Gov. DeSantis says Florida Democrats don’t know what ‘everyday people’ want

Image via Colin Hackley.

Ahead of Gov. Ron DeSantis rolling out his fourth budget, legislative Democrats made the case that his budget should consider the needs of “everyday Floridians.“

Asked Thursday about the Democrats’ argument, DeSantis did not hold back, contending that on issue after issue, Democrats stood against what people in the state really want.

“I just don’t see how you can say you’re standing up for everyday people if you think that they should lose their jobs,” DeSantis said at the end of a wide-ranging answer that had less to do with the budget than it did with longstanding grievances against Democrats in the state and nationally.

“Well, you talk to everyday Floridians,” DeSantis advised a reporter. “First of all, they (Democrats) would have locked down and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

“They criticized me for keeping the state open. They criticized me for getting our kids back into school. Just think if we had not done that, the destruction that would have happened. The unemployment rate that we would see.”

“We’ve saved the livelihoods of so many people who are hard working, who don’t have the luxury of working from home, and we’ve stood up for them time and time again,” DeSantis continued. “And think about what most recently just happened. When we did the bill to prevent people from losing their jobs over vax mandates. I think every Democrat in the Senate voted against that.”

“They were all in favor of people losing their jobs: Cops, firefighters, people who worked for private businesses, nurses,” DeSantis noted. “We stood up for those folks.”

The Governor then turned his attention to “inflationary policies” under the Joe Biden administration, “which these people support,” saying the $1 billion gas tax holiday proposal was intended to help.

DeSantis noted his budget offers bonuses and raises for law enforcement, offering that up as a contrast to Democrats.

“I can tell you, a lot of them were not standing with law enforcement for a long time and still don’t,” DeSantis said. He added that Democrats, in opposing his anti-riot bill HB 1, failed a “critical test” because that bill banned local governments from “defunding” the police.

“We’re really standing up for folks,” DeSantis said, framing the Special Session against vaccine mandates as an example of opposition to “big government, the federal government and some of the biggest corporations in the state of Florida.”

Democrats had their own preemptive take earlier this week.

Rep. Anna V. Eskamani of Orlando, ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, pushed for fairer taxes. Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville called for expanded services for child care, health care, and elder care. Rep. Felicia Robinson of Miami Gardens laid out needs for broader funding increases for education to support everyone from experienced classroom teachers to classroom aides. Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando made the case for broader efforts to expand affordable housing. Rep. Ramon Alexander of Tallahassee, the Democrats’ Leader-Designate, summed it up, saying Democrats’ platform is about “putting the state’s money where our heart is.”

Perhaps Democrats got a little of what they wanted from DeSantis’ fourth budget, which comes in at a proposed $99.7 billion. The Governor did say he again wants the Sadowski Affordable Housing Trust Fund fully funded, for example. But most of their wish list items predictably did not make the cut.

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Florida Politics Reporter Scott Powers contributed to this post.