After presiding over the worst economy Florida had seen in decades, former Gov. Charlie Crist unveiled the latest part of his economic agenda on Wednesday as he continues his campaign to unseat Gov. Rick Scott in November.
Today, I'm releasing the next part of our plan to give all Floridians a fair shot at success, Crist announced on Wednesday. The way to grow jobs in Florida is to invest in our homegrown businesses and innovators, and help them grow and hire.
Crist launched his plan for small businesses at an event in Boca Raton on Wednesday. In his plan, Crist calls for restoring funding to create small-business advocates in the state government, promote alternative energy, continue to find trade partners in Latin America and increase funding for state agencies and partnerships promoting space exploration and tourism.
Despite the unemployment rate rocketing up during his tenure, as Florida lost more than 800,000 jobs under his watch, Crists team promoted his record in office. Charlie has a successful record of strengthening Floridas homegrown businesses, the Crist campaign insisted on Wednesday. Crist and his camp say, despite Florida losing more jobs than the national average, there was nothing he could do during that economic downturn.
The Crist team pointed toward his support of President Barack Obamas federal stimulus plan which they maintain helped create or maintain 173,000 Florida jobs. Crists camp also insisted, despite the high unemployment rate and jobs lost in his tenure, that his policies led to job creation and dismissed the reduction of the unemployment rate and job creation under Scott, claiming the governor gave too many tax breaks to out-of-state companies.
When he left office, the state was on track to create 1 million new jobs over seven years, the Crist team claimed on Wednesday. After only serving one term, Crist decided to forgo a second one to unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate in 2010.
Scotts team fired away at Crists economic record. Jerry Pierce, the Florida chairman of the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB) Leadership Council and Scotts small-business coalition chairman, came out swinging at Crist on Wednesday.
Charlie Crists small-business plan is simple: if hes governor again, Florida will have less of them, Pierce said on Wednesday. When he was governor, Crist stood idly by as Florida lost 28,000 small businesses, 300,000 small-business jobs, and $7.8 billion in small-business wages. While Crist fully embraces Obamacare, a failed law that hurts small businesses with higher taxes and burdensome regulations, Gov. Rick Scott has cut taxes and regulations for job creators in Florida. The only job Charlie cares about is his own.
The NFIB endorsed Scott earlier in the campaign along with his fellow Republican state Attorney General Pam Bondi. On Wednesday, the NFIB reiterated its support of Scott and Bondi and endorsed the two other Republicans in the Florida Cabinet: CFO Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.
?"These candidates are committed to supporting small-business priorities and ensuring that Florida maintains its pro-small-business climate,"? said Bill Herrle, the executive director of the Florida chapter of NFIB. ?They understand the challenges facing small-business owners, and we'?re confident that they will fight to continue to make Florida a great place to own, operate and grow a small business.?
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
