Opening up his office to the general press corps for the first time, Gov. Rick Scott took questions on several issues Monday, ranging from immigration to Florida's primary date to his take on the forthcoming debt ceiling deal on Capitol Hill.
As far as specific legislation goes, Scott said he will begin rolling out his priorities for the 2012 legislative session Sept. 1.
On competing with the rest of the world:
"I think that we have to understand that were competing with the rest of the world. If we have higher corporate taxes, which we do, or higher personal income taxes, which we do, more regulation, which we do, more litigation, which we do, then in the end people are going to move, and they're going to move to other countries."
On promoting solar energy:
"The tradeoff is when -- I think weve got to do everything we can to promote energy independence, thats one side. The other side is, are we going to raise everybodys utility rates? I'm not interested in raising utility rates for people."
On his fear of heights:
The highest office I ever had was when I was a lawyer, I was on the 47th floor. I really dont like heights. I dont know if you know, I repelled down at Camp Blanding a few months ago, that was scary.
They keep trying to talk me into jumping out of an airplane. I always assume there's some politician that wants me to do that."
On being unversed in media before running for office:
(My campaign communications director) told me that when I went to do my filing, which was on June 17 or whatever, there would be a gaggle. I never even knew what a gaggle was. And I never asked, you know, 'What is it?' and as soon as I got the certificate back, everyone started asking questions."
On the difference between running a business and running a government:
The way it is like a business is that you set your goal and then you work your goal, and you measure it, thats similar. And then a lot of times like in business, I had 285,000 employees, you cant just snap your fingers and have everybody go left or right. Itd be nice but it doesnt happen that way. You got to persuade people, so thats similar. The difference is, if you want to make something happen, sometimes it's hard. Because if its a Cabinet agency, I mean you got to get everybody else in the Cabinet and you cant talk to other Cabinet members. You know I like transparency, it's probably easier long-term, but it is different because in business you can talk to anybody about anything."
On Texas Gov. Rick Perry's potential run for office:
I think hes going to run. I saw him two weeks ago, there was an RGA event in Aspen -- the week I was on vacation in Montana, I went down for a day for that. I spoke with him like three weeks before that and he pretty much said he was going to run. But you know (Mississippi Governor) Haley Barbour, the week before he decided not to run, pretty much told me he was going to run.
Its sort of lined up for (Perry) to run. There's not that many nationally known governors running and governors have traditionally won these."
Will he endorse Perry?
I havent decided if Im going to endorse at all. I went through this last year; I like primaries. It's OK with me if people dont endorse people. I was on the other side of that last year, where I think everyone had already endorsed someone by the time I got into the race."
When should Florida's presidential preference primary take place?
The earliest we can do without losing delegates and where we have a separate date. I think if we can do it right after South Carolina, thatd be great. I dont want to lose the delegates, but were an important enough state that we ought to be separate from everybody else."
Could it not be on a Tuesday?
I dont think it matters. Theres no real reason Tuesdays a good day, so if its a Tuesday or a Wednesday it doesnt really matter.
On P-5 and campaign events in Florida:
I think everything we do to get these candidates to Florida is positive for us. It's good for our economy too. Hopefully theyll all run ads, and make up for all the ads I'm not running this year.
On whether Florida should have open primaries:
I can understand both sides. I can understand that people need a right to participate, and at the same time you dont want to have a situation where somebody can influence who the nominee of a party is."
On immigration:
I still think the federal government ought to do their job on immigration. We ought to secure our borders; we ought to have an immigration policy that makes sense with individuals that we want to come to our country. We ought to have an easier work visa program for people that want to come here and work for six months or four months, I think that would be better. But I still believe that if you are here illegally and you are violating our laws, we ought to be able to ask you if youre here illegally or not."
Will it be harder to take on a controversial issue like immigration during an election year?
I think it's better to have it in a non-election year, than it is in an election year. Thats why I think we should have done it this year."
What do you think of the new federal debt ceiling deal?
Well, the positive is, they came to an agreement; the negative is, they have not cut enough spending. Because what we did in our state, and you can see the positive impact its having,when I came in -- were not doing new debt. I've done all these Cabinet meetings that ya'll have come to; I've talked about debt in every Cabinet meeting as much as I could. And you can see what the credit agencies did for us -- I think they were all on credit watch for potential downgrade and they took that off because were not borrowing more money. The federal government has got to live within its means because in the end, this is about spending."
On doughnuts and the importance of deadlines:
So I buy this doughnut shop for $7,500, and the guy says -- the franchisor, who was a little heavy, the doughnuts didnt bother him -- anyway, I said I want sales to go up. He said pass out 1,000 coupons -- doughnuts then cost $1.49 a dozen -- and pass a 50 cent discount, and youll get a 20-to-30 percent return. So I personally walked to 1,000 homes and passed out these 50 cent off coupons --I got 2 percent back. So I called the guy and he said, Did you put a deadline? I said no, you didnt tell me to put a deadline.
Reach Gray Rohrer at grohrer@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
