Beach Peanuts

Revising Rick Scott's "Tax Cut Calculator"

Hey Governor Scott: Calculate This

It looks like Gimmick-Rick is at it again. 

Rick Scott is rolling out his latest middle class bait and switch this week with his new "tax cut calculator" for Florida families.

Appearing at booths set up  in Tallahassee and the University of Florida, it allows taxpayers to "calculate" how much they'll save with Scott's proposed cuts for cellphone and television expenses. At this point, that's all it is: a proposal. 

Should anyone decide to make the trip to give the calculator a try, depending on where they live, they're likely to spend more on gas than they'll save on their cellphone bill.

The good news is they don't really need to make the trip at all. The estimate of Scott's big savings will come to around $43 a year.

If you add the proposed savings to Scott's gimmick last year, where some saved up to $25 on auto tags, that brings in a grand total of $68 a year. For some.

Don't spend it all in one place!

In short, Governor Gimmick thinks you're stupid.

While you have your calculator out, see how much it will cost you for just one trip to the emergency room the next time you need medical care if you fall into the Medicaid gap Rick Scott dug out for you.

Spoiler alert: $43 probably wouldn't even buy you an aspirin. 

If you're a Duke Energy customer, take a gander at your latest bill that covers not just your wattage, but covers fictional power plants Scott and the GOP are allowing them to charge you for. 

After you recover from that eye opener, add to that all the taxes you've already spent that went to fund Medicaid and high-speed rail in other states.

But wait, there's more!

Remember when Pam Bondi sent lawyers all the way to the Supreme Court in her failed attempt to keep you from getting access to health care at all? How about when she fought to block women from access to birth control? Her failures in court were also added to your tab.

How about her latest fiasco along with Rick Scott and the other Cabinet members when they ignored Sunshine Laws and went under cover of darkness to fire an FDLE official because he didn't fall in line for Scott's campaign by politicizing what has no business being politicized? They're now all busy lawyering up for getting caught on that little maneuver. Guess who's going to be paying all those legal fees? Certainly not them. In fact they're laughing all the way to the bank, because screwing over the people of Florida is a notch in their political belts as far as big conservative donors are concerned, especially the ones who benefit like the utilities, Big Sugar, and the Koch brothers. These same Cabinet members have their sights set on being the next governor, or U.S. Senator from Florida. Rick Scott is said to have his eye on that one himself.

If voters are naive enough to keep falling for Scott's gimmicks and send him along to higher office, what he's cost Florida so far is merely chump change.

If Mr. Scott goes to Washington, you're going to need a bigger calculator.

@BeachPeanuts 

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I'm Voting For Charlie Crist, And Here's Why

Charlie Crist, Speaking With The Media During The 2010 BP Oil Spill (Photo: Martha Jackovics)

Regular readers of this blog are no doubt aware that I haven't always agreed with Charlie Crist in the past. When he was governor I didn't like everything he did, but I gave him credit where it was due, examples being the BP oil spill and his support for the much needed stimulus from President Obama for high-speed rail. The latter would have brought much needed jobs, and contrary to dishonest reporting from some news outlets recently, Florida taxpayers would not have faced extra costs. (See  22 Tampa Tribune articles between Oct. 11, 2009 - Oct. 30, 2013 for quotes from state and federal officials differing with Rick Scott's rationale and eventual rejection of federal funds, along with recent opinion writers who continue to promote misinformation on high-speed rail.) Others remember Crist's stimulus support as simply "the hug." 

Yes, he hugged President Obama and dared to do something that was good for the state. That was when his own party turned on him. Because everyone knows if something's good for the state and everyday citizens, the Republican Party, both in Florida and nationwide, run from it. Especially if it comes from President Obama.

I haven't been extremely vocal in my support for Crist recently, but whenever I have, I've come under attack from Nan Rich supporters. Rich has sold herself as the only "true Democrat" in the race, and early on I defended her when the GOP attacked her, but that was a long time ago when she first entered the race. After Scott officially declared he was running for reelection as "CEO" of Florida, Inc., that changed. Suddenly the GOP loved Nan Rich. Why? Because they thought they could beat her.  But here's the thing, instead of going after Scott, she embraced their support.

Think about that. Would the "true Democrat" in the race say something like this?

Little-known and struggling financially, Nan Rich might get some help from the unlikeliest of places during the Democratic primary race for governor: supporters of Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

Scott’s top political advisor and pollster Tony Fabrizio hinted at the scheme late Tuesday night in a rare appearance at the Women’s Republican Club of Miami.

Team Scott’s ultimate goal: vex Charlie Crist, a well-known former governor and Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat who might run against Rich to unseat Scott.

“I don’t know if Charlie Crist wins the primary against Nan Rich. And that’s not saying that Nan Rich wouldn’t have help,” Fabrizio said with a smile. “You never know. There could be interested citizens that like to help Nan Rich… Nan Rich is the true Democrat.”

Said Rich: “I’ll take all the help I can get so I can then beat Rick Scott in the general election. And I agree with Tony Fabrizio: let’s have a real Democrat face Scott so we can have a real debate.”

Coincidentally, the legal-lobbying firm of Becker & Poliakoff is fundraising for both Rich and Scott.

She would welcome help from the party that thinks she's the weakest candidate and the easiest for Rick Scott to defeat?  That ended it for me. With all due respect to Rich, that sounded to me like she was in it for Nan Rich, not Floridians. If she managed to beat Crist in the primary, she would hand another four years to Rick Scott.

After two years in the race, nearly all we know about her views is she's pro-choice, pro-women, and that she wants to debate Charlie Crist. We need someone to fight back against the "War on Women," but we need more than just that. 

A while back, a group called Progressive Choice, who refuses to say who's behind them and who's funding them, began saying similar things as Rich against Crist, and there was much speculation that the Rich campaign might be working with them. In April I wrote to the campaign to ask if they were involved with Progressive Choice. They said they weren't, but she shared their views, and pointed out that they agreed there should be a debate.

Many would have liked to see a debate between Crist and Rich, but it didn't happen. Now, it's the day before the primary. Voters shouldn't have to wait for a debate to find out where a candidate stands on the issues.

Wanting to debate isn't a plan. Welcoming help from the enemy isn't either. Nan Rich stated that she would welcome help from those who knew Rick Scott had the best chance to beat her. She was willing to sell herself out, and voters in the process, to give Scott another disastrous term. That's hardly being a "true Democrat."

Voters in Florida are tired of watching Democrats act like Republicans, and work with them to destroy anything that's good in the state. Under GOP control, Florida is fast becoming something no one recognizes anymore. Since Scott took over, we're at the top of the lists for poverty, low wage jobs, and letting people die without Medicaid. We're paying what amounts to corporate welfare to companies like Duke Energy who are also big polluters along with Big Sugar, and as we've seen recently, Scott and Republicans are profiting at our expense. Too often Democrats don't stand up for the rest of us, and some even join the Republicans in the same game.

I'm sorry, but Nan Rich told us early on where she stood: “I’ll take all the help I can get." from the Republicans who would work for her defeat at the hands of Rick Scott.

Charlie Crist tried to do the right thing for Floridians and Republicans turned on him. Crist stood up to the Republican Party, and still does to this day. Nan Rich, on the other hand, was willing to join them. If that meant Scott would win again, so be it.

Being a "true Democrat" means actions speak louder than words. Charlie Crist stood up for Floridians in the past, and he's standing up to Republicans destroying the state now.

For that reason, I'm standing with Charlie Crist.

@BeachPeanuts

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Stressed Out In Florida: "We're Number 1!" (Graphic: Movoto)

"It's Working?"

That's one of Rick Scott's favorite campaign phrases, but is Florida indeed "working" as Scott claims?

Not so much, according to this:

Beaches, sunshine and citrus fruit apparently don't bring peace of mind to the residents of this state

What stresses you out? A long commute? Check. Being unemployed? Check. Working long hours? Check. Living in Florida? Double check.

Florida wins the unhappy distinction of being the most stressed-out state in the country, according to a study by a real estate blog. Movoto combined factors including the percentage of people without health insurance, housing expenses and hours worked per week in order to measure stress across the country.

Florida’s combination of high unemployment (11.3%) and high rate of people without health insurance (25.8%) made it the most stressed-out state in the country, according to the site’s methodology.

Florida may be "working" for Rick Scott's big donors and the corporate types he vowed to "run the state like a business" for, but it's not working for the rest of us who have to live here.

While Movato cites unemployment, long work hours, lack of health insurance, and long commutes (yes, who needs high-speed rail, along with the jobs and profits it would have brought to the state's economy, had Scott not rejected it?), they didn't touch on other issues that contribute, like gutting education, ignoring environmental concerns, and many more, and then making it harder for those caving under all that stress to vote him out of office.

So when you hear Scott's new slogan "Let's Keep Working," ask yourself "Working for what? Working for who, exactly?"

Stress itself is unhealthy, but if Florida has to suffer another four years under Rick Scott, stress will be the least of our problems. 

@BeachPeanuts

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Rick Scott Misses The Train...Again

Florida Gov. Rick Scott admitted in a Fox TV interview from Tampa on Tuesday he does not know the difference between high-speed rail and conventional long-distance rail.

 

The Fox TV reporter began by apologizing to Scott for asking about any plans for a "rapid train," just the way you'd expect every credible, hard-hitting inquiry into the governor's thoughts and activities to begin.

 

Scott said, I'm not sure if it's high-speed," referring to a proposal a private company has launched called All Aboard Florida, whose executives are pursuing two $600 million federally-backed loans for trains between Miami and Orlando with stops at West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. 

 

Unlike the reporter who apologized for her line of questioning, the governor failed to apologize for not knowing what he was talking about.

 

That's despite Scott approving $213 million in state funds in February for a train terminal at Orlando International Airport for the All Aboard Florida project. launched by a company whose family tree extends to the Fortress Investment Group, which bought Florida East Coast Industries for $3.5 billion in 2007.

 

Scott, of course, just after taking office in 2011, rejected $2.3 billion in federal funds to build the first phase of the nation's first high-speed project, between Orlando and Tampa, with plans for the far more inviting Orlando-Miami second phase to follow.

 

Although the Florida Department of Transportation commissioned two investment grade reports (these are what people buying bonds rely upon) that ended up projecting even the Tampa-Orlando segment would cover its operational costs after a period of time, Scott relied on input from the libertarian Reason Foundation, which challenged the findings of the investment reports  private firms produced.

 

The big issue, however, is not whether a Miami-Orlando train would reach 180 mph for a little more than a two-hour trip between Miami and Orlando as President Obama envisioned, or 110 mph and about a three-hour trip as news media has reported for AAF (the company said Federal Railroad Administration ultimately will decide the top speed).

 

What matters is politics and Scott's re-election chances, whether voters care what Scott did by rejecting the high-speed rail project, shocking powerful Republican business people - primarily in the Orlando-Miami corridor who hoped the state would benefit from business development and the enhanced image and competitive advantage Florida would have had with the nation's preeminent intercity rail system.

 

Tampa for the time being is left with an empty plot of land in the heart of downtown adjacent  to the Interstate, where the city could have had stations for high-speed rail, light rail local voters rejected in 2010, and a Major League Baseball park if planners had been thinking, but now has a vacant lot whose main purpose might be a backdrop for a gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist sound bite on Scott's transportation policy.

@BeachPeanuts

 

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(Graphic: Beach Peanuts)

Yes, I know it's still early, but voters have had a lot of time to consider their options when picking the next governor of Florida.

With each new poll comes more evidence that another four years of Rick Scott are about as welcome to voters as losing a low-wage job and getting sick while having a root canal on the same day you have to submit a urine sample in order to get some benefits, while others aren't even available due to a three-month state website crash, meaning you'll be homeless when the rent comes due, you're in the gap for Medicaid qualification, and you have no dental insurance for that root canal.

In other words, voters are still saying "We'll take Charlie." 

Even after the Florida GOP have been campaigning, and Tweeting their dishonest little hearts out with juvenile spirited memes and everything for over a year now, it's still bad. So far, even with Rick Scott's huge campaign stash, it can't match the numbers of Floridians that loathe him. Now, not even a poll from Rasmussen can help him.

Yes, Rasmussen: 

Media Misses The Point In Rick Scott, Chris Christie "Transportation" Comparison

As subpoenas landed in his office and new allegations of withholding Hurricane Sandy relief funds from hard-hit Hoboken, NJ as political payback over a development project hit the airwaves this morning, Chris Christie is hiding from the press in Florida, fundraising for Gov. Rick Scott. And while two of the country's worst governors forbid access to the media, the local Florida media instead followed Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz as she shadowed the GOP fundraising tour. As predicted, this put an even brighter spotlight on the secrecy and similarities of the two Republicans, which Wasserman Schultz was quick to point out today.

Up until now, Christie adored the spotlight that Scott dodges on a regular basis, but that all changed with Christie's bridge scandal in New Jersey. While being denied access, the local media had plenty of time on their hands, but the subpoenas for the Govneror's office and the new allegations didn't come up in the coverage, and that's not all they left out.

Rick Scott's Sequester Whining Doesn't Fly

Planes, Trains And Gridlock

Yesterday Rick Scott took the opportunity to jump on the dishonest Republican pile on against President Obama, blaming FAA sequestration cuts on him rather than the party who pushed sequestration and wanted it in the first place: His own.

Recall back in 2011 when the Republicans held the debt ceiling hostage and crowed in favor of the sequestration, John Boehner bragged that he got 98 percent of what he wanted out of it. 

The cuts have been hurting everyday Americans since they began, but it wasn't until they started actually impacting things Republicans care about that they started complaining. Never mind that elderly cancer patients were being denied lifesaving chemotherapy, the GOP was most concerned that their constituents couldn't get a White House tour. Yesterday they started whining about air traffic delays caused by furloughs of air traffic controllers forced by the sequester.

So Rick Scott, true to form in his usual fact-free Obama-bashing fashion, penned yet another letter to the President from his fainting couch in Tallahassee, presuming to "lecture" him on the devastating impact on "Florida families" that these cuts to vital transportation will cause. Let's pull apart the hypocrisy of the letter here for a moment.

First, Scott tries to kill two talking points with one stone here, as per usual. These cuts will devastate Florida families only because they are part of this year's campaign theme for Rick Scott's reelection. Had the sequestration cuts come several months ago, the biggest impact would have been on the "Job creators." Why Scott left teachers out of the list of those impacted I'm not sure, but then finding a way to tie flight delays to teacher's salaries would have been a stretch even for one-talking-point-fits-all Rick Scott, so I suppose that makes sense.

Second, Scott presumes to lecture the President and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on facts and figures and the impact those cuts will have. Had he been paying attention, he would have no doubt heard the same when the President was making speeches for months asking Republicans to put an end to the sequester, which they refused to do. But then paying attention isn't Scott's strong suit. Neither is fact-based reality.

Third, and this is the big one, does Rick Scott really think he's in a position to lecture others on the importance of transportation in Florida and the heavy price we pay for gridlock and be met with a straight face, nor a return letter saying "This is a joke, right?" from President Obama and Ray LaHood? Of course he shouldn't. He's the man who took billions of dollars for high-speed rail and threw it back in both men's faces, tossing jobs along with them, leaving Floridians to scratch their heads as they spent the better parts of their days sitting in traffic that would have been a thing of the past had Scott not done so. No, we couldn't have high-speed rail any more than we could have affordable health care because they would be an impediment to "freedom" and were offered up by a Democrat in the White House.

Well, sorry Rick, but that "freedom" and stupidity are now biting you in the backside just like all the Republicans who did the same, especially those who pushed for the sequester in the first place. If you want to point fingers, start with those guys, not President Obama. The sequester could end easily if they wanted it to. You can start by aiming that digit squarely at Florida Republicans who voted for sequestration. You can also aim it back at yourself. You decried "big government" as you ran for office, and now that cuts from said big government who you want to "keep their hands out of your business" are a reality, you're whining like a spoiled child who didn't get his way.

Of course, if a member of the media points this factual hypocrisy out to you, I'm sure you have an answer, right?

Asked what his message would be to congressional Republicans and Democrats, who approved sequestration as an expected intolerable solution to force agreement on a budget, Scott said Washington should follow Florida's lead in balancing the budget and creating efficiencies.

Balancing a budget and creating efficiencies? You mean like billions added to the budget for say, jobs and efficient high-speed rail projects?

No, of course you don't have an answer. You have talking points that make no sense.

It kind of leaves you and your Republican colleagues speechless when your policies collide with the real world, doesn't it Rick?

(Photo: Martha Jackovics)

Investigate Thyself: Rick Scott's Vicious Circle Of Incompetence

It's just another week in Florida where every day dawns with a new disaster, thanks to Rick Scott. Lately we've been hit with more than our share, which makes it hard to keep up.

(Photo by DonkeyHotey)

First, let's start with a short review on how Scott began his quest to destroy Florida, shall we? 

The man who thought he was running against Obama rather than other gubernatorial candidates immediately launched his War On The President, and subsequently his War on Floridians who want health care, which he began while privately fighting against the health care act negotiations and continued long after he was elected and the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare" was passed and signed into law. He claims he's willing to comply with the law now that he has little choice, (big of him) while political hack Attorney General Pam Bondi pretends that Supreme Court decisions she once crowed about mean nothing if she loses them. (Apparently law, and her job description confuses her.)

While losing the health care battle, Scott turned away stimulus money that Florida was due to get for it's planned high speed rail project, like every other modern metropolitan area in the world, because OBAMA! The faux-fiscal Scott claimed it would cost Floridians way too much money, when in fact, after the money went elsewhere, studies showed it would have made a nice profit. Killing a plan that was years in the making also cost the state lots of jobs, which the "Jobs Governor" ignored, also because, again OBAMA! Nope. Governor Koch Scott chose to let Floridians choke on gas fumes while spending the better part of their days in gridlock, while planning to charge them for their trouble in the future by turning them into toll roads. You're welcome.

Those were just the beginning, and a warm up for the future. While the Captain of the Titanic has managed to nick a few smaller icebergs, he's still able to maintain on course aiming for the big one that says 2014 on it. He still has two years to go, and Floridians being unable to impeach him, it's anyone's guess what will be left of Florida by then.

Which brings us to November of this year when Scott and his fellow Republicans did their level best to keep people from voting in the 2012 election, because that was their only feeble chance to help defeat President Obama. Like everything else, Scott failed at this too, but not without mucking up the election process and making the pregnant, hanging, and other various chad species from the 2000 election debacle seem minor by comparison. Unfortunately for Scott and the GOP, voters were so determined to thwart a stolen election that they stayed in line for hours and voted even long after the election was called for Obama. Scott has well earned his spot on the Worst Governors In History list and Floridians showed him those polls aren’t “skewed.”

Scott immediately feigned surprise when the election proved disastrous and pretended he had no clue as to why it did. After officials finally finished counting the votes days later, Scott said he would “sit down with” his Secretary Of State “to look at how we can improve.”

That went down about as well as Scott’s implied ignorance when SOS Ken Detzner doubled down on Scott’s laughable excuse and added several of his own, which you can see here. Under the pretense that Scott will have Detzner “investigate” himself to search for the mysteries behind the voting mess, which everyone already knows to be anything BUT a mystery. It was in fact HB 1355, the 2011 election law Republicans in the legislature pushed through that paved the way for voter suppression. After Democrats and advocates didn't wait around as Scott and Detzner were "pondering" what could have possibly gone wrong, they called for a investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Meanwhile, Keystone Election Cop Detzner has now "dispatched a team of experts" to Miami-Dade to "investigate" which will probably result in pointing the finger at local election officials rather than directly back at himself, Scott, and the responsible lawmakers.

You see, that's how it works here in Florida. It's a pattern.

1. The legislature takes something that's fixed, pens and passes a law to break it.

2. It breaks as expected, causing a mess that falls like dominoes.

3. Scott pretends he's shocked at the result, stomps his feet and demands to know what caused it.

4. Scott appoints a task force composed of the likely suspects to investigate themselves.

5. Investigation shows nothing went wrong, and that he and his GOP buddies are just plain awesome.  

6. Taxpayers pay the price of the bad law, while also footing the bill for the "task force."

Sound familiar? Well, it should. It happened with a Scott appointed Stand Your Ground task force, which just weeks ago found little "wrong" with the law and reaffirmed it to be a great law, and "fine as it is." On that task force was the man who wrote the law, with lots of help from ALEC, Dennis Baxley. (Baxley also has his hands in the election law cookie jar, among others, as well.)

Recall also when a task force was appointed to investigate abuse, neglect and deaths in Florida's assisted living facilities in 2011? That investigation, conducted by some who were in the ALF industry themselves found that in spite of "burns, beatings and deaths" in ALF's, what was really needed was less transparency and regulation. In a quote from an advocate on the task force's findings:

“[Providers] are probably doing cartwheels right now,” said Brian Lee, a resident advocate and director of Families for Better Care.

Those are merely recent examples. Even when there's no task force involved, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to spot blatant incompetence resulting from policies and actions from Scott. He works on the behalf of business and special interests, and often appoints to key positions, and then loses, individuals who never should have gotten the job in the first place. Down here we just call that "Tuesday."

No kidding.

Today the most recent example of this? Scott's "jobs czar," the executive director of Scott's Department of Economic Opportunity was forced to resign after only eight months on the job. (The second one to resign amid contention.) The reason for the resignation of Hunting Deutsch, whose agency also distributes unemployment benefits to the jobless in Florida? Well, it seems he was himself collecting unemployment benefits for 91 weeks over a two-year period from 2009 to 2011 when he was traveling in Europe with his wife. 

Like I said, it's Tuesday.

Of course, as is often the case, when controversy erupts it's often hard to find the Governor. He either won't comment, or he's not around. So today, on the day when the director of his Department of Economic Opportunity resigns, where is Scott? He's MIA on a so-called three-day "trade mission" to Colombia to bolster economic development with Latin America.

Of course. Where else would he be?

And the vicious circle continues......

Rick Scott Made 2011 The Year Of The Train Wreck

The Big Engine That Couldn't

Florida began 2011 with our new Governor Rick Scott, and it's been downhill ever since. So many train wrecks, so little time.

One of his biggest failures came in February when he single handedly bowed before the altar of the Tea Party and killed plans for high-speed rail in Florida.

It was such a huge failure that it made him famous among the gargantuan list of Republicans who made disastrous decisions a governing policy. So famous in fact that Scott's decision to kill high-speed rail tops The Atlantic's list of 2011's Biggest Transportation Failures at number one. 

"We're Number One!"

Thanks to Rick Scott, what began as a year with the promise of 23,000 construction jobs and $1.25 billion in stimulus funds from President Obama, ended in big losses for Florida. 

President Obama called the investment "building the infrastructure of the future" and rightfully so. However, Rick Scott and the Tea Party he pandered to didn't care for President Obama, and therefore the President's plans for improved infrastructure, money and jobs for Floridians was derailed no matter what it cost the state. So much for the self-proclaimed "jobs Governor."

Instead Gov. Scott embarked on a three city tour called "Share A Little Sunshine" where for two days he tried to drum up tourism by awarding 120 people with a free trip to Orlando and Disney World, one of the places in Florida where you actually can ride the rails.

Brilliant.

Never mind that not all Republicans were happy with the decision, Rick Scott would not back down, and the money went to other states where elected officials much smarter than Scott saw the value of progress in transportation.

Never mind that the high-speed rail project would have had a surplus. Instead Gov. Scott chose not to wait for Florida DOT studies, preferring to rely on one of his own choosing from the Reason Foundation.

The report's narrative information has not been released yet, but information shows operations by whatever private firm might have won the rights to build, operate and manage the Tampa-Orlando route would have realized an operations surplus of $10.24 million in 2016, the first full year the trains would have run, and a $28.58 million surplus in 2026.

Scott killed the project claiming it would leave Florida taxpayers "holding the bag."

Well, no worries there. Florida doesn't have the money, nor the jobs. We don't even have the bag.

Thanks to Rick Scott, for Florida 2011 was the year of the Great Train Robbery train wreck.

Rick Scott, GOP: Party Over The Needs Of Floridians, No Matter What

What have the Republican Party Of Florida and Rick Scott done for you, or rather, what have they done TO you lately? Let's take a look at the latest, shall we?

First, from the Governor who claims he's dedicated to health care, there's this:

Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature have rejected or declined to pursue more than $106 million in federal grant money and returned $4.5 million for programs linked to federal health care initiatives, including cancer prevention, leading critics to say Scott is putting his conservative agenda ahead of residents' needs.

Why reject the funds? Well, simply because it's "ObamaCare!" Never mind that it involves what for some could be a life or death issue, sorry! Scott and his merry band of brown-nosing legislators couldn't give a hoot. If people have to die, so be it. As God is their witness, they will never take health care funds on your behalf if they come from a Democratic President who happens to be black. You lose.

Actually though, they do make one exception:

Scott ordered state agencies to reject any money tied to President Barack Obama's health care plan, which Florida is challenging in court. But Scott kept more than $13 million for a four-year abstinence education grant and for another program coordinating background checks for long-term care workers.

Cancer prevention? Sorry, no. But abstinence education? Ka-ching! We'll take it, as we're the Party who live in a fantasy world with the likes of Sarah Palin, who believe that abstinence education is the only way to go, in spite of the fact that not only Palin, but two of her children (so far) could have been poster children who illustrate the exact opposite.

Also among the funds rejected:

The Legislature also rejected $11.1 million that would have been paid out over four years to educate teens about pregnancy and HIV rates.

One man's "education" is another man's "magical thinking." Pregnancy and HIV education? No. Saving lives and educating well, anyone, cannot trump Party ideology. Ever. Do today's Republicans look educated to you? Of course not. Why would you expect anything more?

You. Lose.

Next up, we also have the guy in charge who claims he's the "Jobs Governor." Apparently voters who went with Scott misunderstood what that meant. No doubt they now realize that what the man who would be king meant was they gave him a job, and now that he has it, he will proceed to take theirs away. (Not to mention their unemployment benefits, but that's an entire blog post for another day.)

If you were among the millions who watched Predient Obama's jobs speech the other night and cheered at the thought of him steering more jobs your way, too bad. I guess this could almost be High-Speed Rail Part II:

Gov. Rick Scott and top Florida Republicans are sending early signals they could reject the billions in federal aid that could flow to the state under President Barack Obama's jobs proposal.

Florida has a 10.7 percent unemployment rate that is higher than the national average. But Scott and GOP legislative leaders said the plan outlined by President Obama was too similar to the nearly $800 billion stimulus package that was approved by Congress back in 2009.

"It sounds like President Obama still doesn't get it," House Speaker Dean Cannon said Friday. "The answer to the current economic problems is not spending more money."

President Obama doesn't get it? Again, magical thinking: 1. Simple math: 0. You lose again, Florida! If by some miracle the GOP in Congress can't block the jobs proposal, then by golly Florida Republicans and Pink Slip Rick will be there for backup.

Jobs? From President Obama? The Republicans laugh in the face of reality. They won't rest until everyone, save those in Tallahassee and Scott, are out of a job. They're on a mission!

One more thing to note here. Scott always uses this similar talking point to fall back on when asked an actual question about his reasoning for just about everything: "JOB KILLER!"

Not one to disappoint, he used the same one here for rejecting the health care funds:

"Things that are simply implementing the Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare, I'm not going to support because I believe this: It's the biggest job killer in our state, we can't afford it and it's going to be bad for patients," Scott said.

Really? Show us just one job that the Affordable Health Care Act has killed, Gov. Scott. Just one.

"If you look at the things that we are supporting, it's the things that implement what we are already trying to do in health care."

What, pray tell, does this statement even mean? Does he mean abstinence education and mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients? 

What he's "trying to do in health care" is prevent people from getting it.

As it goes with the national Republican-Tea Party, so goes Florida. Party ideology is the only thing that matters. The well being and lives of America's citizens? Not so much. Unless you happen to be in the top tier income-wise. This is a Government For The Top 2%. The rest of us can just fend for ourselves.

What can Florida expect with federal disaster assistance in the event of a catastrophic hurricane? Would Scott reject those funds as well in favor of just "praying away the damage" and follow the lead of his man crush Rick Perry, who suggested his citizens just pray for rain? That certainly went well....

Let's hope we never have to find out.