Koch Puppet Will Weatherford
Florida has a perfectly healthy pension system for its employees, so you would think our leaders would abide by the old saying "If it's not broke, don't fix it." But that would be logical, and this is Florida, where many of our Republican legislators work not for us, but rather for the right-wing extremists, like ALEC and the Koch brothers.
Right now, their golden boy puppet in Florida is House Speaker Will Weatherford, who has bent over backwards to prove his loyalty to their agenda, at Florida's expense. Yesterday he went so far as to speak at a rally held in Tallahassee by the Koch funded Americans For Prosperity, who just happen to be pushing for pension reform bills all over the country.
What a coincidence, huh?
It just so happens that anyone who doesn't play the game the Koch way becomes the target of Tea Party challenges and negative advertising, and since Weatherford no doubt aspires to higher office, he's ready to do their bidding right out of the gate.
Of course, the pension reform that failed a similar attempt last year comes on the heels of one of the things Weatherford is most proud of, and something that makes the Kochs extremely happy, killing Medicaid expansion, and millions of Floridians along with it in the process.
So it doesn't matter that Florida has one of the best pension systems in the country, the Kochs, through Weatherford, plan to take crack at "reforming" what doesn't need reforming, and he won't let last year's failure to do it interfere with this year's attempt, which he demonstrated yesterday:
A chief reason why Weatherford won’t let it drop, and potentially puts him on a collision course with Scott, was the throng of activists who were bussed in Monday afternoon by Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group founded by billionaire libertarian brothers David and Charles Koch.
A cause celebre with the group is the very overhaul Weatherford is pushing for Florida’s $135 billion pension system. Close it for new employees and steer them into private investment plans. Rather than having the taxpayer cover the shortfalls, make the employees responsible for any drops. It’s popular with small government groups and anti-tax organizations. It’s opposed by unions.
Clutching signs that read “Support Pension Reform Now”, the activists stood on the steps of the Capitol chanting “Will, Will, Will, Will” after Weatherford spelled out three main goals for the upcoming session: Tax cuts, school choice, and pension reform.
“We cannot continue to spend $500 million a year, year after year.” said Weatherford, 34, R-Wesley Chapel. “If we wait too long, the state of Florida will at some point find itself like California or Illinois where they raise taxes to bail out a broken pension fund.”
Never mind that Rick Scott hasn't even been able to ignore the fact that the system is a fiscally sound one. No, Weatherford will just keep saying what the Kochs tell him to say, hoping that if he repeats it enough, people will get scared into thinking he's doing the right thing by "reforming" it.
I suppose that he and the Kochs would also have you believe that all those Florida "grass roots" activists are willingly there, shouting "Please take our safe pensions and force them into a risky investment system where we might lose them altogether! Do it, do it now!" just as they were begging to die without health care, in years past?
As we've seen not only in Florida, but all over the country, when Republicans set out to reform something, it really means the opposite, and that's not all Weatherford has planned. Also on his agenda this year, more so-called ethics reform, school vouchers, and as always, lower taxes.
