Everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees Pt. 5

The fifth in our series of everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees is none other than Florida Governor Rick Scott. Rick Scott has operated as a perfect tea party candidate, Robin Hood in reverse, robbing from the poor to give to the rich. Early on Scott managed to enrich himself through the country’s health care loopholes which allow rich businessmen, who don’t seem to know a lot about health care, to enrich themselves on health care. When Scott’s own company ran afoul of the law Scott was only saved by a sudden and an extreme case of amnesia.

Florida Governor Rick Scott came to this job as the CEO of Columbia/HCA hospital chain in his past. He made a vast fortune by being part of a company that downsized hospitals for profit. While he was with Columbia the chain was faced with 14 felony charges and was hit with 1.7 billion in fines. Four of its executives were indicted. Two of these were found guilty but their sentences were later overturned on appeal. One was acquitted and the jury failed to reach a verdict on the fourth. Scott was forced out as the CEO though no charges were filed against him. Democratic candidate Alex Sink said, “(Rick Scott) was forced to resign as the head of a company that pled guilty to massive amounts of systematic fraud, including 14 felonies, leading to a historic $1.7 billion fine.” (Politifact 11/3/2010)

In some of the funniest video, of his deposition at a civil suit about a contract, Governor Scott managed to make President Clinton look like a fount of truthfulness. He managed to invoke the Fifth Amendment, the one designed to incriminate yourself, 75 times. See below:

In order to buy the Florida governorship, which pays him his government check in the range of S132,000, Scott was willing to  pay near 74 million. Florida did not choose to put Mr. Scott in jail but instead, through the insight of the tea party, handed him control of the state where he could bring his management skills to the Florida executive office. Since that time Scott has taken an ax to Florida’s state budget. He has planned to cut property taxes by $1 billion over two years and corporate incomes taxes by nearly $1.5 billion, from 5.5% to 3%, with the idea of phasing out corporate income tax by 2018. To make up for this, as Florida is required to balance its budget,  Scott slashed billions in Medicaid assistance to the poor, he has gutted the budget of Department of Children and Families and he has taken $4.8 billion from the education budget over several years.  The net results are that Florida teachers will take an average pay cut of 2,335 a year to save the average Florida homeowner $44.72. (Liberaland 3/7/2011)

In this Scott is just another Republican candidate who ran as a pro-education candidate in the last election. I guess he never said he was going to save education by destroying. According to Dara Kam of the Palm Beach Post, “Every candidate who ran is this last election ran on the campaign saying ‘I support education.’ Nobody ran on campaign saying, ‘Elect me. I’m going to cut school by 10 percent.’ Including the governor.” (Ibid)

Since this Time Scott has absolutely gone to war with the most vulnerable in his state. Unfortunately Monty Python handled this Robin Hood in reverse better and with less real cost.

Scott has not supported the new health care bill and he and the legislature has sent the back $19 million dollars to the federal government that was to be used on Florida’s most vulnerable. In this he has parted ways with the governors of Texas, Indiana and Wisconsin who oppose the bill but have accepted the free federal money. Texas has accepted $276 million for a program that requires health insurance to retirees who are over 55 but don’t qualify for Medicare. Pennsylvania also signed up thousands of its own residents for low-cost health insurance to the uninsurable people with pre-existing conditions though they can’t be covered elsewhere.

In Scott’s case he has vowed to do nothing to help the most vulnerable until the Supreme Court rules on the law’s constitutionality.

Of late Scott’s own Republican legislature appears to have grown tired of him. He keeps ordering cuts in funding, only to reverse it. He has also vowed that Florida will not sue to recoup the tax money the state lost from the BP oil spill. Mike Fasano, Republican from New Port Richey said, “He sends mixed signals to Floridians –and to the legislature. His unpredictability is hurting him. And I think it’s pretty clear that few of us in the Senate are really concerned any more about what he wants us to do.” (Sun Sentinal 4/19/11)

Senator Don Gaetz, Republican from Niceville, said, “Any time you feint right and go left, there are those who are going to say he didn’t have his legs under him. But it’s pretty clear, he’s trying to find his way through a bramble he is not used to.”