Congress has until midnight tomorrow to avoid the threat of a sequester, and Florida's two most prominent Republicans seem to have different attitudes on the situation. Sen. Marco Rubio, oddly, doesn't think sequestration is ideal, but doesn't seem to mind it too much. He told Fox News this morning that focusing on "those programs that most impact people" is a "time-tested tactic" to "create outrage."
Gov. Rick Scott, however, came out with a stern letter directed to President Obama and the Congress. "If your administration fails to do its job to responsibly manage the budget, thousands of Floridians will lose their jobs," Scott wrote.
Scott doesn't seem too concerned about possible cuts to social programs like Medicare and treatment for HIV/AIDS patients, but more about the effects to the Defense Department. Scott points out that the defense industry contributes $73.4 billion to Florida's economy and 754,000 job in the state each year. He outlines all the negative effects sequestration cuts could have on the industry in Florida. Check out his full letter here.
Rubio doesn't seem particularly concerned with any of the specific negative effects of sequestration.
"This is not the best way to do it, but it's better than raising taxes as an alternative and it's better than doing nothing," he told Fox.
"I think this idea of somehow making the cuts as painful as possible, in essence, focusing them on those programs that most impact people, as a way to create outrage, is a time-tested tactic that's used all the time at the state level when people, for example, threaten to cut some program or another. So, look, I think the bottom line is, yes, this is not the best way to do it, but we're not going to walk away from this in exchange for tax increases."
Rubio's line of thinking seems to be that while the Sequester isn't ideal, its preferable to what he perceives the long term damage would be stemming from raising taxes and not getting the country's debt under control.
"I mean those cuts, those things that people are going to face is nothing compared to what this nation is going to face if we continue to spend a trillion dollars a year more than we take in," he said.
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