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(Trends Wide)– Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a record $117 billion budget for his state on Thursday. It is a spending plan packed with priorities that have already become fuel for the Republican’s presidential campaign.
There is US$ 12 million allocated to continue for a second year with the flights that transport migrants from the border states to the jurisdictions governed by Democrats. Another $25 million was set aside to remake New College, a small liberal arts college on Florida’s west coast, into a new model of a conservative public college. In addition, it includes tax breaks for child care products like diapers and a multi-million dollar expansion of school choice that will allow virtually any Florida elementary and high school student to attend taxpayer-funded private schools, two of the first characteristics of his proposal to republican families.
Over the past two years, DeSantis has spared no expense as he shaped Florida to his liking. The budget he signed is the largest in state history, at 30% more than his predecessor, then-Governor Rick Scott, signed during his last year in office. When he was elected in 2018, running the governor’s office cost taxpayers less than $50 million a year, a figure that has nearly increased eightfold under DeSantis.
“In the state of Florida, we can do things that make a difference in people’s lives by not wasting money, but spending it on things that really have a big impact on the general public,” DeSantis said at the budget signing. of this Thursday. “We are good tax administrators.”
The governor’s office did not release a list of DeSantis’ vetoes at the time of the signing, which will likely lower the budget’s top-line number. In the past, DeSantis’ vetoes have eliminated $130 million to $3 billion in spending.
Record tourism and a growing economy have created a windfall of sales tax revenue for DeSantis and Florida lawmakers to spend as they see fit. So has a major infusion of money from Washington, which has sent trillions of dollars to states to help them recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and invest in their infrastructure.
Ruling in good times has provided DeSantis with the means to fund an aggressively conservative agenda and expand his powers, even as he challenges Washington over its spending practices.
Last month, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to rally Republican support for a deal with President Joe Biden to avoid a calamitous debt default, DeSantis poured cold water on the delicate deal.
Before the deal, “our country was heading toward bankruptcy, and after this deal, our country will continue to be heading toward bankruptcy,” DeSantis told Fox & Friends at the time, a line he has repeated on the campaign trail in recent weeks. .
That criticism does not say how much DeSantis has relied on the federal government to pay for many of his priorities, first the $2.2 trillion COVID-19 stimulus signed by then-President Donald Trump in 2020 and later the Rescue Plan. US$1.9 trillion American championed by Biden.
The Florida Republican has often blamed Biden’s stimulus for causing the country’s long struggles with inflation. Yet he has generously spent the billions pumped into Florida by the Biden government.
He spent much of the past year handing out innovative checks across the state for local projects paid for by the American Rescue Plan. The federal government also picked up the bill for a state gas tax exemption that DeSantis implemented last October, just before his re-election.
“One in three dollars that Ron DeSantis spends comes from the federal government,” state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, told Trends Wide. “So you should be praising Joe Biden.”
DeSantis entered politics as a Tea Party-era Republican and a supporter of then-Rep. Paul Ryan’s hardline federal budget proposals. In his first year in Congress, DeSantis, along with the rest of the Freedom Caucus caucus, helped orchestrate a government shutdown.
When he ran for governor in 2018, he touted his record as a fiscal conservative and vowed to cut waste in Florida government.
As governor, DeSantis has made targeted tax cuts and filled reserves to protect state coffers should Florida’s good economic times come to an end. He has liberally used his veto powers to kill the pet projects of Florida lawmakers.
But he has also spent billions on new initiatives, as he has embraced the display of executive power to remake the state according to his conservative vision. The budget he signed in 2021 marked the first time the state exceeded $100 billion in planned spending, and it has been rising ever since.
With Thursday’s signing, he has more than $100 million to grow the state guard, a World War II-era force that he revamped last year into a well-equipped force of 1,500.
There is now $30 million for the University of Florida, the state’s flagship, to create the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. There are millions set aside to pay anticipated legal costs to defend the governor’s controversial agenda. And now there’s a tax break on sales of gas stoves, in response to a conservative backlash over concerns about the environmental effects of appliances.
DeSantis has at times clashed with his Republican predecessor, Scott, who has called on governors to pay back Biden’s bailout money. Scott accused states in 2021 of treating the federal aid package like a “slush fund.” Most recently, Scott sent a letter to US governors and mayors urging them to return all unused money in the covid-19 plan to help the federal government pay off its $31 trillion debt.
“Every dollar in these packages has been borrowed and will be owed by your constituents,” Scott wrote.
In the past, DeSantis has said Scott’s idea “doesn’t make any sense,” arguing that the money would be given to other states to spend.
“The state is headed in a great direction,” DeSantis said Thursday. “You’re not going to see us have the kind of problems that these other states have with tax insolvency, driving people away. Our tax base is expanding, business investment is terrific. And, of course, this budget is in fantastic shape. “.
