Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Florida governor, has been an outspoken critic of the stimulus, President Obama’s health-care reform, and both federal and state debt. His opponent, Democrat Alex Sink, charges that Scott is nationalizing the race instead of focusing on Florida’s issues.

Battle ‘10 caught up with Scott to talk about what has gone wrong, how he can help as governor, and why stimulus isn’t just a topic for Senate and House candidates. Here are the choice excerpts of the conversation.

B’10: Why have you taken such a hard line against stimulus money?

Scott: It didn’t work. The government can’t stimulate the economy, all it’s done is create all this uncertainty so people are worried about investing their dollars when they know, with all this debt, that their taxes have to go up.

B’10: How would you fight that as governor?

Scott: I’d do everything I can to make sure that we didn’t take stimulus money; I don’t want more debt on the state, I don’t want to be responsible for more debt at the state level. Because we’re going to have to pay it back.

And they have all these strings attached to stimulus money. I’ll give you an example. I was talking to a mayor once, and — this number will be off — he had three, or five-hundred-some-thousand dollars from the stimulus. It was a small town in Florida; he wanted to spend it to fix a road. They said, “No, you have to only fix a road that’s a state highway.” He said, “I have no state highways through my town.” […]

They said, “Well that’s the only place you can spend the money. If you don’t want the money, we’ll take it back.”

B’10: Are stories like that part of the reason why the money has been spent so slowly? Less than half of Florida’s share has been spent, according to one report.

Scott: It’s not spent well, and that’s an example. Now think about it. Do you think the government could figure out how to spend it — when you throw that much money at an economy — that they can figure out how to do it well?

B’10: Do you see increases in funding for things like Medicaid the same way as infrastructure stimulus?

Scott: It’s the same thing. What they’re going to do is they’re going to create a dependence, then we’re going to expand Medicaid, and then they’re going to pull the rug out from under us. And then we’re going to have more committed spending. It’s going to be a disaster for the state. Who’s going to pay for that?

B’10: If Florida refuses stimulus, but surrounding states take it, will that make Florida uncompetitive?

Scott: No, because we won’t have the debt that they’ll have. We won’t have the obligation to pay it back.

B’10: How do you sell the idea throughout Florida?

Scott: Look at what’s happened to unemployment — that’s how you sell it. The stimulus hasn’t worked. It doesn’t work. You cannot borrow your way or spend yourself to prosperity. Prosperity comes from building businesses that are legitimate businesses that serve customer needs that can make a profit. That’s a legitimate business.

B’10: Your opponent says you’re nationalizing the race by focusing on federal issues. How would you respond?

Scott: What my opponent is going to do is exactly what President Obama is going to do. She’s following his agenda to the T.

I mean, she believes in Obamacare, which is a disaster for our state. One, it’s horrible for our people, as patients. It’s going to ration their care. On top of that, there’s such a dramatic expansion of Medicaid — there’s no way we can pay for this. Does that impact our state? You’d better believe that impacts our state. Second, the stimulus dollars have to be paid back somehow. That’s bad for our state. So her policy of following what Barack Obama wants to do is clearly going to devastate our state. […]

Obamacare is going to be the biggest job killer in the state. Think about what’s going to happen to the agricultural community, when they have to pay for health care that is way more expensive than it is now. … That’s not a national issue, that’s an issue that affects Florida.

B’10: Tell me about your investment in XFONE. You took heat when it was reported that the company received $63 million in stimulus money, with critics saying that the investment is out of step with your rhetoric.

Scott: I have people that invest in companies for me, and so it’s a company that I know I have an investment in. Anybody that has done business — if you have a mutual fund, you have so many companies that have taken stimulus money — it’s such a big impact on our economy. … It’s a non-issue.