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Lawmakers Question Scott's Job Creation Plan February 9, 2011 | WMFE - Florida lawmakers are doing a line by line review of Governor Rick Scott's first budget proposal. Members of a House subcommittee are questioning his assumption that cuts in taxes and government spending creates jobs.
The governor proposes cutting spending by $4.6 billion dollars and eliminating 8600 state government jobs. When he unveiled his spending plan Monday, he called it Florida’s first jobs budget. Brett Raymond is a policy coordinator in the governor’s office. He gave a budget presentation to the House government oversight subcommittee and fielded this question from North Miami Beach Representative John Julian about Scott’s plan to eliminate thousands of state government jobs: “Seven steps, seven hundred jobs in seven years. How does eliminating so many positions create jobs?” Julian asked. Raymond responded that the same question was asked of the governor after his budget presentation. “He believes by shrinking government we are reducing the burden on the taxpayer and on the business man and returning more dollars back to them” Raymond said, “so that they can create private sector jobs and those are the kinds of jobs that the governor would like to see created that is private sector. So that anyone who is let go from the state as they create jobs in the private sector he expects them to fill those.” The governor’s proposal would also cut property taxes by a billion dollars and the corporate income tax by $1.5 billion dollars over two years. The state spending plan begins in July. In March, lawmakers will receive an official estimate on how much money the state will have to spend. The governor proposes spending $65.9 billion dollars next year. Committee members told Raymond they still have a lot of questions about the plan.
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