Touting his new $74.2 billion budget proposal and spouting some well-worn personal anecdotes Jan. 30 night, Florida Gov. Rick Scott turned a 10-minute speech to a regional construction industry group into a bragging session about his achievements over the past four years, reports Bradenton Herald.

In town to speak to a crowd of about 500 construction industry professionals at the Gulf Coast Builders Exchange annual dinner at Polo Grill, Scott encouraged his audience to tell people around the country Florida is the best state to do business in and it needs more people to fill “285,000 job openings in the state today.”

The speech came a day after Scott rolled out his 2014-15 state budget proposal, which includes $500 million in tax cuts and a $542 million increase in education spending.

The numbers are important, he said, because the accelerating state economy needs to attract more workers and more companies to do business in Florida.

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