PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—Nearly 60,000 Florida families will be receiving stimulus checks to help cover back-to-school expenses for their children, but the checks are causing controversy with other Floridians.
July 25 is the start of the annual back-to-school tax holiday season, when school-related items such as clothes, shoes, and even computers can be purchased tax-free.Foster parents, relative and non-relative caregivers, and any family receiving cash assistance through the Florida Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program are eligible to receive a one-time payment of $450 per child to help offset costs for the coming school year.
The money for the stimulus checks is coming from the American Rescue Plan Act through which Florida received $35.5 million from the federal government for pandemic relief.
Representatives from the governor’s office said the money would be better spent to help families struggling during the 40-year-high inflation instead of being returned to the government where it would be “wasted.”
“The American Rescue Plan Act created a $1 billion fund to assist needy families affected by the pandemic within the TANF program,” Laura Walthall, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Children and Families, said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“The one-time payments ensured that $35.5 million would be received by Florida families. Had these awards not been made, the funding would have otherwise reverted back to the federal government.
“Families [don’t] need to apply for the one-time payment. Checks have been mailed directly to the recipients and should arrive within the next seven days.”
However, not everyone is on board with the governor’s plan and has taken to Twitter and other social media platforms to complain.
Fox Business Network anchor Dagen McDowell took exception via Twitter. “Stimulus checks. Extra welfare. Targeted relief. Call it what you will,” she wrote. “Handing out more money when inflation is running at a 40-year high is bad economic policy. And the idea that Republicans are somehow better at spending taxpayer money than Democrats? Laughable. Stop spending.”
DeSantis’s deputy press secretary Bryan Griffin wrote in a tweet, “[McDowell] is wrong about Florida’s foster care family aid: 1) the payments were specifically for foster care families 2) the $$ was repurposed federal dollars that would have to be utilized or lost to Biden (wasted) 3) states don’t cause inflation—the fed printing $$ did.”
Griffin also defended the governor’s decision to release stimulus money to struggling families, in an email to The Epoch Times.
Press secretary Christina Pushaw said Floridians were notified by letter about the stimulus checks, while some were worried that stimulus money could “make inflation worse.”
She denied that it would contribute to inflation.
“The federal government causes inflation by deficit spending,” Pushaw said on Twitter. “Stimulus checks were part of that. By contrast, the budget surplus in Florida is at the state level and it’s already money in existence, we do not print money here. So—no, it doesn’t cause inflation.”
Her defense of the stimulus checks did little to alleviate public concern, as some followed up on Twitter to argue that the payments could “still be inflationary” because this money isn’t circulated the same way as a cash injection into “people’s pockets.”
Wayne Hudson posted on Twitter: “When you print money because you don’t have any, yes, that causes the value of a dollar to drop. So, in turn, prices go up because it takes more money to buy something, like ingredients to make bread. So now it costs more to the consumer.”
Another commenter, James Brady, wrote: “The inflation is worldwide after a contraction from the pandemic slows down. The debt is from Trump tax cuts and continued corporate subsidies so they can continue to buy back stocks.”
In addition to Florida, 10 other states have issued or will be issuing stimulus or tax rebate checks during the summer to help families during the inflationary period. And at least 10 states including California have given refundable credits or deductions to families with children after the federal child tax credit expired in 2021.
