Day: March 30, 2011

Fla. Gov. Rick Scott’s Big Government Program to Drug Test State Workers Could Cost Taxpayers $23.5 Mil Per Year

Jon Ponder

art-assault-floridaPart of the series, Assault on Florida.

Last week, Florida’s already wildly unpopular new Republican governor, Rick Scott, issued an executive order requiring state employees to submit to drug tests at least four times a year.

Last night, Rachel Maddow cited Scott’s order to illustrate the wide gap between Republican campaign rhetoric about small government and the sort of big-government policies they pursue when they get elected.

“Floridians deserve to know that those in public service, whose salaries are paid with taxpayer dollars, are part of a drug-free workplace,” Scott said, when he announced the order. “Just as it is appropriate to screen those seeking taxpayer assistance, it is also appropriate to screen government employees.”

Scott has only lived in Florida for a few years and so was not in the state in 1998 when an earlier government experiment with drug-testing poor people proved not to be cost-effective. At a cost of $90 per test, the program was zilched after it failed to produce evidence of widespread drug abuse among people on public assistance.

Who will be tested, when and how often?

Here’s the key paragraph from Scott’s Executive Order Number 11-58 [PDF]:

[…]

Despite ‘Small Government’ Campaign Spin, GOP Tea Party in Power Produces Big, Intrusive Authoritarian Programs

Jon Ponder

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

On her MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow took an in-depth look at the stark contrast between Republicans’ campaign rhetoric about limited government and what they actually do when they gain power, which is to use the government to curtail the rights of the citizenry.

The prime example of this today is union-busting:

MADDOW: Your freedom to associate in this country is guaranteed by the Constitution, your freedom to join a union if you want to. But to the extent that the government can be used to limit that right of yours, Republicans in Wisconsin and in Ohio and in Indiana and in New Hampshire and in Florida and in Tennessee and in Oklahoma and in Nebraska, Republican governors and legislators in all these states all over the country are stretching the power of government to try to end that right of yours.

Beyond union-busting, the current crop of Republican governors have put their states on a forced march toward authoritarianism:
[…]

Rumblings: The Tea Party’s Over My Friend

Trish

538Poll

Dumb gets old quick, according to a recent CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll. The better we know the Tea Party, the less we like it. Here’s how those surveyed rated the movement that gave us Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, former Alaska partial-term Gov. Sarah Palin, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, among others:

    Favorable: 32%
    Unfavorable: 47%
    Never Heard Of: 7%
    No Opinion: 14%

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight took these results and combined them with earlier polls to show a trend tea baggers can’t deny. With each passing day, their approval numbers go down, down, down.

Silver concludes that Republicans, who scored 44% favorable and 48% unfavorable in the same CNN poll, have the most to lose if the tea baggers get dunked.

I’ve long been of the view that the Tea Party, despite nominating poor candidates in a couple of key races, was a significant net positive for the G.O.P. in 2010, both because it contributed to the “enthusiasm gap” and because it helped an unpopular Republican Party to re-brand itself in never-out-of-style conservative draping. But if the Tea Party ain’t over yet, the point in time at which it was an electoral asset for Republicans soon may be.

Wisconsin Pols are Out of Touch

Buck Banks

I struggle to meet my bills right now … The benefits that were offered to me as a congressman don’t even compare to the benefits that you get as a state employee. I just experienced that myself. They’re not nearly as good.

— Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), quoted by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, defending his congressional salary and benefits to a constituent who responded, “But $174,000 — that’s … three times what I make.”

Rubio Dismisses Birthers

Buck Banks

That’s a waste of time. He says he’s a Christian. He’s a Christian. And I do believe he was born in the United States. And I don’t think any of those things are the reason why America’s in trouble.

— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in an interview with ABC News, rejecting those who question President Obama’s religion and citizenship.

A Sorry Bunch of Candidates

Buck Banks

This is my 10th presidential campaign, Lord help me. I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party’s banner. They are the most compelling argument I’ve seen against American exceptionalism.

— Joe Klein, on his Swampland blog, assessing the caliber of the Republican Party’s field of likely presidential candidates.