Florida Republicans have complete control over the state’s government, and they can’t even get that right.
Florida’s Legislature collapsed into chaos Tuesday as the House unilaterally ended the annual session with more than three days left, leaving dozens of major bills dead and escalating tensions between the House and Senate over their health care stalemate.
The state Senate responded by remaining in session for two more hours and announcing plans to return Wednesday, an attempt to send the message that they are willing to work through the impasse that has bitterly divided Republicans, and frayed emotions.
“Nobody won today,” said Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, after the Senate adjourned for the day. “Nobody won. Taxpayers lost. It’s an unfortunate turn of events.”
Well, hope nobody was expecting anything important out of these guys.
At the heart of the dispute is the question of whether to expand Medicaid to draw down federal money to provide health care for 850,000 uninsured residents who must otherwise rely on charity care. The federal government is phasing out a program to reimburse hospitals that provide care for low-income or indigent patients, known as the Low Income Pool, or LIP, as it shifts to new programs provided by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
As part of the budget negotiations, the Senate wants to expand Medicaid and impose new requirements on low-income residents as it phases out LIP funds. The House rejects that idea, arguing that Medicaid is a “broken” program and prefers instead to rely on the federal LIP funds — at least for another year.
The governor, who has sided with the House on the Medicaid debate and called individual senators to his office last week to threaten vetoes of their priorities if he didn’t get his tax cut bill, had little to say Tuesday.
“We understand why the House did what they did. We will see what the Senate does tomorrow,” Scott spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said.
To recap, Florida’s House literally quit their session because the Republicans running the state Senate couldn’t agree on precisely how miserable to make the lives of poor Floridians who need healthcare: either by the Senate plan “expanding” Medicaid and then making qualifying for it next to impossible, or stick with the House plan of using the Low Income Pool that’s phasing out and was only designed as a bandage on a sucking chest wound.
This is the major problem with finishing the state’s budget: how badly to screw over the poors.
Awesome.
Paul in KY
Florida! Makes a KY boy not feel so down about living in KY. Hopefully, this kind of stuff will doom Gov. Voldemort.
boatboy_srq
I really need BC’s take here, but IIRC the Teahad went to Tallahassee with the express intent of throwing sabots in the gears because Gubmint Is and Ever Shall Be THE Problem. Looks like that plan is succeeding.
Notice that taxpayers losing, and the possibility of somebody winning, are two entirely distinct thoughts here. Zero-Sum Politics?
Betty Cracker
This situation’s only utility is as a demonstration that Republicans can’t govern effectively even when they have all the power. But since politics in Florida (and nationwide) has essentially devolved into a team rivalry spectator sport, it won’t make a damn bit of difference.
boatboy_srq
@Paul in KY: If that were possible then he’d have lost reelection. Voldemort and his Death Eaters have been at this since Day One. Quite a few former Teahadist acquaintances down that way were absolutely aghast after his first six months or so – but when cornered on it, would exclaim “Well, yeah, I voted for him because I liked his rhetoric – but I never thought he’d actually do any of it!” And yet here we are in 2015 and Voldemort is still in charge…
The Golux
It’s difficult to observe Republican behavior because of the necessity to laugh and vomit simultaneously.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: “Can’t” – or “won’t”?
Mike J
@boatboy_srq:
If you ever want to get downvoted on social media, simply point out that there exist actual policy differences between Republicans and Democrats. You’ll then be told, “nah, they’re all alike and none of them mean what they say.”
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: Oh crap, thought he still had to win a re-election. Very sorry for everyone living in FL right now. Thanks for the info.
Big ole hound
And yet folks in FL just keep re-electing these assholes because they think any Democrat is going to steal and/or tax their retirement funds and put in death panels. Instead of drug testing food stamp applicants maybe a sanity test should be administered to voters over 70 just like drivers license tests.
trollhattan
@Mike J:
Okay, which of my in-laws are you, again? Have a hard time keeping them apart, usually.
Villago Delenda Est
It is painfully obvious that it is the will of the majority of voters in Florida that the poors be punished as much as possible.
Betty, get out while you still can, before Bugs Bunny does what must be done.
Roger Moore
@boatboy_srq:
Can’t. Even if they were trying, they aren’t competent enough to carry it out. That’s because rhetoric is rewarded over results.
Iowa Old Lady
These people are cruel. It’s their primary characteristic.
Ben Cisco
@Villago Delenda Est: If he did that to every area that earned it (while leaving the rest of us in place, the US would resemble the world’s largest block of Swiss cheese.
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore: The rhetoric, though, is almost entirely “Gubmint is the problem / drown it in a bathtub” stuff. So it’s not as if, following their platform, trying has any value (quite the reverse). I suspect you’re right, but it’s still a valid question.
boatboy_srq
@Mike J: I think the thing that scares me most about the Teahad is that they really do mean all the nutty things they say.
trollhattan
@boatboy_srq:
As an example: Cliven Bundy, who has got everything he wants, for free, and the added bonus of demi-deity status among the bagger set. They hope to capitalize and spread little Clivens everywhere.
rikyrah
Alycee @jazziz2
It’s #CNN! Can’t Be Serious: CNN Mistakes Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Members In Baltimore For Gang Bangers http://awe.sm/jMtRk via @Bossip
1:30 PM – 29 Apr 2015
ThresherK
Slightly O/T, but Florida has competition from Kansas:
Just what Kansas needs: A 21st century christianist equivalent to the Stations of the Cross!
kindness
What is funny (not funny really) is that Florida here is not only screwing over their poor (which they would do every day of the week if they could) but also that they are screwing over their Hospitals. You know, the ones that provide them with emergency health care. Wonder who the state Hospital Association is going to give money to next election cycle?
Mustang Bobby
I work with folks that make a living lobbying the legislature and their mood coming home was unbridled disgust at the infantile behavior. “F*cking idiots” was the nicest they could say, and that from a registered Republican.
And yet the Florida Democratic Party could hold their next convention in a phone booth.
Mike J
@ThresherK: One thing I’ve learned from watching Supernatural, there’s a lot of demon summoning, etc going on in Kansas. More likely that’s what he was doing.
shortstop
@Mike J: wish I hadn’t been drinking seltzer while reading that.
Goblue72
@rikyrah: same CNN newsbigot who got into an argument with a Balmer city councilman over her using the word thug repeatedly. He eventually lost it – quite justifiably – and told her should go ahead and say nigger.
I’m so sick of white people this week.
Punchy
Just when I think that KS has taken a substantial lead in the Dicks to the Poor Race, FL chugs a Red Bullshit and dashes ahead in a flash.
In KS, the leggy has the deer-in-headlight look as they cannot fathom how, without anything left to cut, they cannot balance a budget without a tax increase. I suspect FL Republicans are almost to that moment. It’s both amazing and amusing to see their ideology completely crushed by basic math and accounting.
Peale
@Goblue72: I don’t know. I caught some CNN woman apologizing on TV for implying that having so many veterans on the police force might be a source of the problem. See. They’ll backtrack quick immediately when it is the veterans who are complaining.
Mike J
Start whistling Colonel Bogey’s March. The great escape may be on for Leicester.
Iowa Old Lady
@Punchy: I hope they backtrack. Sometimes they say “Give it time! The magic dust will work in time!”
Doug r
@Mike J: then I usually throw up a link to that vote where all the Republicans vote against equal pay
Chris
I fucking loathe these people. Took great pains to vote, was out of the country at the time but ensured the absentee ballot with plenty of time and all that, precisely because I knew this was at stake and I’m very much in the category of people who are just a few bad turns from needing Medicaid help.
I don’t know who I want to burn to a crisp more – the Republicans (from Congress right on down to the average voter) or the fucking fucks who didn’t turn out and vote.
Mike in NC
@ThresherK: As has been said many times before, Republicans care about a child’s life from time of conception to date of birth. Then they’re on their own.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
I concur.
gene108
@kindness:
Gov. Scott was a hospital big shot. Therefore, I am guessing Republican.
I’m guessing the folks, who run the hospitals are all right-wing tools, who only think of bonuses and how to gouge more money out of the system.
They’d rather take their chances that a few of their competitors will go out of business than do anything to hurt what they already have.
Chris
@Mike in NC:
Interestingly, I remember a Pat Robertson quote about the Chinese policy of forced abortion that was basically saying “well yeah, they’re doing what they’ve got to do cause they’ve got a big population problem – why don’t you ease up off their case, a little?”
Whether that means “we don’t give a shit about babies, it really is all about controlling women” or “we give a shit about white babies, but much as we compare abortion to eugenics we’re actually all for it when it reduces the number of Chinese babies” isn’t clear, but either way…
rikyrah
@boatboy_srq:
TELL THE TRUTH.
Elections have consequences.
Like with Kansas, they had the opportunity to correct their mistake and failed to do so.
oh well.
BGinCHI
As usual, the Onion is smarter about Baltimore than the beltway media and cable news:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/baltimore-residents-urged-to-stay-indoors-until-so,38511/
opiejeanne
@Chris: what’s clear to me is that it’s about telling women what they either must or must not do. It’s about power over women. The seeming contradiction disappears when you look at it like that.
Chris
@Iowa Old Lady:
I’ve said many times that that Ron Paul moment at CPAC when he was asked “well, so do you think people who don’t have health insurance should just die?” and the audience just yelled “YEAH!!!” is the modern conservative movement distilled to its purest essence. If the history books need to pick one thirty-second clip to explain this era in U.S. history, that should be it.
@kindness:
People here and on other blogs have been noting for some time that it’s no longer about the money. Maybe it never was. They care more about control over people (even if they way to achieve that costs rather than earns money), about tribal affiliation with Team Right Wing, and about pure mindless spite.
Frankensteinbeck
Yes. Republicans are exactly as awful as their actions imply. I know people don’t seem to want to think that a large portion of the electorate specifically wants to hurt others as much as possible, even if it hurts themselves, but the truth is right in front of us.
And no, it’s no accident that they think most of the poors are black.
jimbo2112
It’s overused, but oh so a propos:
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Tenar Darell
@rikyrah: @Goblue72: That was Burnett too. Check out the Mediaite.
One more and there’s a pattern. Wonderful. /snark
SatanicPanic
@Mike J:
Absolutely. I try to point out that whether or not they’ll do what they say, they will do something, and that something is probably going to be more one thing than another. But that’s maybe too complicated.
ETA- the other thing I see a lot of is “they use race to divide us!” Shut up fools, people are racist. The political system may have created that 300 years ago, but at this point it’s just responding to something that exists.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: Which isn’t really that high a bar considering how dunderheaded the Beltway media is.
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
Dennis Green told us..
THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE
And no, it’s no accident that they think most of the poors are black.
Keep on telling that truth.
TELL IT!!
Cervantes
@Chris:
What Robertson did explicitly was to defend China’s one-child policy, citing over-population and saying that the U.S. should not intervene. He did also say he was not defending forced abortion.
Was he confused, you ask? Well, isn’t he always?
japa21
@gene108: Except it won’t be their competitors going out of business. The hospitals that will suffer, and many already have are usually small, what are called Critical Access hospitals, where there is no other hospital in at least a 25 mile radius and frequently greater than that.
Some of these are run by city or country governments, some are owned by larger chains. For example, a hospital owned by HCA, the company Scott was once CEO of, recently closed. How much of that was due to lack of Medicare expansion is unknown. But hospitals have closed and more will
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
I have to agree with your ETA. I hate the notion that racist and fundamentalist voters who vote Republican are just ignorant dupes being “used” by the rich and powerful, because I just think it’s going way too easy on them. They’re not being used. They may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they understand enough to know who will suffer the most from the policies Republicans support, and that’s what they’re basing their votes on. Full stop.
Marc McKenzie
@Mike J: Truth. Try it on Crooks and Liars, Alternet, Truthout, and other sites and you’ll get hammered.
Of course, you’d be right (and there is a heaping pile of evidence to prove that there are vast differences between the two parties), but some people just cannot remove their heads from their @$$es, I guess. When you’ve got someone who believes that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are Republicans (or, as some fool commented here once “tactical Republicans”), you have to consider them a lost cause.
Marc McKenzie
@Chris: “I don’t know who I want to burn to a crisp more – the Republicans (from Congress right on down to the average voter) or the fucking fucks who didn’t turn out and vote.”
I’d like to burn both groups. For me, though, the f@&*s who didn’t vote are the worst, especially those who know damned well what the GOP will do but don’t vote to “send a message” because no one brought them their unicorns.
Mike J
@Marc McKenzie: Cynicism depresses voter turnout. Low turnout helps Republicans.
The purpose of continually screaming that the government can never work is to seize control of it.
Marc McKenzie
@Chris: I also remember that moment from Ron Paul. And yet there were still folks on our side of the fence–I’m looking at you, Robert Scheer–who still kissed Paul’s @$$ and claimed that he was better than Obama. Because legalized weed and isolationism or some other bull.
Marc McKenzie
@Mike J: Agreed. So why the hell don’t more people on our side get it?
SatanicPanic
@Chris: At this point you could argue that the tea party voters are pushing the elites to be more racist than they already would be- or at least more openly so.
Marc McKenzie
@rikyrah: Right on, Rikyah.
Belafon
OT: If a FPer wants to put up something really important, write about Joseph Kent’s arrest: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/29/1381201/-The-world-wants-to-know-exactly-happened-to-Joseph-Kent. It looks like something out of a movie.
sharl
OT, in another episode in the endless series How Far Have Our “News” Media Personalities Fallen, meet Ashleigh Banfield, who has fallen from this
to this
{Pats head} Good girl, Ashleigh, gooood girl. If you keep being good, and avoiding antiwar talk and other unpleasantness, you’ll be back on top in no time. Just don’t screw up like you did before, mmmkay?
scav
TX now seems to officially think a Bbbbblitzkrieg!! is started by the military pressing on the doorbell and reminding all that they’ll be practicing a few maneuvers on what still is technically part of the same nation. And Oh do I love the one-eared rabbit photo at TMP: ETA CLEANUP
ETA better link
TX Gov Orders State Guard to Monitor Possible Military Takeover of Texas
trollhattan
@scav:
Love the Wonkette title from the RSS feed box above:
“Hero Gov. Greg Abbott Will Stop Obama From Doing Martial Law And ISIS To Poor Texans”
It’s like they have an itchy spot of weird they can’t help but scratch, like a dog with a skin condition.
rikyrah
this is who they are.
how many times do they have to actually VOTE ON SHYT FOR PEOPLE TO REALIZE THIS IS WHO THEY ARE?
………………
April 29, 2015 4:11 PM
Mind-Boggling Budget
By Ed Kilgore
The bad news is that House and Senate Republican negotiators have reached agreement on the outlines of a FY 2016 budget resolution that would include $5 trillion in spending cuts over ten years—just what our fragile economic recovery needs—though some defense spending cuts would be rescinded through the back door of emergency or contingency funds. Since the resolution does not include a House-passed Medicare voucher proposal long supported by Paul Ryan, that $5 trillion would almost have to cut means-tested entitlements and domestic discretionary programs by some just unimaginable amounts.
The good news is that this is simply a resolution, and that any subsequent reconciliation bill to implement it could and would be vetoed by the president.
I’m guessing that most news coverage of this development will focus on the least relevant aspect of this resolution—yet another statement of intent to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. (It’s unclear from The Hill’s description if there’s any evidence of a contingency funding of health care purchasing subsidies if SCOTUS decides for the plaintiffs in Burwell v. King).
But before you brush the whole thing off as a nothing-burger, remember that this bill is a pretty good example of what we can expect to actually happen if Republicans hang onto control of Congress and win the White House next year. Reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, and a whole lot can happen really fast.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_04/mindboggling_budget055314.php
scav
@trollhattan: I’m enjoying what those lily white patriots of Basco et al TX would do if facing down what the Republican gov is imposing on Baltimore to “protect order” and no doubt remind everyone to obey the official men with the guns. Republican governor extends 24-hour detention-without-charge limit ‘to protect public safety’ while courts impose sky-high bail bonds for minor offences
But in Texas, apparently, those fearing the guys in Uniforms with Guns must be placated and reassured and coddled.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
All of them, Katie.
Too glib by half but hasn’t the Republican side of congress been doing this 24/7 since Newt and his “Contract with America”? The essential fact they have behind them is if they keep taking potshots long enough, eventually they get their kill. They know it takes one stroke of a pen to destroy something that may have taken decades to build and thus, tearing apart the gummint is asymmetrical warfare. And, yes, it gets MUCH easier given total control.
Mike in NC
@scav: Many of the faces in that crowd practically scream “morans”.
bemused
Who is surprised that there is complete chaos when republicans have complete control? Anyone?
PaulW
Here I am in Florida, raging about this sh-t and actually rooting for the Senate Republicans to charge the House Republicans for violating the state constitution (the law says both houses can’t quit early unless both houses agree in writing to do so).
http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/04/update-florida-two-things-to-anger-blood.html
Meanwhile Rick “No Ethics” Scott is suing Obama to keep paying the state in federal aid THAT DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE all because Scott wants to avoid taking the money that DOES EXIST in the ACA Medicaid expansion funding.
This is what we get, people, this is what we get when both the Republican wingnuts vote their crooks into office while the Democratic voters refuse to show up all because the Dem candidates aren’t progressive enough for their tastes. I’d like to see 50,000 Florida Democrats tell me now that Charlie Crist wasn’t worth their vote.
PaulW
@Betty Cracker:
If we actually challenged every district with candidates (Democrats didn’t in 2014), if we did more to kill those damned illegal gerrymanders (where the hell are the court cases?), maybe we’d have a more even playing field…
Part of me hopes this is it, the volcano eruption we need in this state to tip the balance from almost-Purple to full-on Blue. Where even the poor white voters who instinctively vote for the con-artists of the GOP all out of a “backing mah team” mindset get face-slapped with the reality that the crooks they elected are not doing them any favors and never have.
Marc McKenzie
@bemused: Not me.
I mean, it’s been plain as day since the ’90s and their white-hot rage tactics that were directed at Clinton. And then there was President G. W. Bush’s administration. But for some reason, some of us still pull the “not voting to send a message because both parties are the same” nonsense, despite the clear evidence that the modern GOP has gone mad.
And yet, it’s these people that are shocked, shocked when the GOP does their thing and goes berserk.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker:
BettyC et al,
It goes beyond this quite accurate analysis. The only thing the Florida legislature is legally required to do is pass a budget. The state GOP, funded by the state’s premier lobby/professional association, Associated Imdustries of Flordia, was able to hoodwink the African American members of the state legislature into a redistricting plan that cracked, bleached, and packed the state districts after the 1990 census, leading to their eventual takeover of the legislature. It is important to remember that Florida functions as a one party state: whichever party is in power gets the majority of funding from lobbyists, special interests, etc. Since their takeover two things have happened. The first is they consolidated their gains and padded their majority in each chamber. These gains include those by creative redistricting and gerrymandering. The second major effect is the inability to actually pass anything unless it’s in the budget. Sure they’ve been able to pass bills naming a state pie, sandwich, dance, and bird – this last one was touch and go as Florida’s premier lobbyist, Marrion Hammer aka the Gun Granny (she’s also dumb as a box of rocks and generally ignorant), inserted herself into the bird issue. Almost everything of importance, however, winds up crammed into the budget, which becomes a huge omnibus bill. Almost no one knows what’s in it, nor what they’ve voted on, until the various local newspapers go through it and start asking Florida’s legislators about what they voted for four to six weeks later. So… the outcome of this temper tantrum may be that Florida’s legislators are actually breaking the law by not passing a budget. I’m not sure what the upshot of that might be. Keep your eyes open for news reporters interviewing Professor Richard Scher, PhD from UF’s polisci department as he’s one of the top experts on the Florida legislature.
Full disclosure: I did my doctorate and post-doc at UF. One of the courses I taught at UF was state and local politics with a focus on Florida (so much material to work with…). Also, I know Richard Scher – a gentlemen and a scholar. And yes, state and local politics was well outside my specialty areas. It’s a long story…
Sherparick
@Mustang Bobby: That Florida Democrats have managed to lose to Scott twice does show a real talent for dysfunction. Again, Obama’s lack of interest in party building has to me been one of his biggest faults, and nothing shows this disinterest and low prioritization about Democratic Party then the installation of Debbie Wassmeran-Scultz as Party Chair and keeping her in the job as she has gone from one disaster to the next.
Sherparick
@PaulW: I am afraid poor and working people, white and black, are generally to caught up with getting through their lives day to day to pay much attention to this stuff. Further, they believe, correctly, that the system is stacked against them and that neither party has much incentive to change it. Finally, they are for the most part isolated and alone, except for those who affiliate with a church, and those folks in the white churches are being told all their problems are caused by Muslim minorities groups, President Obama, feminists getting abortions, and gays getting married provoking God’s judgement on America and that they need to vote Republican if they want to be “saved” when the Second Coming occurs; an event that they are told is imminent. So it is up to Florida’s elite, and Florida’s elite has done just fine, thank you very much, under Scott, Crisp, and Jeb, and it is all Government’s fault anyway for things not going great.
Cervantes
@Adam L Silverman:
She was president of the NRA during the Clinton Administration, if memory serves.
boatboy_srq
@PaulW:
Or Alex Sink, for that matter.
Adam L Silverman
@Cervantes:
Yep, she was also the state of Florida NRA president for years in addition to her other lobbying duties.