Six months after the Florida Legislature rejected his request for $250 million in new business incentive funding, Gov. Rick Scott plans to again put money for incentives near the top of his 2017 legislative agenda.

  • Gov. Scott released proposal of $85 million in business incentives
  • Six months ago his request for $250 million was rejected
  • He's widely expected to launch a 2018 U.S. Senate campaign

A proposal the governor unveiled this week calls on lawmakers to approve $85 million in new incentive funding for Enterprise Florida, the economic development agency that has come under fire for doling out taxpayer money to corporations whose promises of new jobs never materialized.

Acknowledging that Enterprise Florida "needs to be reformed," Scott said in a statement announcing the proposal that "Florida has to compete with 49 other states and global markets across the world for jobs and I will fight to make sure we have every available tool to remain competitive."

There are already signs that Scott's funding request could be dead on arrival, at least in the fiscally conservative Florida House. Within hours of the governor's announcement, the incoming House speaker, Rep. Richard Corcoran (R-Land O'Lakes), declared his opposition.

"The government engaging in social engineering to pick winners and losers that benefit the one percent is a bad deal for Florida taxpayers," Corcoran said. "There will not be any corporate welfare in the House budget."

As humiliating as his defeat at the hands of the legislature this year was, a second strikeout could prove particularly damaging to Scott's political prospects. He's widely expected to launch a 2018 U.S. Senate campaign, but the Republican nomination may not be his for the taking. Some GOP operatives see the relatively unpopular second-term governor as vulnerable to a primary challenge, a threat that could intensify in the wake of another disappointing legislative session scorecard.

Conservative orthodoxy on the effectiveness of government-sponsored business incentives is changing, too. As revelations of Enterprise Florida's deals gone bad have continued to mount, the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party has revolted.

"It's all done, you know, shaking hands in a smoky room somewhere, and then, we see what we're seeing now, where companies are able to bilk the taxpayers, put the money in their pocket, and then leave the state," said Florida AFL-CIO lobbyist Rich Templin, who counts a growing number of fiscal conservatives as strange bedfellows in the fight against incentives.

Scott does have at least one powerful ally, however: the incoming Senate Budget Chief, Sen. Jack Latvala (R-Clearwater), who on Friday threw his support behind the governor's request.

"All my polls that I take or see says that economic development and jobs is still the number one thing on people's minds," Latvala said. "If we're going to have economic development, if we're going to have a jobs effort, we need to fund it."