Christmas clapback: Rick Scott points to scoreboard in ongoing Andrew Cuomo war

Why are politicians a-holes? Finally, an answer. Image via AP.

It’s just two sleeps before Christmas, but for a Senator from Florida, that’s no reason not to remind Twitter followers how Florida is faring compared to New York.

Sen. Rick Scott on Wednesday morning contended that migration trends prove that so-called “conservative governance” is superior to the more liberal approach found in the Empire State.

“Conservative governance works. Millions of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York residents have moved to Florida because of our low taxes, great weather and pro-business environment,” Scott tweeted, highlighting a Fox News article suggesting New York may lose a House seat and have fewer representatives than Florida for the first time. 

“The numbers speak for themselves,” Scott added.

For Scott, a first-term Senator who previously was Governor. Wednesday’s tweet was the latest in a series of deliberate contrasts with the New York Democrat.

Just days ago, Scott and Republican Senate colleagues named and shamed Cuomo in a so-called “religious freedom” resolution that castigated Democratic Governors for prohibiting church attendance. But Cuomo’s ultimate utility as a foil has been during the debates on coronavirus relief funding that have dominated D.C. in 2020.

Scott, a vocal opponent of so-called “blue state bailouts,” noted that  “New York has 2 million fewer people than Florida, but their budget is nearly twice as big.”

“Why? Reckless, irresponsible fiscal mismanagement,” Scott said this spring.

The Senator has said that people are moving to Florida because they are tired of being overtaxed.

“When New Yorkers get sick of paying not just their federal taxes, but the high state and sales taxes Cuomo loves, they move down to Florida, where the state taxes are low. If they are eligible, like the millions enjoying retirement in Florida, they collect from Social Security and Medicare after years of paying into those federal programs while living in New York. They may have had a high-paying job in New York and finally wised up and realized they could save a lot more of their own money if they lived in Florida,” Scott wrote in the New York Post earlier this year.

The New York Governor contends, meanwhile, that states like Florida, and not New York, are the real takers in the federal equation.

“They know that they take more money … They make it personal to New York and they’re lying,” Cuomo told reporters at the National Press Club this spring about Scott and other conservative critics.

Cuomo also contended that Scott, by saying New York was taking from Florida, was “playing the American people.”

In the latest relief bill approved this week, aid to state and local governments was not included, Scott was just one of six Republicans who voted against the $900 billion measure that Democrats are calling a “down payment” on more ambitious packages to come.

With a Democratic administration in the White House, aid for state and local governments struggling with legacy costs seems much more certain than it did this year. Expect Scott, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to continue spotlighting New York as a cautionary tale, even (and perhaps especially) if he finds himself on the short ends of what are, for conservatives, poison pill spending votes.