Florida governor Ron DeSantis has unveiled a 10-point economic policy plan that would cut most trade ties with China, slash regulations, reinvigorate the nation’s energy production, and “rein in the Federal Reserve.”
Mr. DeSantis said his plan would allow American families to “declare economic independence” from ”a failed ruling class that has dictated this nation’s economic policies” for more than 40 years during a 45-minute July 31 speech in a logistic company’s warehouse in Rochester, New Hampshire,
The 2024 Republican presidential candidate said his ‘Declaration of Economic Independence’ outlines a vision for an economy that “has been sorely lacking vision,” especially under the Biden administration.
It is his campaign’s third policy roll-out in recent weeks as part of a rebooted campaign set on hammering cornerstone planks into its platform with the Republican National Committee’s first debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, three weeks away, while former president Donald Trump is more than 37 percentage points ahead of the Florida governor in the latest poll, according to a New York Times/Siena College survey published July 31.
Last week, Mr. DeSantis presented his ‘Military First’ defense policy. In late June, he introduced a border policy in which he would declare the southern border crisis a national security emergency and deploy active-duty military to the region.
The emphasis on building policy platform planks comes after the campaign acknowledged Mr. DeSantis needed to broaden his issue aperture beyond that of an “anti-woke” culture warrior and, while citing Florida successes, spending less time citing Florida successes while clearly articulating national policy aspirations.
The economic policy roll-out kicks off four days of New Hampshire stumping for Mr. DeSantis with the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary tentatively set for Feb. 6, 2024, looming as a critical next test after Iowa’s GOP Jan. 15 caucuses officially kick-off the 2024 election cycle, a near 11-month series of state-by-state preliminaries that ends in the Nov. 5 nationwide presidential vote.
Build Economy ‘That Works’ For Americans
Mr. DeSantis said the nation is in decline military, culturally, and economically. “We need to reverse the decline of this country and restore the greatness this country deserves and that begins with an economy that works for America’s families again,” he said.Wages have stagnated, inflation “has exploded, and the CCP [Communist Chinese Party] continues to eat this country’s lunch every day,” the governor said, citing the 2008 “too big to fail” bank bailout in the wake of the housing collapse, and the shutdowns and subsequent $5.2 trillion in COVID assistance and stimulus packages adopted by Congress between 2020–22 as benefiting corporations and “elites” while imposing the burdens of paying for it all on working-class families,.
His plan would punish the “individuals and institutions that caused our economic malaise” and install an economic emphasis that benefits families that will no longer “kowtow to Wall Street and big banks” with a system “jiggered” to grow the lobbyist and government industrial complex occupying Washington at the expense of the rest of the nation.
“The ‘American Dream’ has become cost-prohibitive for most American families,” Mr. DeSantis said, noting that buying a home and purchasing a new car are increasingly beyond the reach of working-class earners.
The average American household worth has been in decline since 1980, he said, while during the same span, the top 10 percent of earners have seen income increase by $29 trillion.
During the COVID lockdown, millions of workers left the labor force, Mr. DeSantis said. With Congress dumping trillions into the economy that diminished the urgency for some to return to work, many “still today have not returned,” he said.
No. 1: End China Trade
The first priority in his ‘Declaration of Economic Independence’ policy would be to continue “strategically decoupling the American economy from China and the globalist elites that have been wreaking havoc on the American Dream.”The United States must “take back control of our economy from China” and end “an abusive, asymmetric relationship between our two countries” that only benefits the CCP and Western “elites” that have sold out workers and taxpayers.
“No more massive trade deficits, no more importing of goods,” he said. “With stolen intellectual property, no more ‘preferential trade status.’ We need to incentivize the repatriation of American capital and investment here in the United States.”
The second plank in his economic policy platform is to induce at least a 3 percent annual growth in the national gross domestic product by trimming tax-financed bureaucracy and red tape that are “the leading drags on economic growth right now in our country.”
In the last 10-15 years, especially since the Bush-era bank bailouts, “the little guy … the budding entrepreneur … the small businesses suffer the most at the hands of federal overreach, Biden’s job crippling and ideological regulations and executive orders” that “will be reversed by me on Day One.”
The third component of the 10-point economic policy plan promotes a natural resources policy geared to “achieve energy independence by using our domestic resources.”
The United States has the “best oil and gas resources in the world” and his administration would seize upon the “incredible opportunity to leverage this competitive advantage for the good of our economy, for the good of the average citizen because this will help drive down inflation and make things more affordable,” he said.
President Joe Biden’s Green New Deal would be deep-sixed immediately, Mr. DeSantis promised.
“We are going to reverse the policies of Biden that’s trying to force Americans to buy electric vehicles. That’s your choice if you want to do it. But I can tell you most of the stuff that goes into those electric vehicles is made in China. Why would you want to knowingly make this country more dependent on what goes on in China? So we will make sure that we ditch those rags, and we will save the American automobile in this country,” he said.
The fourth pillar in his economic platform would be to ““de-politicize” the economy by “kneecapping things like ESG"[environmental, social, governance investment criteria], and the fifth element is to “restore merit in the individual as the central criteria for economic advancement” in tandem with the recent affirmative action ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mr. DeSantis’ sixth economic priority is to “reform the education system in this country” from K–12 through the public university system “to focus on education, not indoctrination.”
That emphasis includes support for parents rights and “universal school choice” at the K–12 level and for dramatically expanded “workforce education and technical training” at the college level.
“A for a degree from a four-year brick-and-ivy university is one way you can be successful, but it’s not the only way you can be successful,” he said. “And for many people, it’s not the best way to be successful. So let’s elevate opportunities for our young people to acquire tangible skills that they can then parlay into very successful careers.”
“A strong and fair labor market” is Mr. DeSantis’ seventh economic policy plank, and that would involve immigration reform.
Revamp Fiscal Policy, Control Spending
His eighth economic policy pillar is “to rein in the Federal Reserve,” which he said “is not designed or supposed to be an economic central planner. It is not supposed to be indulging and social justice or social engineering. It’s got one job, maintain stable prices, and it departed from that with what it’s done over the last many years.”Mr. DeSantis said the ninth component of his economic policy is to erect accountability measures that ensure “bad economic actors are held responsible for their decisions—no more socialism for the wealthy and rugged individualism for small businesses and for individuals and for working-class people.”
The 2008 bailouts have haunted the American working class and will never be repeated in a DeSantis administration, he said.
The final point in his economic policy plank is to curtail federal spending by lobbying for adoption of a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
“We need to rein in Congress’s spending habits. They are spending us into oblivion. I believe we need structural reforms like a balanced budget amendment to the constitution and term limits for members of Congress,” he said.
If he can’t secure those “structural reforms,” the governor vowed to “lean in and use the veto pen to be able to battle against this excessive spending,” noting the national debt, at $20 trillion “five, six years ago” is now at $32 trillion.
“And it’s all because Congress ... it’s easier for them to put it on the credit card than to actually have to make tough decisions, and so we’re going to be a force against that,” Mr. DeSantis said.
The governor’s economic policy roll-out was the first of two scheduled stumps in New Hampshire on July 31 where he will be campaigning for four days.
Four other GOP presidential hopefuls in the 14-candidate field will also be in New Hampshire this week.
Long-shot Texas business owner and pastor Ryan Binkley will be at an Aug. 1 event at Dartmouth College, his first campaign visit to New England.
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson will be at a “No B.S. Backyard Barbecue” in Rye, New Hampshire, on Aug. 1 and at Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua for an Aug. 2 interview.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will deliver a lunch address at Grill 603 in Milford on Aug. 3, and former vice president Mike Pence will be at a town hall at American Legion Hall Post 27 in Londonderry on Aug. 4 before attending a “town hall-style event” at The Bedford Event Center on Aug. 5.
