Election Guide: Governor and Lieutenant Governor (Florida)

This guide is for Governor and Lieutenant Governor (Florida)

The seven candidates and their platforms:

1) Rick Scott (Republican).

• Institute "Accountability Budgeting."
  
• Opposed to immigration amnesty.
  
• Committed to "conserving Florida's natural resources" and preserving the Everglades."
  
• He started Columbia Hospital in 1987 which is now "the 12th largest employer in the world."
  
• Co-founder of Florida based Solantic Health.
  
• Opposes Obama's "government-run public option."
  
• Supports a state constitutional amendment that prohibits the federal government from imposing Obama's mandate.
  
• NRA member and supporter of the 2d Amendment.
  
• "Rick will create jobs by keeping taxes low and limiting job killing regulations."
  
• In the 1990s, the FBI launched an investigation of the Columbia Hospital which "led to the company pleading guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government." They "paid a record $1.7 billion in fines"

Sources: http://www.rickscottforflorida.com/home/
Sun-Sentinel article.
Tampa-Bay.com article.

2) Alex Sink (Democrat).

• "26 successful years in business."
  
• Currently Florida's Chief Financial Officer.
  
• Put a stop to "Project Aspire, an $89 million, over-budget and under-performing state accounting program she inherited upon taking office"
• Launched initiatives like the Safeguard Our Senior Task Force to "protect older Floridians from financial fraud" and Florida Housing Help, a program that "provides assistance to Floridians facing mortgage foreclosure."
• She is the chair of Take Stock in Children.
  
• She was president of Florida's largest bank, in charge of over "$40 billion in customer deposits while supervising more than 9,000 employees in 800 branches."
  
• "Stabilize and expand small business."
  
• Creation of a Florida job-creation tax credit.
• "Increase efforts to market Florida as a retirement destination."
  
• Use her role to promote successful companies in Florida to the world.
  
• Expand R&D tax credits.
  
• "Leverage up to $2 billion for high-tech investment" from the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund.
  
• Create Energy Finance Districts which would "provide residential, commercial, and industrial loans to retrofit properties with energy-efficient systems."
  
• Create a small business ombudsman within the Governor's Office.
  
• Will "require that state regulatory agencies work together to simplify regulations."
  
• Create a "one-stop" web portal for start-up businesses.
  
• Require all top state agency officials to sign performance contracts with benchmarks.
  
• Create a "non-partisan watchdog office...to make state government more efficient."
  
• Invest in high-quality pre-kindergarten education programs.
  
• Invest in intervention programs to reduce crime.
  
• Eliminate numerous exemptions from competitive bidding requirements.
  
• Consolidate call centers, the state fleet management and "unneeded state property."
• Reduce state cell phone usage to save "$6 million" as well as the use office supplies to save an additional $14 million.
  
• Go after more federal transportation funding.
  
• Hire a contractor to help the state draw down more federal funds.
  
• "Merit pay for teachers and charter schools need to be part" of educational reform.
  
• Require full disclosure of state party credit card spending.
  
• Ban gifts from Vendors to State agency employees.
  
• Promote Florida's new Property Assessed Clean Energy program, "which allows local governments to offer low-interest loans to property owners for making energy-efficient improvement to their homes."
  
• Impose "stiff state fines" on private companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers.
  
• Veto any legislation that diverts money from the state's highway trust fund to other projects.
  
• Offer tax incentives for businesses to use rail.
  

Sources: http://www.alexsink2010.com/
MyFloridaCFO.com
Sink Unveils Alternative Energy Plan

3) Peter Allen (Independent).

• Owner of two small businesses.
  
• "Graduated from Brandon High night school with a GED in 2000, at the age of fifty."
  
• Born on "all Saints day."
  
• "Eliminate the special tax privileges that riddle Florida's tax codes, close all loopholes. except those that provide wellcare to our Children and the Elderly."
• "Require that The Florida State Legislature provide full funding for all mandates they force on lower levels of government."
• "Include sunset clauses in legislation along with a statement of the law's original intent."
• "Restrict taxing authority to elected boards."
  
• "Require all student loan organizations to fully explain the cost for student loans."
• Promotes increasing Charter Schools.
  
• "Make the criminals pay for the criminal justice system."
• Privatize the states' prison system.
  
• Decriminalize small amounts of Marijuana.
  
• "Enact a Health Care Bill of Rights to provide basic health care to all of Florida's legal residents, and to protect the rights of citizens to freely exercise self interest in choosing health care."
• Charge illegal immigrants for health care and education.
  
• "Eliminate corporate welfare through public funding of professional sports stadiums and other commercial enterprises."
• "Set term limits for all elected officials."
• "Require all current office holder's to step down when running for another office, ending the Campaigning on the tax payer dollar."

Sources: http://peter4governor.com/governor/

4) Michael E. Arth (NPA).

• Created "Villages for the Homeless" an organization that fights to end homelessness with less money.
  
• Served as a public policy analyst for over 15 years.
  
• Redesigned Downtown DeLand's Historic Garden District.
• Supports a "woman's right to choose."
  
• "We must end the expensive and self-destructive war on drugs and treat abuse as the health issue it is."
  
• The death penalty is unconstitutional.
  
• Supports "regulated, limited public campaign financing with little or no private campaign financing allowed; direct voting; proportional representation; [and] instant runoff voting."
  
• "We should run our state like any prudent investor – put money into reserve in fat years and use those reserves in the lean years. That way, we can still follow Keynesian economics without going into debt."
• Encourage growth of Charter Schools.
  
• Have smaller class sizes.
  
• Use "personalized, interactive, online teaching...with small neighborhood schools."
  
• "We should not drill for oil off the coast."
  
• Charge a 25 cent environmental tax on plastic garbage bags and plastic water bottles.
  
• "Funding should not be connected with" the FCAT.
  
• Supports "equal rights, including marriage, for gays."
  
• "Extend Brady Background checks to all gun sales."
  
• Supports a "single-payer" health system but "we should leave off the extraordinary end of life care and the other things that cost a lot but do not improve our quality of life."
  
• "The government should stay out of the bedroom of consenting adults, but sex workers should have health and business–related regulations, and pay taxes, like the rest of us."
• "Divert the non–violent mentally ill and substance abusers to supervised housing and treatment that would cost society a fraction as much."
• Believes in the "constitutional separation of church and state."
  
• Supports the Europe value added tax (VAT).
  
• He is "pro-union."
  

Sources: http://www.michaelearth.org/org/index.html
http://www.pedestrianvillages.com//vfh/

5) Farid Khavari (NPA).

• He is an "Economist (PhD) and also an accomplished author."
  
• We "need to eliminate stupid little details that prevent jobs from being created" (i.e. waiting for certification of a product).
• Use the Bank of the State of Florida (which he would create) to offer 2% interest loans to jobs that focus on stimulating the "demand side."
  
• (I am assuming based on inference) Use the Bank of the State of Florida to offer 2% interest loans for home mortgages.
  
• To lower property taxes and eventually eliminate them altogether.
  
• Create "Homogeneous multi-specialty clinics" to decrease the costs of health care.
• Have "affordable universal insurance coverage for all Floridians including health care, natural disaster, car, home and life insurance."
• 6% interest credit card maximum.
  
• Lower the "interest rate to 2% on student loans, and ultimately [make] them free."
  
• Support the solar industry to cut the cost of energy and to create jobs in Florida.
  
• Create a "zero-cost economy."
  

Sources: http://www.khavariforgovernor.com/about/
http://www.zerocosteconomy.com/about_farid_khavari-detailed.html

http://www.examiner.com/miami-dade-county-elections-2010-in-miami/dr-farid-khavari-just-what-dems-ordered-for-florida-governor

6) C.C. Reed (NPA).

• Supporter of President Obama.
  
• "Knowledge is our power and unity is our strength."
  
• A "child of God."
• "The longest running candidate for Governor."

Sources: http://www.electccreed.com/
http://www.nowourway.com/home.htm

7) Daniel Imperato (NPA).

• A "global businessman."
  
• A trustee of the African Center Foundation, a United Nations NGO.
  
• Create a Social Security charity fund.
  
• Require "an approval fee on all FDA approved drugs to be contributed by the drug companies to the US healthcare system."
  
• Supports a US online education system.
  
• Supports "joint manufacturing programs, expansion of labor unions and organized labor into Latin America."
  
• "America must setup a payback system for the US taxpayers and the money that they have spent in Iraq using revenues from oil sales."

Sources: http://www.imperato2008.com/imperato2008/