First it was the ideology from hell. Courtesy of a mandate-free, minority governor with more allegiance to cherry-picked libertarian think tanks and tea party partisans than to Florida’s best interest.
Exhibit A, of course, was the derailing of jobs, redevelopment and megalopolis synergy between Orlando and Tampa. It’s still a bitter, infuriating debacle. Exhibit B could be Scott’s continued infatuation with Florida off-shore drilling.
But such positions were in keeping with a consistent, if disingenuous, definition of “accountability to taxpayers.” As if the only other option were no accountability to taxpayers. But false-choice, zero-sum scenarios are an ideologue’s best rhetorical weapon.
There then followed, among others, attacks on teacher pensions, prison personnel, a prescription drug data base (PDDB) and growth-management oversight. Among the dichotomies: ostensible jobs associated with reinvigorated Florida sprawl makes sense; guaranteed ones associated with high-speed rail don’t. No less incongruous: Scott has backed off any confrontation with BP over money that Florida can recover–and can obviously use–from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last summer.
Now, it’s beyond idiotology with Scott’s Big Brother executive order to drug-test government employees. While making the case that he had (patient) privacy issues with PDDB, he has no such qualms about state workers’ (excluding those in public safety-risk positions or those who have aroused “reasonable suspicion”) rights to privacy.
And it’s much more than just the ACLU who foresee a courtroom showdown. Legal consensus doesn’t favor Scott’s preference for what amounts to a guilty-until-proven-innocent, Napoleonic Code approach to state employees. Federal court precedent–in the context of the Fourth Amendment’s proscription of unreasonable searches–generally doesn’t support Scott’s take. And how hypocritically ironic is it for drug-testing overkill in a state with a notorious “pill-mill” reputation.
Moreover, the costs will hardly be nominal. As many as 100,000 workers could come under the drug-test and random drug-screen mandate.
What deficit? What priorities? What mixed-message principles! What a disaster.
Subj: Outstanding Editorial!
Thank you for the article about what we can’t do in FL.
In case you need some ammo:
According to the American Public Transportaiton Assoc. an average of $4 is returned to the local economy for every dollar invested in mass transit projects.
According to a study done by the Economics Department at the University of MA, Amherst, no investment creates more jobs per dollar than Mass transit, which creates 20 jobs for every million invested, while only 11 jobs are created for every $1million in tax cuts.
Keep up the fight!
Bob Lasher
Manager of Community Relations
Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority.
Gee Joe, I’m not sure (too many big words) but it seems you may not be a Rick Scott fan. And now you may have insulted libertarians and the tea party. Having a bad day? Would you have preferred Alex Sink?
Let’s give the guy a chance. In the mean time at least you’ll have plenty of fodder for your columns.
A.J.
What’s wrong with drug testing state employees? I didn’t vote for Scott but the majority did so they can have what they wanted. What you can do in Florida is MOVE.