‘It's a sh-- sandwich': Republicans rage as Florida becomes a nightmare for Trump

[libertybele]

This is despicable and disgraceful.  Scott did FL no favors and yet he's voted into the Senate.  Businesses love Scott for a reason; he's as crooked as they come!  He also messed up the Pension system.  These people have been out of work for weeks, have families to feed. 

‘It's a sh-- sandwich': Republicans rage as Florida becomes a nightmare for Trump

The staggering unemployment exploding on President Donald Trump’s watch would worry any incumbent running for reelection, but troubles in Florida are injecting an added dose of fear into a jittery GOP.

Already anxious about Trump’s chances in the nation’s biggest swing state, Republicans now are dealing with thousands of unemployed workers unable to navigate the Florida system to apply for help. And the blowback is directed straight at Trump’s top allies in the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott.

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.”

Congress last week delivered relief in the form of a $2 trillion stimulus package that directs cash to the unemployed. But to get that money into the pockets of Floridians, the state will have to duct-tape the rickety web-based unemployment system to deliver it.
.....................The new online system was part of a series of changes designed to limit benefits. The ultimate goal — which it delivered on — was to lower unemployment taxes paid by Florida businesses. A 2011 analysis done by the Florida Legislature estimated that the changes pushed by Scott would save businesses more than $2.3 billion between 2011 and 2020. ............

With hundreds of thousands of Floridians out of work, the state’s overwhelmed system is making it nearly impossible for many people to even get in line for benefits.

After a record number of claims were reported Thursday, DeSantis said the state would resort to paper applications, build a mobile app to handle the flood of traffic and deploy hundreds, even thousands, of state workers to provide stopgap help. ............

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its-a-sh-sandwich-republicans-rage-as-florida-becomes-a-nightmare-for-trump-1271172

[Smokin Joe]

Can the governor call a special session of the legislature?
Meet with them and outline the problem.
Fix it. Be that guy.

Last time I was unemployed and eligible for UI here, it was so incredibly difficult to meet all the requirements, I went out and got a low wage job (lower than I had to accept) just to have some income and not eat the savings (as fast).

I quickly ran out of places to apply to.

[libertybele]

Can the governor call a special session of the legislature?
Meet with them and outline the problem.
Fix it. Be that guy.

Last time I was unemployed and eligible for UI here, it was so incredibly difficult to meet all the requirements, I went out and got a low wage job (lower than I had to accept) just to have some income and not eat the savings (as fast).

I quickly ran out of places to apply to.

I would assume that he could.  I wrote a couple of weeks ago to DeSantis' office and to my state local rep making them aware of the problem ... normally when I e-mail them I get some sort of a response back from their office.  Nothing.

DeSantis was made aware of this problem years ago. He has absolutely failed on this.

Other states are reporting problems as well -- unfortunately the states that are reporting similar problems are red states (I have no doubt that the MSM is only going to report red states).

I do know for a fact, that Scott who appears to have designed this fiasco -- started making employees contribute to their pensions -- years after their pension agreements stated that the state would pay.  The reason the state of FL was contributing to their pensions was because state employees agreed to accept much lower wages than those in the private sector for similar jobs.

Hopefully DeSantis can fix this fiasco...from what I've seen he's been a really good governor.  This is a mess he inherited but he also knew about it and if indeed he did nothing to keep the unemployment numbers down, then shame on him.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/politics/unemployment-benefits-states-coronavirus/index.html