A recent Quinnipiac poll just determined that Republican governor Rick Scott of Florida is the worst governor in the nation with a 29% approval rating. Besides the fact that Scott is a Republican, what other factors would explain this unbelievable fallout with Floridians? Well, maybe his recent budget cut of $615 million dollars to programs that directly affects the residents of his state is a good place to look.
Anxious over their increasing unpopularity, Republicans lawmakers across the country are banning media from chronicling the blowback at public events. Florida’s now deeply disliked Gov. Rick Scott (R) adopted a similar tactic yesterday at a “campaign-style” budget signing ceremony at a town square in The Villages retirement community in Central Florida. Before putting his pen to the $69.7 billion state budget, Scott took an ax to $615 million of what he called “shortsighted, frivolous, wasteful spending.” Scott conveniently failed, however, to mention exactly what some of those “frivolous” programs were, including ones that provide help for the most vulnerable in society:
In his speech Thursday, Scott omitted many of the serious-sounding programs he cut: homeless veterans, meals for poor seniors, a council for deafness, a children’s hospital, cancer research, public radio, whooping-cough vaccines for poor mothers, or aid for the paralyzed.
Rick Scott’s dumb decision-making for the people of Florida does not only stop at his draconian budget slashing, but it also extends to areas where his state was slated to receive funds from the Federal government. The Republican rejected $2.3 billion from the Federal government, effectively cancelling a planned high-speed railroad installation – a move that will affect job creation and income for his state for decades to come.
The rejected funds were then sent to other states including $15 million to Washington State, prompting John Laird of The Columbian to officially deemed Rick Scott Washington’s new BFF. John wrote;
Fellow Washingtonians, hoist your glasses high and let’s toast our state’s newest BFF: Rick Scott.
Because the Florida governor bullheadedly rejected $2.3 billion in federal funding for rail improvements, Washington state is $15 million richer in our own drive for better railroads.
Previous BFFs had been Ohio and Wisconsin, where federal funding also had been turned away, only to be sent to other states. As a result, since February our state’s rail-improvement pot has grown from $590 million to $781 million, all because a few governors were willing to cut off their states’ noses to spite the feds’ face.
The Huffington Post also reported that Scott ran a campaign based on “jobs creation.” No surprise here, because in an atmosphere where many Americans are out of work and finding work is a top priority, many Republican politicians seized on job creations in the 2010 mid-term elections, promising America that if elected, they would deliver the jobs. Well, according to the Huffington Post report, Rick Scott has other priorities to worry about and jobs is not one of them.
In the legislative session that ended Saturday, lawmakers passed no job creation bills for Scott to sign. But they did pass five bills restricting abortion rights and a state budget that cuts nearly 4,500 public sector jobs.
Florida Republicans filed a total of 18 bills to restrict abortion rights during the session — the third most in the country, according to the ACLU, and twice the number of anti-choice laws introduced last year in the state, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.
These are just some of the reasons this first-term Republican governor is receiving a 29% rating and is considered the worst governor in America. Considering some of the other items on his résumé, I would argue that a 29% approval rating is at least 28% too high.
