Issue Position: 7 Steps to Economic Prosperity

Issue Position

1. Create a panel to cut redundant or outdated regulation.
Government regulations should protect the consumer, not limit commerce. Small business owners are the lifeblood of Florida's economic engine. When we allow unreasonable regulation to choke off productivity, we reduce the amount of time and flexibility that business leaders will have to attract new business, create marketing plans, and create jobs. Furthermore, if the burden becomes too heavy, some small business owners will contemplate shutting down or moving their entity out of the state.

2. Create a one-stop regulatory agency to reduce lag times for small business start-ups.
Anybody who has opened a business in Florida knows that the process can be an obstacle. We need to be generating new employment opportunities, not making it harder for businesses to get off the ground. A one-stop agency would reduce the time and headaches for small business owners and remove another impediment to quicker job creation.

3. Reform the property insurance market to bring down costs for consumers.
As much as possible, we need private companies, not the taxpayers, to fund Florida's insurance market, and we need to use the time-tested tools of market forces and competition to make insurance available at a reasonable price for every consumer. We have allowed politicians over time to tinker with the rates and the market, and now we have a system that puts taxpayers on the hook for significant losses as a result of a catastrophic hurricane. I will work hard to keep insurance rates low for consumers and also protect the taxpayers.

4. Reform the property tax system to ease burdens on homeowners.
High property taxes and disparities in the system have created obstacles for ownership and building equity for individuals, families, and small businesses. We must make the property tax system in Florida fair for both homeowners and small businesses, or we need to scrap it and find another system for funding the public sector.

5. Institute effective lawsuit reform.
Florida is still rated as one of the worst states in the country for lawsuits. This is a problem for our health care sector, our small business, and any economic development organization that is seeking to recruit corporate headquarters to move their operations to our state. We must support reforms to our insurance system and to our liability system to make sure that litigation is fair, that consumers are protected, and that small businesses and physicians can operate without fear of being sued out of existence.

6. Aggressively recruit corporate headquarters to Florida.
After the previous administration, Florida needs to remind the world that we are "open for business." We should pre-package re-location options for major corporate entities and then work with the governor to send delegations of legislators, key chamber and economic develop representatives, and other business owners on recruitment missions to other states and other countries to bring jobs to Florida.

7. Make Florida Energy Independent.
The United States has an abundance of Natural Gas and vast options for using solar, wind, and ocean turbine technologies to produce energy. We have 11 public universities with the research capability of guiding our use of these resources. We need to make Florida energy independent and modernize our power so that access to energy is never an obstacle to economic development.

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