“We would welcome a world-renowned university like Yale to our state and I can commit that we will not raise taxes on their endowment,” Scott announced in a news release Tuesday.

“That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” Scott said in Tallahassee, according to the Associated Press. “That would be a great day.”

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His invitation came in the midst of a national debate about the tax-exempt status of endowments of the wealthiest universities, as Republican leaders in Congress question why tuition continues to rise rapidly even as the endowments swell. (And on Wednesday, Scott extended his offer to companies in Connecticut such as ESPN, Lego and the WNBA.)

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Adam Joseph, a spokesman for the Connecticut Senate Democrats, said the goal of the bill is to stimulate investment and education. In testimony about the bill, Sen. Martin Looney, president pro tempore of the Senate, wrote that “universities with over $10 billion would either use their endowment to expand access to education and create innovative jobs, or would share a small percentage of their retained earnings with the state’s taxpayers, so that we could accomplish these same goals.”

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy is not into the idea of taxing some of the profits of school’s endowment.

“Many proposals are put forward during the legislative session and many stay as just that — proposals,” spokesman Devon Puglia wrote in an email. “We value Yale, the students it educates, the research and innovation it generates, and the neighborhoods it strengthens in New Haven. As the Governor has made clear, we don’t believe that new taxes should be part of our solution. Instead, we should make the spending reductions necessary for living within our means.”

Yale? Also not so into the idea. (Here’s its testimony about the bill.) And it doesn’t sound like a move from New England to the Florida beaches is going to happen.

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“It’s wonderful to be recognized as an outstanding asset, but Yale, New Haven, and Connecticut have been on common ground to great mutual benefit for 300 years,” Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to reaching even greater heights in education, research and civic engagement over the next three centuries and more.”

Students at Yale were talking about it a lot, senior Tyler Blackmon said Wednesday: “Most people think it’s pretty ridiculous.”

Scott said he wanted to bring a world-renowned institution to the state, but Blackmon said that the Florida governor has “spent his entire career denying the kind of research that comes out of these kinds of institutions. That’s what a lot of people are talking about.”

“If he and his climate-change-denying friends have their way, there won’t be a Florida to move to,” Blackmon said. Some people “were not even amused, but outright outraged that someone like Rick Scott would have the nerve to say something like that.”

Asked if anyone thought Florida sounded pretty good right now — New Haven 44 degrees, Miami 76 — Blackmon laughed.