Jobs: Moving Florida Forward

 

 

Mon 20 Jun 11 | 08:46 AM ET

The following transcript has not been checked for accuracy.

forward. chamber of commerce holding an event to talk job creation. joining us now, florida governor rick scott weighing in on the discussion paul ryan. reque good morning, governor. how what will you bring to the dialogue in terms of how to create jobs? as you know, florida is doing really well. we've had a drop in our unemployment every month sense i came in office. so i'm talking about the fact that we're probably the only start that has reduced taxes this year. i walked in with a $3.7 billion deficit and we now going forward have a $1.1 billion surplus. we're reducing regulations, getting our state back to work. what can the federal government or nartion as a whol? we can't get rid of our income tax. you can reduce spending. the federal government should reduce spending. they need to reduce taxes. as congressman ryan knows, they need to give the state block grants for medicaid. that would reduce federal government spending, help our states control our spending. but it's the basic things. reduce spending, reduce taxes, have a different attitude. reduce regulation. make this the country like what we're doing in florida, make this the country that people want to open their businesses rather than another country like panama or brazil, countries that we're competing with. but we're doing the right thing in florida and it's happening. right now i know i'm competing with governor perry in texas. i call him all the time telling him he's been the number one job creator. we're heading down the path of beating him this year hopefully. you're a private sector health care health ca health care experth. give us your sense on how you would come it if you're given this flexibility. and what's the best way to get at health inflation which is the biggest driver of our fiscal problem up here in washington. the only thing that works with health care is you get the individual to choose health care as engaged in the process as possible. so with medicaid, for example, they need to have choices on what type of health care plans they want and they need to have some sort of co-payment. very small, but they need to participate in the decision. so in our start, we can tig out how to spend the money better than all the strings attached from the federal government. but you take medicaid the same issue you have with private insurance. private companies have learned the more you have the individual involved in the health care decision and a little bit of the cost, they spend the money better. it's the only way you control health care and make sure people still have access to great quality health care. this is a difference in between where rick and i stand and where our prior speakers were. there's a belief in washington that you can kell gate todelega panel of 15 experts. no. rick, c you've shown how youn get at the root and make consumer powerful. but the consumer thinks when you hand it over to the private sector and there's a profit motive involved, that you'll spend more time trying to make sure you get your privates back and not give the coverage. what happens is if it's your money, you spend it better. you make sure that people don't waste your money. you'll buy the health care you need. you know what your needs are. 20 years ago i had kid any stones. can i tell you everything about kidney stones and thousahow to t them. you get the individual involved, they will eye say do i need the mri or can you use the x-ray. but is there a need for oversight over the private health care sector to make sure they're keeping -- there's logical oversight. but it's like what our states have done, we have all these mandates to make our health insurance cost too much. with regard to medicare, if the federal government would cut the strings, i could make sure that i take care of floridians because i know what we need in florida and if i didn't do the right thing, i wouldn't get reelected. governor,thing, i wouldn't get re-elected at the end of the day. governor, that's what i'm worried about. paul ryan is talking about not having to get re-elected is the only way to do the right thing. but your poll numbers down there, maybe you don't care at this point, but there's a journal piece or a new york times piece about how walker, you, some of the other ratings are so low, it's going to help in the national election. that governors that have made some of these hard decisions that it's going to hurt the entire party. i'm just wondering whether the republican party sort of put it all down on 2010 and now with these tough proposals, a lot of seniors are scared and they see scott walker with unions. if you lie to seniors, you can scare them. are you going to get re-elected, governor? here is the issue in our state. it's jobs. look at what is happening. i got re-elected. i ran on a platform of how to get our state back to work. seven steps, 700,000 jobs. people know we're heading in the right direction. as our jobs come back, which you can see they are, that's what's going to make our state happy. we're going to make our state the most likely to succeed. that will be important for people in 2014 when i run for re-election. but in 2012, the key will be who has the right blueprint for job creation? if the democrats do, they'll win. if the republicans do, they'll win. that's the key, it's job creation. do you want to have a final -- yeah, look, on health care, who do you want to be in charge, you or the government? individuals want to be in charge of their health care decisions. governor, thanks. we finally got you on. we appreciate it. hope to see you again. all right. thanks a lot. have a great day.