Charlie Crist Puts Florida Up For Sale

Here’s Charlie Crist’s budget strategy, sell off Florida:   Looking to plug a $1.1 billion hole in the state budget, Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday that he is considering lots of options — including turning the state lottery over to private vendors. The Republican governor also said the state might draw more money into the treasury by allowing private companies to build, service and maintain some Florida roads in exchange for a share of toll revenue. Talk about selling off Florida to private corporations for political gain. Apparently giving us massive budget shortfalls and a poor economy wasn’t enough for Republicans. Now rather than fix our problems, they are going to use the opportunity to pander still yet more to private companies at the expense of average Floridians.

“I don’t know if it’s good or bad at this point,” cautioned Crist, who acknowledged he had not floated these concepts by state legislative leaders. Is he serious? Charlie Crist has really shown that he does not know how to manage a budget on this one. Sure, if we want some quick cash then we can sell every state operation that exists, but it is not going to solve the long term problems in Florida’s budget. In fact, by giving away a source of continuous revenue to private companies, it will make our budget situation worse in the long term future and lead to more revenue shortfalls for years to come, especially since it sounds like Crist wants to use all the money at once to save his floundering government. Of course Charlie Crist and the Republican Party don’t care. If they can find any way to sell off more and more of Florida to greedy corporations and make it sound like a win, then they’re going to do it.  But are the voters of Florida really going to accept this, selling off toll roads and the lottery? It is a very extreme idea. The last thing we need is for our roads to be run by a business. Not only is the financial situation just not there for Floridians, but we’re talking about the prospect of roads left un-repaired and infrastructure being left to wear down, with decisions made by businesses, who have no interest in nor accountability from the average Floridian, on when to fix them.

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