by Bethany Blankley
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his economic plan to revamp the U.S. economy at a presidential campaign event in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Monday.
He launched his “Declaration of Economic Independence” platform at a manufacturing facility with local business owners and workers suffering from 40-year high inflation, higher costs and regulatory burdens resulting from what he says are Biden administration policies.
The 10-point plan, DeSantis says, “will reverse the decline of our nation’s struggling economy and fight for the middle class by taking on the elites, DC bureaucrats, and Communist China.”
“We must be a society in which Americans who work hard and give the most of their God-given ability are able to succeed, to afford to buy a home, a car and to raise a family,” DeSantis said to a cheering crowd. “My promise is that I will always fight for our citizens, our families, our future, and our way of life – and I will never back down. We will take back control of our destiny – and ensure that our future is as proud, independent, and free as our past.”
His Declaration of Economic Independence prioritizes 10 key areas to:
- Take back control of the U.S. economy from China and restore American economic sovereignty,
- Achieve 3% growth by incentivizing investment, eliminating bureaucracy and red tape, and keeping taxes low,
- Unleash American energy independence,
- End environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and “political engineering by large investors,”
- Restore merit and respect for individuals as the central criteria for economic advancement,
- Reform the U.S. education system and lowering barriers to entry for working class Americans,
- Create a fair labor market by securing the border and enforcing US laws,
- Rein in the federal reserve,
- Oppose bailouts and hold bad economic actors responsible,
- Fight reckless and wasteful federal spending.
It was his third major policy platform after announcing his plan to stop the invasion at the U.S. border and end “wokeness” in the US military.
Restoring U.S. economic sovereignty includes ending “our abusive relationship with the CCP,” reversing America’s “never-increasing trade deficits,” banning imports of goods made from stolen U.S. intellectual property, strengthening protections to stop child and forced labor, and ending China’s preferential trade status, consistent with policies the Florida legislature has advanced under his leadership.
His plan also would ban the sale of strategic assets including U.S. farmland to CCP members and their affiliates and incentivizes the repatriation of U.S. capital from China through strategic tax abatements, among other measures.
He plans to achieve 3% growth through an “ambitious tax and regulatory reform agenda to unleash American production, increase productivity and growth, and support our families, workers, and small businesses while lowering inflation.” This includes reversing every Biden administration “job-crippling and ideological regulations and executive orders on Day One.”
It also includes eliminating “the fourth branch of government,” through which the American economy is regulated “into oblivion by ideological extremism.” This includes extending the individual tax rate and further simplifying the tax code and creating a more competitive tax system “that incentivizes long-term, domestic investment over financial speculation and short-term returns while purging the code of K Street carveouts and loopholes.”
DeSantis’ plan to unleash domestic energy production includes modernizing and protecting the national grid, advancing American energy independence by reversing Biden administration policies that have stifled energy production. It also prioritizes not tolerating “woke corporations using ESG as an end-run around our constitutional system to impose heavy-handed, left-wing edicts through concentrated private power. There will be no ideological litmus test for getting a loan, establishing a bank account, or running a business.”
It also includes advancing school choice programs nationwide, protecting parental rights, reforming the accreditation system and pairing educational institutions with the private sector to accelerate vocational and apprenticeship programs. One goal is to create a “great industrial revival, with a goal to become #1 in the world for skilled trades by 2030.”
It also involves appointing a Federal Reserve chairman who will maintain a stable dollar, and prohibit, not advance, the Federal Reserve implementing a central bank digital currency or social credit system. It also requires banks to use “clear language” disclosures, ends politically driven financial doxing, among other measures.
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Bethany Blankley is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Ron DeSantis.
