Mitt Romney jobs plan: Can it create 11 million jobs in four years?

Romney's plan includes tax cuts, reduced regulation, and an emphasis on expanded free trade. But creating 11 million new jobs would require many things to go just right, economists say.

By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer / September 6, 2011

Republican presidential hopeful former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks about his plan for creating jobs and improving the economy during a speech on Sept. 6, in Las Vegas.

Julie Jacobson/AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his agenda for job creation Tuesday with a bold goal at its core: 11 million new jobs during the first four years of a Romney administration.

Speaking in Nevada, he laid out proposals including tax cuts, reduced regulation, and promoting exports through an emphasis on both expanded free trade (in a new "Reagan economic zone") and a crackdown onChina for alleged failures to abide by its existing trade commitments.

The goal of 11 million jobs is ambitious, and its fulfilment would represent a dream come true for millions of jobless Americans.

Is it realistic?

Some forecasters say that level of job creation is not outside the bounds of possibility, but that achieving it would require many things to go right with the economy.

Specifically, Romney sketched his vision that the economy would grow at 4 percent a year under his watch, if elected in 2012. That would be significantly faster growth than the 3.6 percent pace predicted recently by the Congressional Budget Office for the years 2013 to 2016 (essentially the years of the next presidential term). And many economists say that even 3.6 percent growth may be an optimistic forecast.

Periods with several years of 4-percent growth or better are not unheard of, however. The late 1990s, mid-1980s, and mid-1960s are examples.

In an analysis of the jobs potential of the US economy, the McKinsey Global Institute laid out three scenarios for US jobs in the decade ending in 2020. The research group identified an optimistic case (but plausible, in its view) in which some 22 million jobs would be created during the decade.

That pace is not too different from Romney's goal, especially considering that in the optimistic scenario the middle years of the decade may represent a strong period as the economy begins to snap back.

But without the right policies to encourage business expansion, exports, and innovation, the US may follow a low-growth path with less than half as many new jobs and "persistently high" unemployment, says the McKinsey report, titled "An economy that works."

It also may depend on factors difficult for US policymakers to control, like the health of economies on other continents.

And within the US, a fundamental question is whether growth can return to something like a pre-recession path, or whether the overhang of challenges exposed by the financial crisis – especially the high debt loads of households and governments – make for a protracted period of sub-par economic performance.

Economic analysts at the Council on Foreign Relations, in a report this week, argue that the Congressional Budget Office appears to be basing its forecasts "on the belief that the United States should return to the trend growth it seemed to be following prior to the financial crisis."

In economic jargon, the assumption is that there's a temporary "output gap," where a recession causes production to fall below its normal capacity. In the 1980s, the US saw a growth spurt that essentially filled in such a gap with new activity as the economy recovered from recession.

But now, according to the council's report, the US has seen a shrinkage of both its labor force and its industrial capacity. That may mean that a rapid rebound in the economy won't happen, as it did in the 1980s.

If Romney's plan hinges partly on optimistic forecasting, his speech emphasized simple points of policy that on many fronts are similar to those of other Republian candidates.

The proposals include:

Lowering tax rates for businesses and middle-class housholds. Romney said lowering corporate taxes will help lure firms to invest in the US, while eliminating capital-gains and dividend taxes for households earning less than $200,000 will encourage saving.

Reducing government regulation, including a rollback on Obama's health care law.

Encouraging domestic energy production.

Promoting US exports.

Streamlining the federal government, so that rising national debt doesn't hobble the nation's potential growth.

"It's a practical plan to get America back to work," Romney said of his plan, which includes 59 specific proposals. "America should be a job machine."

Lucia Graves

lucia@huffingtonpost.com

Mitt Romney Gas Prices Rhetoric Doesn't Get Support Of His Own Economists

Posted: 03/23/2012 2:30 pm Updated: 03/23/2012 2:47 pm

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney on the campaign trail has chided President Barack Obama for failing to curb prices at the pump, even as prominent economists have debunked those talking points, saying there's little the president can do to lower prices in the short term. Now the latest twist: No one from Romney's economic team will step forward to defend him.

And not for want of opportunity.

After Romney insisted that more drilling in Mexico and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could bring down the cost of gas, The Huffington Post contacted members of Romney's economic team -- two revolving-door lobbyists and two former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush -- to ask if they would vouch for the claim.

"I will pass. Sorry," prominent macroeconomist Gregory Mankiw, a Romney advisor, replied when contacted by HuffPost about an interview. Other queries were similarly denied or unreturned.

Consider the argument: "The best thing we can do to get the price of gas to be more moderate and not have to be dependent upon the cartel is: drill in the gulf, drill in the outer continent shelf, drill in ANWR, drill in North Dakota, South Dakota, drill in Oklahoma and Texas," Romney said on "Fox and Friends" on March 16.

Other economists haven't been shy about debunking the claim, explaining that U.S. energy policy has very little effect either on oil prices or on overall U.S. employment. Recent studies have backed them up. The Associated Press' statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production found no statistical correlation between gas prices and how much oil comes out of U.S. wells.

"The truth is that we're already having a hydrocarbon boom," Paul Krugman explained in a recent article, "with U.S. oil and gas production rising and U.S. fuel imports dropping. If there were any truth to drill-here-drill-now, this boom should have yielded substantially lower gasoline prices and lots of new jobs. Predictably, however, it has done neither."

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Since then Romney has put forth other ideas about how to curb the price of oil. At a campaign stop in Illinois on Saturday, Romney called on Obama to fire what he dubbed "the gas-hike trio," a reference to the administration's energy secretary, interior secretary and head of the EPA. "No question in my mind that these -- I call them the gas-hike trio ... are on a mission to drive up the price of gasoline and all energy so that they can finally get their solar and their wind to be more price competitive," he said.

There are some things Obama could do help alleviate pain at the pump, as HuffPost's Peter Goodman noted in a recent article. But increasing domestic drilling and firing the EPA's Lisa Jackson aren't among them. "He could unleash a serious-minded, subpoena-wielding probe aimed at frightening the Wall Street speculators who are responsible for most of the climb in gas prices," Goodman noted in a recent column. But that's not something Romney's looking at.

An independent economist who has called Romney "hands down" the best choice for the GOP nomination hardly came to his rescue.

"I don't think there's anything in the short run," said Decision Economics President Allen Sinai, when asked what could be done to bring down gas prices. "I think as part of the election campaign, President Obama and whoever is the Republican candidate owes the American people an energy plan that will deal both with the supply of oil energy and the demand."

Asked what changes the nation might expect to see in the price of gas over three to six months or even a year, Sinai responded simply "nothing, Americans are going to be stuck with whatever it is."

Joel Naroff, who has chided President Obama for his handling of the economy, agreed.

"Nothing in the short term changes things a whole lot," Naroff, president of Naroff Economics, told HuffPost in a recent interview. "For example, the skyrocketing prices in gasoline, especially in the last two years, has had nothing to do with supply and demand. I don't think anybody is arguing that point right now. Nothing -- I don't believe that anything that anybody could have done would have changed things dramatically in the short term. The president and Congress could have said every single available place to drill, regardless of what anybody thinks, is going to be drilled. They could have said that two years ago, and we wouldn't have a whole lot more oil than we have now. So, short term, U.S. energy policy has little to do with the ups and downs of prices."

Harvard economist and historian David Landes, whom Romney has quoted approvingly in speeches, wasn't available to comment on the issue.

Even Romney himself has contradicted his rhetoric on gas prices. Earlier this week, evidence surfaced that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney responded much as Obama has done recently, describing high gas prices as the natural result of global market pressures.

Of course it's not impossible to find economists who'll throw Romney a bone.

Larry Kudlow, an economist and television personality whose praise of Romney's economic policies Romney has touted in press releases, has argued that Obama is not without options.

But even he offered a tepid endorsement at best.

"I think, in the short term, more drilling would have some effect, not a huge effect," Kudlow said in an interview. "You've got your oil markets, and they're buying and selling in the futures, so if they saw an opening of, let's say, oil drilling offshore -- federal lands, Alaska, the Arctic -- they might say, 'Well, you know it's going to take 10 years, but we're going to sell the futures contracts because we see more supply equals lower prices.'"

He added, "I'm a market guy, and I say more drilling and more pipeline. The price will take care of itself. We should stabilize, but we have so much we could be doing."

Zach Carter

 Mitt Romney Doubles Down On Cadillac Gaffe, Accuses Obama Of Corruption

Posted: 02/26/12 10:09 AM ET  |  Updated: 

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney on Sunday defended both his wealth and the number of cars he owns during an awkward exchange with Fox News' Chris Wallace.

Wallace asked the former Massachusetts governor whether his recent statement that his wife "drives a couple of Cadillacs" was out-of-touch with the economic realities facing most American families. Romney responded with a reference to the different states in which his cars are located, and suggested that only President Barack Obama's supporters would begrudge him his automobile affluence.

"I can't be perfect, I just am who I am and I can tell you this with regards to the cars, that was talked about last September and us, what vehicles we own, we have a car in California, we have a car in Boston," Romney said. "And so that's the way it is. If people think that there is something wrong for being successful, they should vote for the other guy. I have been successful."

Romney also accused Obama of corruption, suggesting that the government assistance provided to General Motors and Chrysler was motivated by political patronage rather than economic substance.

"We spent several billion dollars at a time we didn't need to," Romney said, claiming that Obama "gave a huge portion of the company to the UAW [United Auto Workers]. That's not how bankruptcy usually works ... He was paying off the people that supported him, and by the way, are trying to get him reelected."

Romney's opposition to the government assistance for General Motors and Chrysler has created difficulties for him in Michigan, which is holding its primary on Tuesday. Polls show Romney and Santorum garnering very close levels of support in the state, with Romney's campaign spending a great deal of money to overturn an early lead in the state for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Romney grew up in Michigan and easily won the state's 2008 primary, leading many political observers to believe he should carry it handily this year.

Below, a slideshow looking back at some of Romney's awkward moments.

Mitt Romney acknowledges his healthcare dilemma

He says the healthcare law he promoted as Massachusetts governor  a model for President Obama's overhaul has become a liability for him as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination. But he won't disown or apologize for it.

May 12, 2011|By Paul West, Washington Bureau

Reporting from Ann Arbor, Mich. — Tackling an issue that poses a serious threat to his presidential ambitions, Mitt Romney acknowledged Thursday that the landmark healthcare law he promoted and signed as Massachusetts governor had become a liability for him. "I hear some laughter in the room," Romney remarked after he said that he had regarded his Massachusetts plan as a political asset in his 2008 presidential run. "That's not the case now," he added. "It's gone from being seen as an asset to being a liability, politically."

Under the plan, everyone in Massachusetts is required to obtain medical insurance or pay a penalty. Romney's government mandate — along with the rest of the plan — became a model for President Obama's healthcare plan, now the focus of a furious Republican attack in Congress and the courts to repeal or outlaw it. As a result, Romney finds himself on the wrong side of an issue that could severely hinder his effectiveness to deliver the Republican healthcare message against Obama in a general election. One of the leading GOP candidates, he took note of that turnabout in his speech to 100 relatives, supporters and medical school personnel at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center. His advisors had promoted the speech as a "big moment" in his campaign. Romney used it to attack Obama and outline an alternative national healthcare plan, which he admitted was essentially the same one he put forward in 2008.

In his speech, the first policy address of his 2012 campaign, Romney said he would neither disown nor apologize for the Massachusetts law. To do so "wouldn't be honest," he said. "I, in fact, did what I believe was right for the people of my state." The 40-minute event contained some of the hallmarks of Romney's second presidential try: casual attire and limited contact with voters and the media. Using a PowerPoint presentation, rather than a prepared text, Romney said his plan "wasn't perfect." But he added: "Overall, am I proud of the fact that we did our best for our people and we got people insured? Absolutely."

As he has since leaving the governor's office to run for president, Romney said states should be free to adopt their own plans. He criticized the federal plan as a "power grab" by the federal government "to put in place a one-size-fits-all" solution. Romney has consistently supported government mandates, a stance that puts him at odds with conservatives in his own party. In his presentation Thursday, he glossed over the point that Obama's mandate is designed to reduce the number of people without medical insurance — the main objective of the Massachusetts plan, and still a problem in all the other states. If elected, Romney said, he would issue an executive order allowing all 50 states to receive waivers from the federal law, but states would still be required to implement insurance plans at least as effective as those in the federal law. The speech was the latest attempt by Romney to remove, or at least reduce, healthcare as a problem for his presidential ambitions.

Unlike other 2012 candidates who have apologized for past policy mistakes and reversed course — such as former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on his past support for energy "cap and trade" — Romney is hemmed in by his reputation as a political shape-shifter. When he ran for office in Massachusetts, one of the country's most Democratic states, Romney embraced abortion rights and gay rights, then reversed those stances when he began eyeing the presidency. An apology for his signature achievement as governor — the only public office he has held — would add perhaps the most serious count yet to charges that Romney lacks authenticity. If Romney's intention Thursday was to put the healthcare issue behind him, it's unlikely the event achieved that purpose. Instead, it may have served mainly to redirect criticism to his role in creating a prototype for a plan despised by Republicans. "He didn't move the needle," said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute and a Romney critic. "He said the same things he's always said."

Romney said Thursday that his position "is not going to satisfy everybody." "I respect the views of those who think that we took the wrong course," he said, adding that "a lot of the pundits around the nation are saying that I should just stand up and say this whole thing was a mistake, was a boneheaded idea, and I should just admit it was a mistake and walk away from it, and I presume that a lot of folks would conclude that if I did that that it would be good for me politically." But Cannon and others indicated that the speech was further evidence, if any was needed, that Romney had boxed himself in. If he apologizes or reverses course, "it will look crass and political. It will look like he was for it before he was against it," Cannon said.

The conservative opinion page of the Wall Street Journal said Thursday that Romney was "compromised and not credible" on healthcare, and called his introduction of a government health insurance mandate "a fatal flaw." In a blistering editorial headlined "Obama's Running Mate," the paper said that unless Romney changed his message, "he might as well try to knock off Joe Biden and get on the Obama ticket."

Republican strategist Dick Wadhams said Romney had done a good job in attempting to contrast his plan with Obama's. But he also said the speech didn't change things. "It's not going to go away, and I didn't think he thought it was going to go away," he said. Afterward, Romney was asked whether he thought he had put the matter behind him. He brushed past reporters without replying.

McCain and Hawks Want to Bomb Iran, Syria

Robert Dreyfuss on March 6, 2012 - 9:54 AM ET

Tomorrow I’ll write about the flaws in President Obama’s Iran policy, and there are many, but today let’s focus on Obama’s skillful put-down of Bibi Netanyahu’s warmongering on Iran. Using diplomatic language, in his AIPAC speech and, apparently, in his private meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Obama’s message top Israel roughly translates into: “Sit down and shut up!”

That, however, has predictably enraged the neoconservatives and other hawks.

Leading the pack, in response to Obama’s measured tone on Iran, was the Wall Street Journal, who accused the president of “vacillation and mixed signals” for refusing to endorse Netanyahu’s call for war.

In National Review, Robert Joseph writes in “Resigning to Iran”:

Despite many high-profile statements about not allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons, the administration appears to have adopted the message put out by Iran’s leaders, that the cost of a military strike would be prohibitively high. While the administration will seek to impose additional sanctions, it now seems willing to live with the failure of its policy and rely on the belief that a nuclear-armed Iran can be deterred and contained. It is this core belief that defines the difference between U.S. and Israeli perspectives and policies. For Israel, a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat; Israel cannot exist in such a world. Our president seems already resigned to it.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, a writer for the necon Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for an outright naval blockade of Iran, which is an act of war:

If Western nations wish to avoid a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf and prevent a nuclear Iran, they must adopt crippling sanctions that will bring Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse. That means a complete United Nations-imposed oil embargo enforced by a naval blockade, as well as total diplomatic isolation.

And The Weekly Standard chimes in with an endorsement of Netanyahu’s demand that the United States act militarily to bomb Iran over its “capability” to make a bomb, not for actually trying to make a bomb:

If the administration’s intent is to prevent a nuclear Iran, it should draw a red line that is clear, verifiable and preventable before it is too late. The red line should be nuclear weapons capability, not the imperceptible turning of the screwdriver to assemble a weapon.

Let’s not forget Senator John McCain, who apparently never met a country he didn’t want to bomb. Yesterday he called for bombing Syria, Iran’s erstwhile ally, That’s because many neoconservatives have realized that bombing Iran isn’t going to happen and that road to Tehran therefore goes through Damascus. Said the obviously tortured senator:

“The President must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will Assad be allowed to finish what he has started, that there is no future in which Assad and his lieutenants will remain in control of Syria, and that the United States is prepared to use the full weight of our airpower to make it so.”

He added:

“But time is running out. Assad’s forces are on the march. Providing military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower.”

Happily enough, so far at least, there is zero chance that Obama will adopt the neocons’ policy on Iran, and very little chance (yet) that he’ll escalate against Syria.

Related Topics: War and Peace | Nuclear Arms and Proliferation | US Wars and Military Action

It's Mitt Romney's turn to make jobs pitch

September 06, 2011|By Michael A. Memoli | Washington Bureau

Mitt Romney is rolling out a conservative prescription for job creation Tuesday, seeking to draw a contrast with President Obama ahead of his planned economic address to Congress on Thursday. Romney, who recently drew Democratic fire for stating that "corporations are people," calls for cutting taxes on both, along with slashing "job-killing regulation," expanding trade with an international "Reagan Economic Zone," and capping government spending and balancing the federal budget. In total, the former Massachusetts governor said his plan encompasses 59 distinct proposals, a meaty rollout from the candidate more interested than ever in stressing his private-sector experience as a "conservative businessman."

Romney is scheduled to offer additional details in a speech in North Las Vegas, Nev., on Tuesday afternoon. Nevada is among the first four early-nominating states, and one Romney is counting on for a victory. He's facing new pressure in the candidacy of Rick Perry, who is running on the economic growth in Texas during his more-than-10-year governorship. "Unlike career politicians who've never met a payroll, I know why jobs come and go," Romney wrote in a USA Today Op-Ed article previewing his plan, taking a shot at both Obama and Perry. Each of his proposals, Romney wrote, "is rooted in the conservative premise that government itself cannot create jobs.""Only the individual initiative of entrepreneurs, workers, investors and inventors enables companies, and our economy as a whole, to flourish. We must once again unleash the tremendous economic potential of the American people," he argued.

Another Republican candidate, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, released his own jobs plan in New Hampshire last week, winning plaudits from conservatives. Huntsman pitted his economic record against Romney's in a preemptive strike Tuesday, saying Utah led the nation in job growth under his leadership while Massachusetts ranked near the bottom.

Democrats made a similar point in their own prebuttals. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview with Fox News Channel that although Romney touts his private-sector resume, he "was involved in actually helping companies shed [jobs] when he tried to turn them around," referring to his time at Bain Capital.

Florida Prisons Bill Would Expand Private Management, Netting A Big Win For Political Contributors

Chris Kirkhamkirkham@huffingtonpost.com

First Posted: 02/ 1/2012 2:08 pm Updated: 02/ 2/2012 3:50 pm

Florida this week faces a choice that is increasingly confronting much of the nation -- whether to hand over a major slice of its prison system to private, for-profit businesses that answer to Wall Street.

Lawmakers in Florida are taking a final vote on legislation that would result in the single largest expansion of for-profit prisons in the country, resulting in the privatizing of every state prison south of Orlando. This would amount to just under 30 facilities representing 20 percent of the state's sprawling correctional system. The state Senate postponed a scheduled vote on the issue Wednesday afternoon and is expected to address the measure as early as next week. The House would still have to approve a companion bill for the measure to become law.

Proponents have advanced the move as a cost-saving measure, a business-minded response to the state's budget shortfall. But a series of studies and the experiences of several other states that have experimented with privatizing prison systems raise significant doubts about the cost savings that are supposed to accrue: Private prisons have tended to take control of the lowest-cost inmates, those lacking health problems and posing less risk of violence, while leaving states to contend with the harder cases.

The action by Florida’s legislature comes after years of sustained lobbying by corporations that operate private prisons, an industry that has been expanding aggressively by offering itself as a solution to state budget shortages. The industry has contributed more than $1.4 million to Florida's Republican Party in recent years and has spent millions lobbying key lawmakers in that state.

The stakes are high: Florida has the third-largest prison system in the nation. Opponents decry the move as a perversion of the legislative process, one that would determine the shape of the corrections system not based on concerns over public safety, but as a means of distributing spoils to a well-financed special interest group.

"This is a major policy change," said state Sen. Mike Fasano, a Republican who opposes prison privatization despite his party's strong support, speaking during a recent hearing on the plan. "Do we privatize public safety now? Is that what we're doing -- just so some private companies, some multimillion dollar companies, can make a profit?"

The moves in Florida highlight a contentious debate, ongoing for the past two decades, about U.S. criminal justice and incarceration policies. As prison populations have surged nationwide since the 1980s, private corporations have positioned themselves to secure a growing share of the money expended on incarceration, courting influence in Washington and in state capitols across the country in a strategic bid to secure contracts.

Among proponents' primary talking points is the contention that they will save the taxpayer money -- an argument that experts say is difficult to prove.

"There is no real empirical data to say with any certainty that private prisons cost less or that they're more effective than public prisons," said John Hall, a public policy consultant in Florida who studied private prisons in recent years as the executive director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy.

But even as the Florida Senate considers final drafts of legislation on prison privatization, lawmakers have commissioned no outside studies to analyze the projected costs or benefits of the plan, which would more than double the number of private prisons and inmates under private supervision in the state.

Over the last two decades, Florida increasingly has come to rely on the private prison industry in such a fashion that experts say the history justifies taking a pause before approving the expansion plan. A 2005 report by a state inspector general's office found that the commission overseeing Florida private prisons had been unable to calculate the cost savings required by the state, while allowing contract modifications that benefited private prison operators -- changes that resulted in the state's being overbilled by millions of dollars.

While reports from the state's legislative research office show that Florida's seven existing private prisons cost less than public facilities -- a benefit cited repeatedly over the past week by supporters of the bill -- they also point out that "the cost savings estimates are subject to caveats and should be evaluated cautiously."

Cutting costs is a key issue in Florida, which faces a more than $3 billion budget deficit. But critics in the Senate have questioned why the bill has moved so fast even though the annual financial savings estimated by supporters come to no more than $30 million. The state’s Department of Corrections budget exceeds $2 billion.

"Privatization is good for certain functions, but it's not good in my mind for public safety," said Paula Dockery, another Republican state senator who disapproves of the privatization plan. "They have not done any true fiscal analysis on it, and I think it's really an embarrassment."

BIG SPENDING IN THE SUNSHINE STATE

One company that is especially well positioned to take advantage of new legislation in the Sunshine State is the GEO Group, a Florida business that is the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation. Based in Boca Raton, at the northern end of the Miami metropolitan area, GEO owns or manages more than 100 correctional facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa.

The GEO Group already has contracts in Florida and aims for more. The Corrections Corp. of America, the country's largest operator of private prisons, also operates prisons in Florida.

Information about its potential Florida expansion is featured prominently on the GEO Group's home page, and executives have headlined quarterly earnings calls over the past year with discussion of the legislature's proposal.

"This is the largest single contract procurement in the history of our industry, and we've taken what we believe are important steps to put our company in a competitive position to pursue this unprecedented opportunity," GEO Group's chief executive, George Zoley, said in an August call with investors.

Corrections Corp.'s chief executive, Damon Hininger, sounded similarly eager in a conference call last year, saying the company was "aggressively pursuing this opportunity."

Both companies have been active contributors to the state's elected officials and have hired top-tier lobbyists in Tallahassee to influence legislators and officials in the governor's administration in recent years.

A spokesman for the GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment. Mike Machak, a spokesman for Corrections Corp. of America, wrote in an email that the company had a "longstanding and productive partnership with Florida."

"We would certainly be interested in expanding our presence as both a partner and corporate citizen in Florida," Machak wrote.

A Huffington Post analysis of campaign contributions over the last three election cycles finds that political action committees, executives and spouses at for-profit prison companies have donated nearly $1.8 million to Florida candidates and committees.

The Florida Republican Party over the last decade has been the single largest recipient of campaign money nationwide from both the GEO Group and Corrections Corp. of America. Prominent Florida lawmakers in federal and state offices are among the top recipients of campaign donations from the GEO Group.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) received $27,000 from the GEO Group during his 2010 campaign, and GEO was listed as contributing the maximum of $25,000 last year to the inaugural party for Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

State Senate President Mike Haridopolos, a major supporter of the prison privatization plan, also received more than $35,000 from the GEO Group last year when he decided to seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate race to challenge the Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. Haridopolos decided to drop out of the race last summer.

An analysis by the National Institute on Money in State Politics found that during the 2010 election cycle, private prison interests gave $998,000 to Florida state lawmakers. In a similar fashion, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which until recently represented the state's correctional officers, donated about $1 million. The Police Benevolent Association also serves as a union for local police officers and many other law enforcement agents in the state.

HARD PUSH FOR PRIVATIZATION

This latest move to privatize South Florida's prisons is the second time in less than a year that the legislature has taken up the measure. Last spring, legislators included the prison privatization plan in a massive budget bill, rather than introducing separate legislation on the issue.

Using the budget approach, lawmakers avoided a direct up-or-down vote on the prison changes. The Florida Police Benevolent Association sued the state in July to halt the plan, arguing that the legislature had overstepped its authority by slipping such language into a budget bill.

A state judge in Tallahassee ruled last fall that the approach was unconstitutional and that lawmakers could not use the "hidden recesses" of the budget process to enact such a sweeping change in state policy.

After the court ruling was announced in September, the GEO Group's stock fell by nearly 5 percent in one day.

Lawmakers started anew on the privatization effort last month, swiftly moving the bills through committees. The head of the committee that sponsored the legislation in the state Senate, John Thrasher, was the former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, which has received more than $1.4 million in donations from political action committees and executives of for-profit prison corporations over the last three election cycles.

In recent debate in the Senate, Thrasher has argued that the goal of the legislation is cutting state costs.

"I've got taxpayers in my district who are concerned about the [shortfall] we have in the state of Florida, and they've asked us to look at ways that we can make government more efficient," Thrasher said in a committee meeting last week. "It's not a new concept. The evidence is that we're going to save money."

Supporters have argued that the state requires outsourced government services to be provided at a 7 percent discount and said the state would have the power to keep companies accountable for achieving the savings.

But evidence from numerous national studies has shown that the benefits of handing prisons off to private corporations can be illusory at best.

In Arizona, a 2010 report from the state's auditor general showed that it cost the state more to house prisoners in private facilities than public prisons, for both minimum- and medium-security facilities. After adjusting for the types of medical care provided in state prisons, the report found that the state spent more per inmate in private prisons than it did in its own public facilities.

Other outside research has found little in the way of convincing evidence that privatization significantly reduces prison costs. An analysis by the University of Utah that compiled a bevy of previous research on prison costs found that "neither cost savings nor improvements in quality of confinement are guaranteed through privatization."

Reports from Florida's legislative research arm, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, noted that the financial savings were more of a cost shift. Recent reports showed that the biggest savings in Florida's private prisons resulted mostly from lower retirement benefits for private guards; but higher administrative costs turned up for the state, which is still charged with overseeing the entire corrections system.

Dockery, the Republican state senator who disapproves of the privatization plan, questioned why budget decisions should be made by effectively firing state workers who have the option of getting rehired by a private company with fewer benefits.

"You're not even really balancing the budget. You're giving this for-profit company all of the employees' benefits as their profits," she said. "If you had employees who were not doing a good job, then laying them off for reason is one thing. But you're really making all these cuts off the backs of 3,800 employees."

Once enacted, the legislation would give companies 30 days to draw up proposals to operate the 27 facilities in South Florida.

UPDATE: 2:50 p.m. -- This story originally stated that the Florida state Senate was expected to vote on the prison management bill Wednesday afternoon. It has been updated to reflect that the Senate postponed its vote.