Sen. Don Gaetz: Florida's economy needs leaders, not naysayers

Letter to the Editor: Palm Beach Post - January 22, 2010
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By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FOR WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20
Posted: 6:35 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
Last Friday, some of our state's best minds came together at the 2010 Florida Jobs Summit to share ideas for growing Florida's economy and improving our post-recession competitive standing. The motive and the message, as Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a Democrat, put it: "Jobs. Jobs. Jobs."
My friend and colleague, Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston, chose not to participate. Instead, with a presumption of knowing what people will say and do, she lobbed partisan criticism from afar. In her letter to The Palm Beach Post the incoming Democratic leader of the Senate dismissed in advance the contributions of more than 300 Floridians as a "séance for old ideas."
Unlike President Obama's "jobs summit" in Washington, though, the Florida event was not a pep rally for politicians. Other than brief introductory comments, Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and Speaker-designate Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, made no speeches. They listened. They asked questions. They took notes. So did other Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
I filled a legal pad with job-creation ideas: from a spokesperson for union workers on film projects, a representative of employee groups working in our ports and people such as Rich Templin of the AFL-CIO and Miguel Fuentes of the Florida Carpenters Regional Council, all invited, all participating and hardly denizens of the right.
Yes, business owners came to ask for relief from triplicative government that numbs the willingness to risk capital. But nationally respected authorities with no apparent political DNA catalogued capital-attraction strategies of other states, making it obvious that Florida must change its business plan to become more competitive.
Sen. Rich is right that "recycling the same old ideas is inexcusable." That's why I wish she could have suspended partisan standoffishness to not only join us Friday in Orlando but to attend two other economic problem-solving sessions held last week in Tallahassee. On Thursday, the Council of 100 announced a plan to make a Florida public education far more valuable to students. Later that day, the Bob Graham Center at the University of Florida and the Askew Institute at Florida State University joined the James Madison Institute in presenting an analysis of innovative tax policies, targeted investments in higher education and the causes and effects of federal and state options in job creation.
Two former governors, both Democrats, joined Sen. Atwater, Sen. Haridopolos and other legislators as we questioned business economists as to how Florida can recover from the recession sooner and stronger. Sen. Rich chose not to be involved.
Florida needs leadership. That's why I hope Sen. Rich will join me and my colleagues in the 2010 session to foster more sustainable economic growth, better educate our workforce, reduce the burden on tax-stressed families and businesses, and promote jobs for Florida.
SEN. DON GAETZ
Niceville


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