Comments by "The Dude" (@The00Dude) on "DeSantis: 'We Can't Keep Going Like This'" video.
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Even a cursory dip into the statistics of social and economic well-being reveals that Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens. More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings assessing the quality of health care, school funding, long-term elder care, and other areas key to a successful society.
Florida may be the place where “woke goes to die”—as DeSantis is fond of saying—but it is also where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are stingier than in any other state, and wage theft flourishes with little interference from the DeSantis administration. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an hour. Under DeSantis’s watch, the Sunshine State has not exactly been a workers’ paradise.
Largely because of DeSantis’s obstinacy, Florida is one of 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, an act of political spite that has cost those states billions in federal health care dollars and cost thousands of people their lives. More than 12% of Floridians are without medical insurance, a worse record than all but four other states. Despite having the country’s highest percentage of retirees, Florida has the worst long-term care among the 50 states, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.
Public schools fare no better than health care in DeSantis’s Florida. Not only did Florida rank 49th in the country for average teacher pay in 2020, but the Education Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group based in New Jersey, found in a 2021 report that the state had the seventh-lowest per-pupil funding in the country. Education Week, which ranks states public school annually, looking beyond mere test scores, placed Florida 23rd in its 2021 report, a lackluster showing for a large and wealthy state.
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DeSantis has transformed himself into the face of an anti-“woke,” anti-public health movement that blossomed during the pandemic — the leader of an administration that was willing to not only defy the public health consensus but to control and manipulate information in order to advance its narrative of a crisis that has killed more than 1.1 million Americans, including more than 87,000 Floridians.
DeSantis used repeated misrepresentations and outright falsehoods to describe both Disney’s previous and new tax and regulatory frameworks.
For example, DeSantis claimed that Disney would finally be forced to pay its “fair share” that it avoided in the past. “You had infrastructure feeding into the theme park that was paid for by all the citizens of Central Florida, and Disney really got a free ride on that. Now they can be taxed for that,” he said.
In fact, Disney property has one of the highest total tax rates in the state. It pays all the taxes due to the counties and school boards for its acreage, and then pays additional “mills” for roads, water and sewage, utilities, and fire and police protection on its own property.
At another point, DeSantis suggested that Disney’s spending on its own infrastructure had burdened Florida taxpayers. “They were able to get huge amounts of benefits without paying their fair share of taxes, and even racked up $700 million of municipal debt,” he said.
In reality, Disney’s bond debt is paid only by taxpayers within the Reedy Creek Improvement District boundaries ― in other words, Disney itself, except for a few small parcels it has sold to hotels.
DeSantis said the new law puts Disney on par with all of the other Central Florida attractions: “Disney is going to be treated like SeaWorld is treated or like any of these others.”
That is also not true. While under a renamed board, Disney still has its own taxing district, which Universal Studios and SeaWorld, for example, do not. And because the district is a tax-exempt entity, a parking garage on Disney property does not have to collect sales tax, while those at the other theme parks do.
DeSantis accused local governments of trying to take advantage of last year’s legislation to raise taxes. “It will prevent local governments dominated by leftist politicians from using this situation to raise local taxes,” he said of the new law.
But passing along Disney’s accumulated debt to Orange and Osceola county taxpayers was not optional for officials in those counties in the event Reedy Creek was dissolved. Rather, it is required under state law governing special districts.
DeSantis did not publicly disclose Monday morning’s bill signing until two hours before its start ― making it impossible for the Tallahassee capital press corps journalists who have followed the Disney legislation most closely to attend.
Instead, DeSantis invited a firefighters union leader who complained that Disney was not paying them enough; a local mother who renounced Disney because she believes it no longer provides wholesome entertainment; and a Disney World employee who used his time at the microphone to spread various falsehoods about the COVID vaccines.
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Even a cursory dip into the statistics of social and economic well-being reveals that Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens. More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings assessing the quality of health care, school funding, long-term elder care, and other areas key to a successful society.
Florida may be the place where “woke goes to die”—as DeSantis is fond of saying—but it is also where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are stingier than in any other state, and wage theft flourishes with little interference from the DeSantis administration. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an hour. Under DeSantis’s watch, the Sunshine State has not exactly been a workers’ paradise.
Largely because of DeSantis’s obstinacy, Florida is one of 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, an act of political spite that has cost those states billions in federal health care dollars and cost thousands of people their lives. More than 12% of Floridians are without medical insurance, a worse record than all but four other states. Despite having the country’s highest percentage of retirees, Florida has the worst long-term care among the 50 states, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.
Public schools fare no better than health care in DeSantis’s Florida. Not only did Florida rank 49th in the country for average teacher pay in 2020, but the Education Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group based in New Jersey, found in a 2021 report that the state had the seventh-lowest per-pupil funding in the country. Education Week, which ranks states public school annually, looking beyond mere test scores, placed Florida 23rd in its 2021 report, a lackluster showing for a large and wealthy state.
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@victoriagrahm3915 Ron DeSantis Is a Man Of No Qualities
As Ron DeSantis provides safe harbor for oppression in Florida and exports bad policy across the country, it's clear that he represents an existential threat to American democracy—even if he fails to become president.
After four years of punishing the people of Florida with actions largely meant to increase his personal power, Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be bringing his corrosive brand of politics to a presidential run. But DeSantis only looks like an even remotely reasonable or centrist candidate when viewed in a line-up between his gubernatorial predecessor Rick Scott and ex-U.S. catastrophe Donald Trump. That he sits comfortably between the two, accompanied by a host of extremists, should be cause for alarm, not suggestions that he is anything other than an authoritarian.
While the slogan “Make America Florida” gains traction on bumper stickers and pundits debate DeSantis’ electability, DeSantis continues to plunge ahead with culture wars in schools that sunder communities, gaslight Floridians about the environment, and implement anti-scientific policies across life-or-death situations. But there is still—even after three years of a badly mishandled pandemic—nothing to apologize for, nothing to be accountable for, and nothing to be transparent about, to anyone.
DeSantis’ unchecked power in the state is reflected in his ability to bully that same legislature into a redistricting that removed traditionally Black voting blocs, despite the legislature preferring a more moderate plan. That he worked with national operatives to push this effort to completion hints at the networks DeSantis already has access to, even before formally announcing a run for president.
But DeSantis has crossed boundaries Scott only dreamed of breaching—including a shameless streak of political pay-to-play. A October 2022 Tampa Bay Times article revealed that “since assuming office in 2019, DeSantis has accepted roughly $3.3 million in campaign donations from 250 people he selected for leadership roles—a 75% increase in the number of donors appointed” over Scott’s first term in office.
As DeSantis blurs the line between matters of state and his personal campaigns, he often talks about fighting the “corporate media” as a sop to his supporters, portraying himself as a modern-day American hero standing up for the common man (and, sometimes, woman). Yet his campaigns have largely been backed and supported by huge corporate conglomerates or elites.
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