Florida's schools, prisons and state government on Governor-elect Rick Scott's hit list.

[seafan]

The right wing gang-rape of Florida ramps up on steroids in two more days.


A good number of people here are in despair.


Gov.-elect Rick Scott aims for bold jump-start with sweeping reforms

By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post

January 1, 2011

TALLAHASSEE — Florida's schools, prisons and state government are on the verge of massive overhauls as Gov.-elect Rick Scott prepares to be sworn in Tuesday with an ambitious conservative agenda.

Scott's sweeping reforms have the business community celebrating and state workers and educators on edge in anticipation of pension reforms, an end to teacher tenure and deregulation he has pledged to jump-start as soon as he takes office.

The first-time officeholder wants to get rid of the Florida Department of Community Affairs, make state workers contribute to their pensions and vastly expand vouchers for public school students.
He would like to drug-test welfare recipients, do away with corporate income taxes and force the unemployed to work in the community after three months of receiving benefits.

And he has made no secret that he's impatient to put a halt to the business regulations and permitting he believes are part of Florida's economic struggles.

Scott, 58, said he will do whatever he can without the legislature's assistance as soon as he takes office.

"I'm going to be issuing executive orders the first day," Scott told The Palm Beach Post during a pre-inaugural celebratory tour around the state on Monday .

"Anything I can do to make something happen quickly, I'm going to make it happen quickly."

.....

Scott points to his own meteoric rise in the health care industry as an example of what Floridians are capable of doing if state government gets out of their way.

.....

Those "government regulations" that caught Scott's company defrauding the US Government, and forcing him to resign in disgrace and his company to repay $1.7 billion in fines to the federal government for Medicare and Medicaid fraud, are now on the chopping block by the perp himself.


There's nothing like giving a criminal executive power.

[freshwest]

1. Gang rape and giving power to a criminal, very apt description.

Florida is in so much trouble now...

And the rot will spread to other states, it always does.

We're fighting a full-frontal assault on our entire system of government standing between us and the GOP or Tea Party mafia.

The signs of this coming were there, but we appear to have been blindsided by dismissing the roots of this.

It would be ironic except that's lost on this crowd that he hired a guy from FOX, too. Got to give back to those who gave him the election, you know.

$75 million buys a media deluge of lies.

[The Backlash Cometh]

I have been saying for a long time that Florida was a Libertarian government.

Nobody listened. Now, maybe you'll see it for the first time.

[bluestateguy]

2. when I read the headline about prisons I was hopeful

I kept looking in the article for proposals to release non violent drug offenders and end prison privatization, but alas those ideas just never seemed to come up.

This person is inexperienced and not qualified to hold office.

[Rex]

3. So when they say they caught his company defrauding the govt

is that supposed to mean anything or just more crimes we will never see anyone pay for? Welcome to America 2011, we don't even try to hide the billionaire criminals anymore on the back page of the paper - now they run for govt and ruin our govt. So what...Florida needed someone more criminally insane then Jeb!?!?!

[Jefferson23]

4. Rick Scott is a living nightmare. The MSM did next to nothing to

expose this creep to voters.

[madfloridian]

5. Exactly right. His hit list is terribly scary.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. This has a simple solution.

They touch those pension of local, county or state workers and just keep your whistle blower hotlines open. There is a lot of crooked things that have gone down in Florida, which is the only way that someone like Rick Scott was allowed to happen. And workers were kept quiet with those pensions because they amounted to insurance, golden parachutes. You touch them and I promise you, they will squeal. Just make it easy for them to leak the information they have.

[lib2DaBone]

9. Very good point. As Prick Scott attacks the pensions from State Workers...

..you are going to hear a "squeal" for sure.

Someone should investigate the massive fraud committed when Jeb Bush traded mineral rights beneath Federal Parks in Florida in exchange for drilling rights off the coast of Florida. Does anyone doubt that these drilling rights ended up in the Bush Family Portfolio? It was a sneaky-quiet deal.. done when no one was looking.

Of course the Jebster had some help from his brother, Georgie.. but it all goes now to Jebs new bagman.. Marco Rubio and "Mr. Medicare Thief"... Prick Scott.

The only thing certain.. is that the rich get rich and working poor get screwed.

[DBoon]

12. next up on wikileaks....

With the Internet, there are many ways to blow the whistle that do not require MSM support

[BlueJac]

7. Rick Scott is a disaster waiting to happen for my home state........

Heaven help us all.

[dhill926]

8. I see a lot of Carl Hiassen articles.......

on the near horizon. Maybe he can help bring him down.

[salin]

10. Heavens.... he's going to make Mitch Daniels and his privatize party look meek.

maybe he'll get a case of palinitis and decide there's more money to be made and more fun outside of office.

[ngant17]

11. state workers tend to make less than city and county workers

as an average in Fla. So it doesn't seem logical to attack state workers and reduce their pay. Maybe he will increase the vesting of the pension system(currently five years, but it used to be higher, I think). But that will tend to penalize new hires, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, given the hiring freeze in effect in most state agencies.

I suppose there's a lot of ways to be creative. Like reducing work days, cutting back benefits, hiring more "temps" for permanent positions.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. I'm wondering if he's trying to weed them out to restaff them with

"team-players."

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Was Rick Scott's medical involvement have anything to do with stents?