Mel Martinez: 'Fiscal Cliff' Fall Would Cost Florida 80,000 Jobs

Former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, in a press call Thursday morning, warned that if Congress allows the nation to go over the "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1, Florida will lose 80,000 jobs, 7.3 percent of all revenues it gets from the federal government will be cut and the state will follow the nation into recession.

"Taxes will rise on all citizens immediately. We have people just getting their lives back together in Florida," Martinez said. "This would devastate them. It is unthinkable."

He said, "Imagine how those numbers are going to go down in Tallahassee."

Martinez said that Congress must get over its disdain for the word "compromise." There is still time to avert disaster, he said, by the Republicans agreeing to raise some revenues and the Democrats agreeing to confront America's "unsustainable entitlements."

Martinez was speaking as co-chair of the Florida Chapter of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, a nonpartisan movement "to put America on a better fiscal and economic path."