Hurricanes aren't the only force to slam Florida in the recent past. Grinding economic recession has taken its own toll over the past two years.
One in seven Florida homeowners face losing their home or are behind on their mortgage payments, a new study from the Mortgage Bankers Association reported last week. This figure is well above the already staggeringly high national average of of 9.2 percent of Americans in a similar position.
According to the report, the national average is up from 8.8 percent earlier this year and from 6.5 percent the same time last year.
The delinquency rate on subprime mortgages stands at more than one in five.
John McCain helped block efforts in Congress to allow Floridians facing foreclosure to keep their homes, preferring to lecture them, along with Americans in general, to get a second job and stop making bad choices. McCain, who owns seven homes reportedly worth an average of $2 million each, has also refused to address economic problems head on, saying repeatedly the economy is "fundamentally sound."
Overall, the economic crisis has dramatically impacted Floridians, especially since George W. Bush took office. According to Census Bureau data, poverty in Florida is up 17 percent since 2000, swelling to over 2.1 million Floridians. The price of a gallon of milk went up by 27 percent in the past year, while eggs have shot up 38 percent. Food prices are higher across the board in the state.
Unemployment in Florida has shot up 91 percent between January 2001 and June of 2008. More than 600,000 have lost their jobs under the Bush administration.
Income growth has barely covered the rising costs of gasoline, food, and health care. On that point, Floridians this summer have faced the fastest rise in inflation since Ronald Reagan was president.
Since George W. Bush took office, gas prices have tripled in Florida to a statewide average of $3.95 per gallon this summer.
Bankruptcy filings grew by 188 percent over the past two years.
More than 3.7 million Floridians go without health insurance, including over 800,000 children, almost 40 percent of whom are poor children. Many of these children would likely have been covered under the Democratic proposal to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, if John McCain hadn't helped George W. Bush block that proposal.
On the question of creating a national catastrophic insurance program to help Floridians (and millions of other Americans across the country) recover from hurricanes and other natural disasters, McCain first supported the idea and then backtracked, noting that he "campaigned against national catastrophic insurance" and claiming that FEMA is enough.
John McCain has refused to put forward serious new policies to tackle these issues, because he believes that economic problems are mainly "psychological," as he told FOX News last April. What he has offered instead are proposals that are remarkably similar to George W. Bush, prompting one newspaper to editorialize, "McCain doesn't like to hear it, but his economic plans really are an extension of Bush administration policies."
McCain's avoidance of economic issues, his re-hash of Republican Party stances and his pledge to continue the Bush administration agenda during his speech to his party's convention elicited a sharp response from the St. Petersburg Times, which criticized the Arizona Republican for failing "to deliver on change."
"[H]is agenda," the St. Petersburg Times editors wrote, "promises only more of the same: tax cuts for the wealthy that the nation cannot afford, an aggressive foreign policy that cannot be sustained and an energy policy short on vision and long on oil drilling that would threaten Florida and provide no near-term relief."
The Times editorial also questioned McCain's judgment based on his choice of Palin as running mate. "But the real issue is not Palin; it is McCain's judgment. The candidate who would be the oldest first-term president chose a running mate he barely knows who is not prepared to be president. There were far more qualified men and women available. This appears to be a last-minute political calculation based more on gut instinct than thoughtful deliberation."
Floridians are increasingly aware they can't afford to vote for the same politicians from the same party with the same policies as George W. Bush.
