Welcome to

Governor Rick Scott continued to promote the state’s job creation as he announced his candidacy for the U-S Senate today. But as Mike Vasilinda tells us, early in his Gubernatorial career he dampened the prospects of living up to a campaign process to create 7 hundred thousand new jobs.

This was Rick Scott, at a debate, running for Governor in 2010.

“So our plan is seven steps to seven hundred thousand jobs and that plan is on top of what normal growth would be.”

The important phrase here…

“and that plan is on top of what normal growth would be.”

But 10 months into Scotts first term, Florida’s economy was still struggling. Unemployment was higher than the national average. Scott was asked if he could still create the jobs promised.

“The initial promise was to create 700,000 on top of…”

“No. Lets remember the facts. We have 900,000 people out of work, so I can’t do a lot more than that 700,000.” 

Democrats call it the ultimate flip flop.

Ion Sancho was one a several Democrats who spoke immediately after Scott announced his run for the US Senate.

“He promised seven hundred thousand new jobs on top of the existing jobs. That quite frankly, it never happened” says Sancho.

But fast forward seven years, and Scott seems to have met his initial goal. His official web site shows nearly a million and a half jobs created since Scott taking office.  Brian Burgess was Scott’s Communications director in 2011.

“He said he was gonna do it and then backed away from it.?”

“No, I don’t think he backed away from it. I reject the idea that he backed away from anything. He promised seven hundred thousand jobs. His plan was seven, seven, seven. It wasn’t seven, seven, and an asterisk” Burgess told us.

Ironically, the economy has boomed. Scott has lived up to his promise, and it may have been the only time since taking office he second guessed himself.

Original expectations were that Florida’s economy would have created as many a million jobs without the Jobs growth plan promoted by the Governor, so he is slightly behind the one point seven million jobs, but he has until December to finish the job.