The Laboratory Of Democracy Has A Chemical Spill

Florida's Republicans, with an unstoppable super-majority in the state legislature and Rick Scott in the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee have just bet their careers on Randian social economics.

A bill that would establish some of the deepest and most far-reaching cuts in unemployment benefits in the nation is heading for the desk of Gov. Rick Scott.


The Republican-controlled House and Senate passed the compromise measure just before the legislative session ended Friday night.

The legislation would cut maximum state benefits to 23 weeks from 26 when the jobless rate is 10.5 percent or higher.

If lower, the maximum would decline on a sliding scale until bottoming at 12 weeks if the jobless rate was 5 percent or less.

Both chambers were agreeable to a sliding scale, but the House wanted to cut the maximum to 20 weeks while the Senate wanted to keep it at 26.

The benefit reduction is expected to cut unemployment taxes paid by employers, but not until next year.

Florida has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, 11.5 percent, and already had some of the lowest unemployment benefits.

Critics called the legislation cruel and wrongheaded. But its supporters — including the bill’s sponsor, Representative Doug Holder, Republican of Sarasota — argued that it was needed to help businesses and to aid job creation. 

So there you are.  The best way to create jobs?  Cut off jobless benefits, then people will have to get jobs, so jobs will be created.  Or something.  Scott will certainly sign the bill, and since businesses will have to pay less in taxes, they will certainly use it to invest in job creation, right?

Well, there is that nasty demand problem of the American people not having enough money to buy extra things and cutting back on spending while paying down debt, so there's no extra demand for goods and services to justify creation of additional jobs, but if we increase business profits, that will do something, right?

So if this theory is correct, if the problem in job creation is lazy workers not taking tens of thousands of open jobs, then Florida's unemployment rate should plummet back to well under 7% and Florida should soon have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

We'll see how that works out.