Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online

Contributors:

Reporter William March has covered state and national politics since 1994. Email

Reporter Mike Salinero has covered Hillsborough County government for The Tampa Tribune since 2007. Email

Reporter Lindsay Peterson has been a general assignment reporter at the Tampa Tribune since 2005, focusing on higher education since 2009. Email

Florida Political Blogs:

News Blog Search

Advanced Search

Most Recent Entries

Monthly Archives

Updated: Murzin takes a whack at Gaetz’s jobs bill

Posted Feb 8, 2010 by Catherine Whittenburg, Tallahassee bureau

Updated Feb 8, 2010 at 07:22 PM

Rep. Dave Murzin, while talking up the need to make Florida more business-friendly, just took a whack at Sen. Don Gaetz’s jobs stimulus bill-in-progress for costing too much.

Murzin, who chairs the Economic Development & Community Affairs Policy Council comittee, offered this assessment of the Senate bill during this afternoon’s pre-session briefing hosted by Associated Industries of Florida:

“It’s a great package; if I had $150 million, it might be good—some good ideas,” said Murzin, R-Pensacola. “But quite frankly, we don’t have $150 million ... There are some great ideas out there, so yeah, we’ll take a look at some stuff. But quite frankly, we’ll roll out a jobs package, an economic incentives package—an economy package that actually works, that doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money. Because I’m not really into it for the headlines, I’m actually into putting more Floridians back to work.”

Gaetz, R-Niceville, hasn’t formally released the fiscal note on his committee’s package of tax credits and other economic stimuli, though he acknowledged last week that it will require “a significant chunk of money ... We have to plant some of our seed corn, if we want to harvest next year and the years after, instead of eating it all.”

Update: told of Murzin’s comments, Gaetz said he wasn’t sure where Murzin was getting his figures, as Gaetz’s committee is still trying to figure out the fiscal impact of a number of proposals included in the bill. But “the Senate will await with great interest Rep. Murzin’s suggestions,” the senator said. “I know that he’s worked for many years in the area of economic development, and I’m sure he’ll have some great suggestions for us.”