Florida Gov. Rick Scott Discovers True Cause Of 2008 Recession: Previous Florida Gov. Charlie Crist
America's Time-Travel and Causality Crisis grew worse last week as Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R-Azkaban) blamed the 2008 recession on his predecessor and likely opponent in 2014, former Gov. Charlie Crist, who served from 2007 to 2011:
"We never should have had that downturn," Scott told the Sayfie Review Florida Leaders Summit in Orlando, suggesting that Florida’s economic troubles in the midst of the global recession that spiraled out of control in 2008 after the fall of the nation’s largest investment banks was the fault of his predecessor, former Gov. Charlie Crist.
It was not immediately clear whether Scott believed that Crist actually caused the banking crisis and collapse in mortgage-based securities that led to the recession, or if he held Crist responsible for failing to use powerful magic to prevent Florida from being affected by the worldwide economic decline.
As Tampa Bay Times columnist Mary Ellen Klas (and can we just say that we think we are falling in Journo Love with the TBT? ) points out, Scott's remarks were "unadorned by context or explanation," and seemed to claim that a state governor could have somehow prevented a national collapse in real estate prices from touching Florida, because somehow a really GOOD governor could just do that:
"If you think about it our country, all of our states are competing for jobs," Scott told reporters after his remarks to the group. "We’re a state that has no income tax; we’ve never had one; we’re a right to work state, low business tax; we’ve got the expansion of the Panama Canal. We’re the gateway to Latin America. So if you think about that, we shouldn’t have had the downturn. We shouldn’t have lost those 832,000 jobs before I became governor."
Scott did not explain exactly how Crist should have used the Panama Canal and low business taxes to prevent the recession from affecting Florida homeowners whose houses became underwater debt-holes; perhaps they simply should have shipped their homes (and all those unemployed building-sector people) tax-free to Latin America?
If re-elected, Scott promised to ensure Florida's economy that would never again be subject to larger economic forces through a strict regimen of tax cuts, drug testing of poor people, and preservation of Second Amendment rights. He then left the venue riding on a large pink dragon.
[ Tampa Bay Times ]
The only difference between a commenter at Red State and Rick Scott is their occupation.
Uh, Ricky boy, that Panama Canal thing... are you saying that shipping through the canal is significant to Florida's economy? Because if you're not, that makes absolutely zero fucking sense at all. And if you are, then two things. First, work to expand the canal is ongoing, as in it's ongoing, as in it hasn't increased traffic even now, let alone back in '08. Second, you do realize that global shipping volume absolutely tanked, I mean collapse, I mean fell through the floor, I mean cratered, as a result of the Great Recession, don't you? In other words, if shipping is A Thing for Florida, that's just another reason that Florida couldn't possibly have avoided the recession.