A.G. Gancarski
Thursday, the stock market flew sky high, buoyed by a splash of stimulus cash. But not every Florida leader was thrilled.
House Speaker José R. Oliva took to Twitter to predict that the federal commitment, already at $2.2 trillion from the giveaway-laden CARES Act, will end in tears.
“The economy is shuttered, unemployment at historic highs but the stock market is having a great week. No amount of “forward-looking”can account for this disparity. The financial sector is again the greatest beneficiary of this stimulus. This will not end well in the long run,” Oliva tweeted Thursday afternoon.
“Bailouts and industry specific incentives have never been part of true conservatism,” he added, responding to a Democratic candidate trying to bait him.
The Speaker’s most recent commentary, which saw him get called “woke” by Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani, is the latest in a series of cautionary comments from Oliva on steps taken by government in reaction to the coronavirus crisis.
Oliva offered another cautionary social media comment in the “don’t let the cure be worse than the disease” vein days after Session ended.
“At what point is the cure worse than the virus? We are all deeply concerned but should we all be deathly afraid?”
That commentary, from a Mar. 21 Tweet, continued a contrarian theme for Oliva, who projected calm in the waning days of Session even as coronavirus concerns shut down the NBA season … then everything else.
Even before the Legislative Session ended, Oliva expressed grave concern that the budget may have to be adjusted given drastic changes in the economy.
Oliva, who had spotlighted potential “panic” before, noted on the House floor that the stock market had to halt trading given the sell orders cascading in early this week as markets opened.
“The ten-year yield is at an all-time low … the Fed is probably going to move another three-quarter points off the interest,” Oliva said, with the momentum due to the coronavirus.
Those remarks were before the federal government committed to a heretofore unprecedented experiment, at least in the United States, of full-bore Keynesian expansion of the money supply.
