about selling hope. No one looks at Mitt Romney and becomes inspired.

Allen West: Job Numbers Truther

I first noticed job numbers trutherism in a tweet by Fox News' Eric Bolling.

"Can't wait to sink my teeth into the August jobs report.. pile of garbage cooked up by partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics #Criminal."

I decided to ask Mr. Bolling on Twitter what did the Bureau of Labor Statistics do illegally. I never got a response. The wonderful thing about conspiracy theories is facts aren't needed. If Alex Jones wants to say the September 11th attacks were an inside job performed by the federal government then Mr. Jones need not be bothered by the 9/11 Commission Report. (Which I have read.)

It should surprise no one that Rep. Allen West joins the growing list of conservative job truthers. From Rep. West's Facebook page.

We all want the suffering of the American people from the rampant scourge of unemployment to end. However, today's jobs report is confusing to say the least. Previous months of numbers have been revised and yet workforce participation rate remains at a 30 year low. The unemployment rate drops to 7.8 percent, that is where it was in January 2009 when the President took office But the U6 computation of unemployment, underemployment, and discouraged Americans remains the same at 14.7 percent. I agree with GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here. Somehow by malipulation of data we are all of a sudden below 8 percent unemployment, a month from Presidential election. This is Orwellian to say the least and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics from the book "Rules for Radicals"- a must read for all who want to know how the left strategize. Trust the Obama administration? Sure, and the spontaneous reaction to a video caused the death of our Ambassador......and pigs fly.

It is hard to believe something this poorly written came out of the office of a Congressman. This reads like an angry conservative teenager on Tumbler. America deserves better members of Congress.

The Patrick Murphy campaign sent out an email.

"It is truly remarkable that Congressman West is disappointed by job creation and the fact that the U.S. economy is showing signs of improvement."

Orange Shirts & Florida's Anti-Union Law

14 people were fired from a Florida law firm. Thanks to Florida being a right to work state this is perfectly legal. Remember that the next time Republicans claim that workers rights hurts job growth. Republicans hate regulations. Except when the right to work law regulates unions.

(1) Because of the activities of labor unions affecting the economic conditions of the country and the state, entering as they do into practically every business and industrial enterprise, it is the sense of the Legislature that such organizations affect the public interest and are charged with a public use. The working person, unionist or nonunionist, must be protected. The right to work is the right to live.

(2) It is here now declared to be the policy of the state, in the exercise of its sovereign constitutional police power, to regulate the activities and affairs of labor unions, their officers, agents, organizers and other representatives, in the manner, and to the extent hereafter set forth. (Enacted 1943, amended effective July 1, 1997.)

Funny how regulating unions didn't stop Florida from being one of the highest states with employment during the past few years. On the bright side, employers can fire employees wearing bright orange shirts without cause.

Mark Wilson Wins Again

Florida businesses will get an $830 million tax break in unemployment compensation. The tax cut will be for 2 1/2 years. How is Florida to pay unemployment compensation to laid-off workers, you ask. Florida doesn't. The fund has been drained. Florida borrows money from the federal government to pay out unemployment compensation. The state may be constitutionally mandated to have a balanced budget. That is done through accounting smoke and mirrors. This is the classic Florida Republican tax shift game.

Ellyn Bogdanoff wrote this horrible last minute amendment. 39 state senators voted for the amendment. The amendment makes no sense with Florida's current budget problems. Yet it received bipartisan support. That is because Mark Wilson wanted this tax cut.

"Unemployment compensation tax reform is vital in positioning Florida as one of the most favorable business climates in the global marketplace,” said Mark Wilson, president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce . “Passage of this important bill will help secure Florida’s future and build on the Florida Chamber’s efforts to create a more stable and predictable business climate."

Wilson is the most powerful man in Florida politics. What Wilson wants he gets. Wilson is also hurting Florida by driving the state deeper into debt. Wilson is the same man that successfully limit unemployment compensation and speed up foreclosures. It is hard to think of any person whom is hurting Florida working class people more than Wilson.

Update: Florida Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner sent out this email.

Facing a $1.4 billion shortfall, the Senate stayed true to its commitment to balancing the budget without raising taxes on Floridians and directing revenue toward areas that will support job growth while serving the critical needs of Florida. Lawmakers agreed upon a $70.04 billion budget with more than $90.3 million in tax relief measures. Along with Governor Scott, the Republican caucus showed its commitment to education, supporting more than a $1 billion in additional funding for K-12 education.

Only Florida Republicans can equate borrowing money from the federal government with balancing the budget.

Mark Wilson Has Been Busy

The Florida legislature is passing $124 million in tax cuts. The cuts will go to benefit corporations. The cuts will go to benefit corporations.

(Gov. Rick) Scott is pushing a key element in the package that would increase the corporate tax exemption from $25,000 to $50,000, excluding 3,770 companies from the 5.5 percent tax and reducing state revenue by $29.4 million. The governor wants to phase out the corporate tax, which accounted for nearly $2 billion in state revenue last year.

Scott and other Republicans are billing this as a jobs bill. Florida has one of the lowest corporate tax rates at 5.5 percent. The result is the state has been running deficits shortfalls, which resulted in budget cuts. The corporate taxes have not produced jobs, as can be seen by the chart below.



Florida's unemployment is higher than the national average. There is no evidence that corporate tax cuts produce jobs. It is merely a talking point for Scott and fellow Republicans.

This legislation has Florida Chamber of Commerce president Mark Wilson. A man who represents everything that is wrong about Florida politics.

Wilson lobbied for the the Polk County Sunrail line. The only reason the project was approved because the line was near JD Alex Alexander's business Atlantic Blue. The property value of Atlantic Blue would increase greatly.

Alexander and Scott didn't approve the Sunrail line over high-speed rail over fiscal concerns. The high-speed line would cost $280 million and create 23,000 job. The Sunrail line will cost the state $901 million. State and Polk county would have to pay the cost for any Sunrail accidents caused by CSX. The deal is stupid beyond words.

Wilson's latest goal is gerrymandering the redistricting process. The most powerful man in Florida politics can't be bothered with subtlety. Wilson believes he is above the constitutionally-mandated fair districts law.

"Anybody who understands politics looks at a redistricting and says, 'This is a chance to reset the table,' Wilson said.

Many Floridians were illegally thrown out of their homes with forged foreclosure documents. Attorney General Pam Bondi has been accused by for employees of stonewalling an investigations of questionable foreclosures by banks. Florida's foreclosure courts do not review the documents, before forcing a homeowner to vacate his property. Apparently, the foreclosure process is too slow for Wilson.

"As our economy tries to recover, we recognize there is a lot of pain in the foreclosure process but the delay in the foreclosures is drawing out that pain throughout the entire economy."

Wilson can help you with your pain by making the chances that you become homeless greater. What a nice guy.

Marco Rubio's Let's Get Laid Off Plan

America is facing a weak job market. Sen. Marco Rubio and other Republicans campaigned on creating new jobs. Rubio hasn't proposed a single piece of legislation that will create jobs. However, Rubio is a co-sponsor of a bill that will lay off ten percent of federal workers. Don't believe me? Rubio sent out a press release stating that Reducing the Size of the Federal Government Through Attrition Act (catchy title it's not) will lay off ten percent of the federal work force.

Yesterday, Senator Rubio signed on as a cosponsor of S.1611, the Reducing the Size of the Federal Government Through Attrition Act. This bill would reduce the federal workforce by 10% by 2015, which would save approximately $139 billion over ten years.

People should call Rubio's office and ask if any of his staffers will be part of the layoffs. I somehow doubt it. Cutting the size of the federal government workforce will only make government less efficient. Which will actually increase costs. A perfect example is how the Bush administration destroyed FEMA. Does anyone think the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina saved the taxpayer money.

Another problem is Rubio and Senate Republicans are increasing unemployment. Does Rubio and other Republican believe that all of these federal workers are going to magically find jobs to feed their families. It kills me that Rubio acts offended when the media asks him how he spent $110,000 on a Republican Party of Florida credit card. Rubio has no problem spending someone else's money. He then turns around and tries to lay people off. This is hypocrisy at its finest.

David Axelrod Memo

President Barack Obama's political adviser David Axelrod sent out a memo to Democrats advocating for the passage of the American Jobs Act. The memo is preaching to the choir. That isn't a bad thing.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has created an opening for the Obama administration to push the jobs bill. The bill wasn't going to pass with Obama failing again at bipartisanship. The only slim chance this bill has of passing is if Republicans fear for their political survival. Republicans that vote against the bill will be labeled by Obama and the DNC as placing tax cuts for the rich above job creation.

David Axelrod Memo

Rick Scott's Let's Get Laid Off Program

Gov. Rick Scott tells supporters at the CPAC of Florida that government doesn't create jobs.

We’ve had plenty of success so far. Not enough…In Florida, unemployment rate’s gone from 12 percent down to 10.7. We’re still above the national average, but we’ve generated 87,200 private sector jobs — private sector! And we have 15,000 less government jobs in the state of Florida. [Applause] Government doesn’t create jobs.

Governor, the reason government isn't creating jobs is because you laid off 15,000 government workers. It takes a lot a hubris to brag about Florida's unemployment rate being at 10.7 percent. Especially when Scott ran on creating jobs.

Update: Scott is either ignorant or not being candid about private sector job numbers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Florida was second in mass layoffs for August. There were 961 mass layoffs of 50 or more employees in August. The question is how many of those layoffs were government workers

Those Lazy People

Conservative ideology can explain all economic woes away. Take for instance unemployment. It isn't that companies are cutting costs by laying off or not hiring workers. It is not outsourcing. Nor is it the lack of consumer confidence that causes a lack of spending. According to Sen. Jim DeMint, people don't want to work.

DEMINT: I have talked to a lot of businesses in South Carolina who can't get employees to come back to work because they are getting unemployment and they're getting food stamps and they say call me when unemployment runs out. [...]

There are a lot of people who desperately need it and we need to make sure that we have that safety net in place, but we also have to realize there are a lot of people gaming the system right now. And we need to do better than we have done with just extending benefits, there have to be incentives for people to get back to work. These have to phase out in a way that we haven't done it before.

Another example is the millions of Americans that have had their houses foreclosed upon. It isn't banks getting getting greedy by providing credit to people that weren't financially ready to own a home. Nor is it people losing their jobs or banks illegally foreclosing with robo-signing fraudulent documents. Florida's Attorney General Pam Bondi gave the same lazy people argument.

Bondi spoke out against a proposed national settlement between 50 state attorneys general and lenders that would have cut the principal owed by homeowners. She said she was opposed to any across-the-board reductions because she didn't want to help people "who just don't want to pay their mortgage payments."

If we took DeMint's and Bondi's reasoning to its logical conclusion then President Obama cannot be held accountable for unemployment because people are too lazy to work. This is classic Republican blame the victim argument. What you won't hear is DeMint and Bondi explain how they will solve unemployment and illegal foreclosures in a way that doesn't involve standard talking points.

Mitt Romney's Dishonest Chart

Mitt Romney's jobs chart blames Obama for the job losses of President Bush between 2007 until 2009. Obama wasn't sworn in until January of 2009. Much of the fedrral budget was made the year before (including the bailout.) Obama is responsible for the stimulus. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, credits the stimulus with kick starting the economy.

In noting his disagreement with the Republican leader, Zandi said “we would be in a measurably worse place if not for the stimulus. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the great recession ended at precisely the same time that the stimulus, and in this case when I say stimulus I am talking about the [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] ….was providing its maximum economic benefit.” That maximum benefit came in the second and third quarter of 2009, Zandi said.

Jobs were gained because of the stimulus. Unfortunately, the stimulus needed to be bigger because the private sector wasn't hiring and consumer confidence was down. Translation: supply and demand were stagnant. That doesn't change the fact that Romney is blaming Obama for losses during the Bush administration. President Bush's name isn't even on the chart.

Romney does not want to have an honest dialogue about economic policy. All the more reason not to take Romney seriously on policy.

Rick Scott's Let's Get Laid Off Plan

Florida's unemployment rate for July was 10.7 percent. The unemployment rate for June was 10.6 percent. Things are not getting better. Florida lost 22,000 jobs in July. 1,295 of those jobs were state workers laid off by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida legislature. Many more state and local government jobs will be lost because Republicans have this ideological belief that teachers and clerks get paid more than Goldman Sachs executives.

University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith told the St. Petersburg Times that unemployment is tied to the lack of leadership in Washington.

"Consumers are suffering from post-traumatic financial stress disorder," Snaith said. "With the recent debt ceiling debacle and all the volatility in financial markets, we're seeing a bit of a flashback to the 2008 financial crisis and the fear it created."

Next month's unemployment report, Snaith warned, could be even worse as both Wall Street and Main Street fret about the threat of a double dip recession. Europe's debt crisis, low consumer confidence, a housing market still seeking a bottom and roller-coaster stock markets are all fueling anxiety.

Meanwhile, Gov. Scott is backpeddling from his promise to create 700,000 jobs on top of the 1,000,000 jobs that were forecasted for the next seven years. You may remember that Scott promised to create 300,000 less then what was forecasted. Scott tells The Orlando Sentinel he doesn't know if his 700,000 job promise is possible.

Scott is now lowering the benchmark he set for himself if he counts every job created toward his 700,000 goal.

"I have no idea — I've never been an economist — what the state would have done," he said, referring to the state's projections. "But I do know that reducing taxes, which kill jobs, getting rid of regulation we don't need that kills jobs, making sure we don't have a bunch of frivolous lawsuits — that's what's going to change the trajectory of the state."

Scott revised his statement. Scott never produced an economic study to say how he would create these jobs. More likely Scott and his campaign team picked 700,000 because it was a nice around number.

Rick Scott's Let's Get Laid Off Plan

Gov. Rick Scott has been touting that his policies have created job growth. The reality is Scott's policies haven't been in effect long enough to make that assessment. What we do know his the latest Agency for Workforce Innovation unemployment numbers for June are 10.6 percent. Scott might want to rethink his message about the job market recovering. Florida has one fourth worst unemployment rate in the country.

One area where Scott's policies are taking effect is his layoffs of state workers. Scott is adding people to the unemployment rolls with the layoffs. Central Florida economist Sean Snaith said the private sector will not make up for the job losses.

"The private sector is being forced to swim against the rip current of government layoffs," Snaith said. "That's making the process of job creation in this economy even more difficult than it already was."

Scott laid off 1,295 Florida state employees in a job market that is not hiring. It will be harder for people to find work after Scott and the Florida legislature cut unemployment benefits. Scott and the Florida Chamber of Commerce believe that companies shouldn't pay corporate taxes. Both the Chamber and Scott actively sought to limit the weeks the unemployed can collect benefits. The Chamber lobbied Scott to not have companies pay for unemployment insurance. Employees would pay greater deductions out of the paychecks. Scott's policies are financially regressive to working Floridians.

Why Goldman Sachs is Not A Job Creator

Republicans will argue that corporations must get tax breaks and cuts because they are the job creators. The media should ask these same Republicans what they think about Goldman Sachs' upcoming layoffs.

Goldman Sachs (GS: 132.53, +3.27, +2.53%) may lay off as many as 230 employees, according to a filing with the New York State Department of Labor.

The filing dated June 29 cites economic reasons for the potential layoffs, which could begin in late September and extend through March 31, 2012.

State law requires that businesses with 50 or more employees notify the Labor Department when significant layoffs are planned. In the filing, the job losses are described as a “plant layoff.”

Goldman Sachs report 90 percent increase in profits in 2010. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Goldman Sachs with $1 billion in defrauding investors last year. 953 Goldman Sachs employees received $1 million or more bonuses after receiving bailout money. I am willing to bet those Goldman Sachs employees that received huge bonuses will not get laid off.