There is an interesting side effect to our governor's decision to jettison the state's airplanes and rely on his own plane to travel around the state.
When Gov. Rick Scott took office he made a big show of ditching those nasty old planes that former governors, Cabinet members, legislators and even FSU football coaches have used for years.
As a candidate he railed against those who used the planes and promised to rid us of the problem while spending $75 million of his own money tooling around the state in his own private jet.
Now don't get me wrong; we have written miles of stories about public officials misusing the state-owned airplanes. It becomes something of a scandal about once a decade after newly elected folk start misusing the planes for friends and family and trips home or campaigning.
The state was drowning in red ink, foreclosures and unemployment, but Scott made it his first task to sell the planes and dismantle the agency that kept them in the air. The state netted about $560,000 from the sale after paying the money still owed on one of the planes.
You might wonder if he realized how much impact it would have on the three Cabinet members who are among those most likely to challenge him when he seeks re-election in 2014.
Read the column from Lucy Morgan.
While you're on the subject of misusing excercise of power, why don't you pursue the previous governors dealings. Our interstate highway (I95) has had two lanes in each direction privatized. There is a cost to utilize these lanes and who owns the company that keeps the records, collects the money and oversees the management of the SunPass? The Bush family. And who gets paid for every school child that takes the year end testing in the state. Right again. No Bush left behind. It's a great country isn't it?
Posted by: Lawrence Wiener | March 16, 2012 at 01:01 PM