During your campaign you said you planned to run Florida like a business. Do you still think that’s the best way to govern?
Yes. Americans expect that every product they buy either gets additional bells and whistles or gets cheaper; every service gets better or gets cheaper.
Will cutting the state’s education budget harm Florida’s future workforce?
We’re going to make education better. We eliminated teacher tenure. We started merit pay to keep our best teachers. We’ve expanded charter schools and virtual education—things that put us in a position where our kids are first.
What do you say to critics of your public-sector pension reforms, requiring employee contributions?
In the private sector, few people have pensions. If they have retirement plans, they put up most of the money. We were the only state where state workers weren’t participating in their pension plan.
You’ve said Florida’s tax system should be a model for other states. Why?
If you look at our per-capita taxes, they’re dramatically lower than a lot of other states, and we’re looking to phase out corporate income taxes. If taxes are unrealistic, businesses are going to move jobs out of the state and out of the country.
What’s your take on the Congressional debate over the debt ceiling?
We don’t need to be raising the debt ceiling, and we certainly don’t need to be raising taxes. We have to create incentives for people to build companies in this country, and trillion dollar deficits don’t do that.