Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC hosted by David Gregory had a couple of governors on it to talk about the stimulus plan. Gov. Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Crist of our sunny state of Florida. Gov. Jindal was acting like a puppet of the tired old anti-tax right throwing out all kinds of reasons why he doesn’t want to accept any of the stimulus plan money for LA. Gov. Crist was all tanned and smiley and only too happy to take all we could get, nearly $12 billion. Why the divergence of method and style among two Republican Governors?
Florida has no revenue at the moment and we are facing a nearly $12 billion state budget deficit in 2009. We also have 20 million residents. Our public education system is collapsing and we can barely meet the basic needs of our population. We have very little industry to create jobs except in housing and tourism. Gov. Crist said on meet the press, “many times government and common sense don’t meet”. Gov. Crist, in speaking on the program seemed like a kid who had gotten into trouble with not being able to pay for his trans-am and his dad had just told him he would pay for the car. Mr. Crist is taking the money. Mr. Crist just met common sense. Florida in general, needs an introduction as well.
Mr. Jindal, the LA Gov., however, well, let’s just say he is running for President in 2012. Umm, there is this little problem in his state that we all remember, its called New Orleans and Katrina. So he is going to say that he isn’t taking the money when New Orleans is still in ruins. I guess he will be freed up to run for President, because he just lost any chance of being re-elected in LA. Fact is, he is going to take the money, at least 99% of it. He is objecting to 1% of the stim dollars, they’re the dollars going to help the unemployed with a slightly larger stipend and extension of benefits.
You see, Gov. Jindal, and other southern Governors have lured foreign auto-makers to their states. These Toyota Republicans made deals to get them there and part of the deal was to keep unemployment compensation down to subsistence levels and other sundry things like the length of benefits and no compensation for part time workers. These Guvs are afraid that they will have to go back to their foreign masters and tell them that the deal about unemployment will have to change a bit and they don’t want to do that. Gov. Crist doesn’t have to worry about this because, well, we haven’t lured any foreign automakers, or just about any other industry to FL. He just has lots of poor unemployed people to worry about who happen to be pretty good at dealing with hurricanes.
Tags: Charlie Crist, common sense, hurricanes, Katrina, Louisiana
not sure the governors of KY, LA, VA, GA or SC (south) who signed the
deals with BMW, Toyota, Bering, Honda, etc. were all Republicans. Are you?
No, they were not all Republicans, but only Republican Guvs are talking about rejecting stimulus funds.
Ken, you’ve got lots on your mind and plenty to put on the governor and legislators of Florida for their agenda. It’s clear you have a strong belief in the future of our state and its economic recovery if those men and women in Tallahassee will use common sense and get to work! I wonder, after reading several of theese critical blogs from you, whether the state’s leaders will find compromises based on your ideas quickly enough. And the two-pronged approach of revenue and school improvement are absolutely critical to Florida’s future!