OK. I guess technically the title is not true. If folks hadn’t been laid off and collected Unemployment Compensation, the funds would just be sitting in the various state coffers, unused. But the unemployed are not the reason the economy tanked; the unemployed are not the ones sending jobs overseas; the unemployed are not the ultimate root cause of the problem.

I like teachers. They are really smart. They’re cool and they are very patient while kids are learning. But Scottdemort really hates teachers. Why does Scottdemort hate teachers?

Apparently the Beltway Village Idiots Pundits are anxious to stop writing all those bummer articles about the un and underemployed and the destruction of the global economy. I guess it’s just too Debbie Downer for them. So they’ve started the “Everything’s Getting Better” articles.

On the heels of massive public demonstrations in Wisconsin and Ohio after Republican governors over-played their hands in seeking to destroy collective bargaining for public employees and make punitive cuts to education, Florida may be next in line. Tuesday, March 8 has been designated the day to “Awake The State“, with over thirty demonstrations planned across the state, spanning from Key West to Pensacola. There will even be multiple demonstrations in Tallahassee and Miami.

What’s not to like about a governor who would actively spread lies to protect the income of criminals who kill seven people a day in his state?

On Wednesday, I wrote a post with the (admittedly rhetorical) title “Is Cutting Jobs Programs to Create Jobs Like Cutting Taxes to Increase Revenues?”

Today, I’d like to offer up a few more examples of how the new governors’ of Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin are treating workers within their states as they “create” jobs.

I noted yesterday that Rick Scott returned $2.4 billion in high speed rail money to the federal government, which would halt a planned project for an intercity link between Tampa and Orlando. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has dealt with this before with respect to Ohio and Wisconsin (there are those two states again), and he simply redistributed the money to states who wanted it. However, in this case, Florida Congressional leaders, Democrats and Republicans, are scheming to get the deal done anyway.

So today (February 16) the current governor of the state in which I reside (there is no ef’fing way I’m going to lay any claim of ownership to this person and call him my governor) decided that he would follow in the footsteps of his fellow first term Republican governors of Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Jersey and reject federal rail funds for Florida.

Just as we learned that cutting taxes does not raise revenues and magically balance budgets, so we will learn (I know, many of us already know this) that cutting jobs and killing programs will not create more jobs.

Wednesday’s Gainesville Sun provides details from a report prepared for the state of Florida that informs us that the 2010 gubernatorial race featured a much higher rate of undervotes than in the previous election cycle. While only 0.86 percent of ballots in 2006 had no vote for governor, the 2010 race saw that figure jump to 1.49 percent. The rate for traditionally Republican absentee voters not casting a vote for governor was even higher.

Public workers have become the new demons ruining America, with their greedy pay and pension benefits. As this video from Brave New Films makes clear, that notion is just a load of crap. Pension benefits are not all that generous for the vast majority of workers; the average benefit for th workers in Prichard, Alabama (who were eventually cut off) was pretty much the size of Social Security, around $1,000 a month. They signed a contract to receive those benefits, a contract singed by both sides, but contracts only matter when they have to do with AIG credit default swaps.