Economy

Another Day in Rick Scott’s Florida

It's just another day in Rick Scott's Florida, where unemployment benefits are being whittled away inside a bill that also includes tax cuts for businesses, and doctors are being barred from asking their patients about gun-safety.

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida unemployment benefits would rise and fall along with the jobless rate and state businesses would get a tax break under a proposal approved Tuesday by the Florida Senate.

The bill, HB 7005, now moves back to the House, where leaders want to limit state benefits — already among the nation’s lowest and most difficult to receive — to no more than 20 weeks.

The Senate plan, approved on a party-line 29-10 vote, keeps the maximum benefit at 26 weeks. But it creates a sliding scale that would cut or add a week of unemployment benefits for every half-percent the unemployment rate dropped or climbed. [...]

The bill cuts by 10 percent the tax rate that businesses pay to cover the costs of unemployment benefits and makes it easier for companies to keep former workers from collecting benefits.

To qualify for benefits, workers would have to prove they were seeking jobs and complete a state-approved skills test or training program.

And next thing ya' know, they'll propose requiring a drug test before you are approved for your unemployment benefits. Oh wait...

Under the new bill, unemployment benefits would be capped at 12 weeks if unemployment where to ever reach 5% again. There is little chance of that happening though, because Rick Scott has been such a swell guy in the area of job creation killing, with Florida's current unemployment rate officially pegged at 11.1%. Two points above the national average.

Another bill worming its way through the Florida legislature would ban pediatricians from asking families if they keep their guns safe and secure inside their homes.

A pending law in Florida would make it illegal for pediatricians to ask families whether guns are being safely kept in their patients' homes. Supporters of the NRA-backed measure insist that questions by doctors and other health care professionals amount to an invasion of privacy and a violation of their Second Amendment rights.

Pediatricians routinely ask parents about safety concerns in the home like whether or not the family has a pool, if the child wears a bike helmet, or rides in a car seat. To gun advocates, however, questions about the presence of firearms in a child's environment are intrusive and go too far.

It's a good thing we have our priorities straight.

Will the next bill Florida lawmakers consider actually do something to help people, or just take another shit on them?