EDITORIAL: Jobless flap dislodges 'jobs czar'

If you’re looking for irony, look no further. Just as Florida’s legislative leaders are talking up the need for ethics reform, the state’s “jobs czar” abruptly resigns amid questions about how he collected unemployment benefits while traveling in Europe.
Hunting Deutsch quit Tuesday. He had been executive director of the state Department of Economic Opportunity for eight months. The agency oversees economic development and administers jobless benefits to out-of-work Floridians.
It turns out that Mr. Deutsch, too, was out of work and getting benefit checks for more than a year and a half, from September 2009 to May 2011. He also spent time in Europe. That raised eyebrows, because people who receive unemployment benefits are supposed to be looking for work and available for work.
Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said it was “bad form to seek unemployment while he was off on a trip to Europe.”
That’s putting it mildly. Mr. Deutsch was a banking executive before he was “unemployed” and visiting the Old World. One can guess that at some point he learned how to work the system — or at least how to take advantage of clueless bureaucrats in Tallahassee.
So now he’s unemployed again. Wonder when the checks will start rolling in?