The Republican Party in Florida served up “a sh*t sandwich” with unemployment.
And they’re trying to blame the previous Republican governor, Rick Scott, who, to be honest, does deserve a large chunk of the blame. Politico:
Privately, Republicans admit that the $77.9 million system that is now failing Florida workers is doing exactly what Scott designed it to do — lower the state’s reported number of jobless claims after the great recession.
“It’s a sh– sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott,” said one DeSantis advisor. “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”
Republican Party of Florida chairman Joe Gruters was more succinct: “$77 million? Someone should go to jail over that.”
Floridians who never had to think about politics now have a maximum unemployment benefit during a pandemic of $275.00 per week because Florida Republicans thought that was a good way to keep people off the rolls.
Pay attention: Republicans thought it was no big deal to put up barriers to unemployment insurance when unemployment was low, except they didn’t actually know how many unemployed there are because they put up barriers to finding out.
