Letters: Fla. Gov. Scott's pointless piracy

GIVEN WHAT Salon describes as the "corruption spiral" that Florida Gov. Rick Scott faces back home, it's not hard to see why he came to Philadelphia this week for a few days of freezing weather.

What makes less sense is the economic development narrative that Gov. Scott is peddling here in Philadelphia, with the stated goal of poaching Pennsylvania businesses and jobs.

What Gov. Scott is prescribing is a heavy dose of a classic "southern strategy" - lower taxes, cut spending, deregulate, weaken worker rights, yada, yada, yada.

As a matter of public policy, someone should clue in Gov. Scott to the fact that job piracy is a waste of time and money. The economic development watchdog group Good Jobs First has repeatedly cited business-census data that proves that every state gains nearly all of its new jobs from the expansion of existing employers and from business start-ups.

Worse, pirating jobs by bribing a few high-profile companies - many of whom were moving anyway - is a negative-sum waste of taxpayer resources. The "war between the states" deprives states, as a group, of the funds they need to invest in education, infrastructure, skills, innovation and the green economy - the real foundation of good jobs and rising living standards.

In both Pennsylvania and Florida, unaffordable corporate tax breaks under Govs. Corbett and Scott reduced state revenues in the slow recovery from the Great Recession. Lower revenues, in turn, contributed to education funding cuts in each state of at least a billion dollars (more in Scott's case). In Pennsylvania, an unbalanced, cuts-only approach to managing the state budget led to a loss of 27,000 education jobs and a 50th place job-growth ranking during Gov. Corbett's single term.

In Florida, Gov. Scott has restored some education funding, and job growth is better - but Scott's low-wage strategy has produced, well, low wages. Since Scott took office, Florida's median hourly wage has fallen another dollar per hour, ranking Florida 49th for wage growth. Florida's top 1 percent now takes home nearly a third of all income in the state, a distribution more skewed than in all but two other states.

Florida also has the second-most unfair state and local tax system (compared to Pennsylvania's sixth most unfair), with low-income families paying seven times the tax rate that the top 1 percent does. With so much money flowing to the top but top tax rates so low, it's no wonder Florida doesn't have the revenue to invest in growing good jobs at home.

Gov. Scott is not only trumpeting an economic approach with a dismal record, he's also setting a new low in partisanship.

For decades, state economic-development policy has been a sanctuary of nonpartisanship, rooted in both parties' support of job creation. But now Gov. Scott, following in the footsteps of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, has launched partisan attacks on a group of Democratic governors. Pennsylvania is the first state Scott is gracing with a field trip instead of just a gratuitous and insulting letter.

While pitting states against each other in an economic race-to-the-bottom is both divisive and a dead end for Florida, Pennsylvania and America, it shouldn't surprise us that Gov. Scott can't see this. He is, after all, a climate-change denier, even as Miami floods on sunny days due to rising sea levels. This is one reason green businesses such as mine are happy that Pennsylvania has a reality-based governor who understands that real economic dynamism comes from a smart blend of public and private investment and, yes, smart regulation.

Philadelphia voted last November for a new and different economic direction than Gov. Scott's, one based on restoring cuts to education funding and requiring everyone to pay their fair share of taxes, including drilling companies, so that the state can invest in growing its own businesses.

In light of the state's fresh rejection of what he is peddling, Gov. Scott shouldn't be surprised that the City of Brotherly Love is giving him something of a cold reception.

I'd like to talk more about this, but I have to get back to running my business - in Pennsylvania.