How stupid can state legislators and the governor be to pass and sign a law giving $75 million to venture capital companies to increase jobs and then have 174 jobs reduced? If you read the June 14article “Jobs bill costing state $75 million, losing jobs,” buried on Page 18A, that’s exactly what has happened. To add insult to injury, the same venture capital company, Advantage Capital, isthreatening to sue the state if it does not allocate another $150 million to pay for the program’s second phase.
Apparently, The Palm Beach Post had to publish an expose to tell the state government that it had been ripped of by Advantage Capital lobbyist Pete Dunbar, who wrote the bill. As bad as this sounds, a much bigger question looms over this exploitation of tax money. Why are special-interest lobbyists writing bills for the Legislature? We don’t vote for special-interest lobbyists. We vote to be represented, and if our representatives can’t write their own bills, they have no business holding that office.
BERT BASS
Tequesta
