Still stinging from Gov. Rick Scotts rejection of $2.4 billion from Washington for a Tampa-to-Orlando bullet train, lawmakers asked Thursday for more time to figure out how they could accept the money without him.

WASHINGTON -- Five days before his inauguration, President-elect Obama told The Washington Post that entitlement reform could no longer be kicked down the road. He then spent the next two years kicking -- racking up $3 trillion in new debt along the way -- on the grounds that massive temporary deficit spending was necessary to prevent another Great Depression.

Gov. Rick Scott's rejection of high-speed rail may have laid the groundwork for derailing a Central Florida commuter train.

SunRail, a planned $1.2 billion line running through four counties, doesn't have the sex appeal of a high-speed train, but it has strong political ties to state GOP leaders.

"High-speed rail was President Obama's train. SunRail is the Republicans' train," says Matthew Falconer, an Orlando-based commercial real-estate owner who ran for Orange County mayor last year.

The Florida Rural Economic Development Summit kicked off Thursday in St. Augustine with leaders grappling with how to prepare the Sunshine States 32 struggling rural counties for the new economy.

The Senate rolled out its push to revamp city and state pension plans, drawing immediate pushback from the states largest law enforcement union.