Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / BREAKING NEWS Ron DeSantis Announces Florida DOGE Task Force To Make Huge Cuts To Sunshine State Budget

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BREAKING NEWS Ron DeSantis Announces Florida DOGE Task Force To Make Huge Cuts To Sunshine State Budget · Elon Musk Podcast

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for the show Elon Musk News. Good morning.
1:05
Great to be back in Tampa. Thank you all for coming.
1:08
We got a great series of announcements today.
1:12
I do want to start by recognizing some of our
1:14
dignitaries. We have our Commissioner of
1:16
Education Manny Diaz, we have State Board of Administration
1:20
Director Chris Spencer, we have Senators Collins and in Golia,
1:25
and we have Representatives Cheney, Gonzalez, Pittman and
1:28
Owen. So I want to thank everybody for
1:31
for being here. We in the state of Florida take
1:34
pride in in how we run things. I say we were doge before Doge
1:40
was cool because if you look at the way we manage things and
1:43
compare us to a state like New York, which is our closest a
1:47
competitor in terms of population, although it used to
1:51
be they had more people than us. Now we have millions of more
1:53
people than New York State does. Yet New York State's budget is
1:57
over twice the size of the state of Florida's budget.
2:01
But when people come down here, they tell me you have better
2:03
services, roads, schools, all this other stuff.
2:06
And so something is happening with that money.
2:08
I know they're taxing a lot of people for it, but we do things
2:11
a little bit different. And so I was just having been in
2:16
this fight for a long time, working with our agencies,
2:20
working with the legislature to make sure we're standing for
2:23
taxpayers. I was very pleased to see the
2:27
emphasis by the Trump administration on this
2:31
department of of Government account of efficiency, this
2:34
dodge with Elon Musk leading the charge.
2:38
Now, Washington is a much different beast than than
2:41
Florida is because this has not been attended to for really many
2:45
decades and this bureaucracy has grown to massive proportions.
2:51
The money that gets done in there is basically on autopilot
2:55
as Congress does things like continuing resolutions and
2:59
omnibus bills, and nobody reads this stuff and it's your money
3:03
and the credit card and everything.
3:06
And so it needed to be reined in.
3:10
And so you have seen what they have done going in.
3:14
They are pruning the workforce. You know, I'll tell talk about
3:18
our workforce in a minute, but much different than how DC does
3:21
it. They have exposed slush funds
3:24
like USAAID. They've rooted out hundreds of
3:27
millions of dollars in contracts and grants that were intending
3:32
to promote DEI, which we eliminated in Florida in our
3:36
education years ago. But it's something that has been
3:39
very pervasive in our country for the last few years.
3:43
They even discovered that 10s of millions of dollars in FEMA
3:47
funds were used by the Biden administration to put illegal
3:50
aliens in nice hotels in New York City.
3:53
I think a lot of people in the Tampa Bay area would like FEMA
3:56
to be more attentive to them. Except FEMA, they wouldn't go to
3:59
people that had Trump flags in their home.
4:02
And meanwhile they're showering all these benefits on illegals.
4:07
One of the things, though, that I think that we are looking at
4:11
with that because as I said, Florida is a different beast.
4:14
We've had this focus certainly since I've been governor to make
4:17
sure that the state is lean and as efficient as possible.
4:21
But one of the things that they're doing with these
4:23
technology teams that kind of go in is they're leveraging things
4:27
like artificial intelligence to be able to review payments, to
4:31
be able to review contracts. So we have people that review
4:35
these contracts. So for example, we review the
4:37
contracts for DEI. If it's there, we don't allow it
4:39
or grants, but to be able to have the, the AII think that's
4:44
been an added tool. And that's one of the reasons
4:46
why they've been able to expose so much.
4:49
So I think it's really good. I think taxpayers need to have a
4:53
seat at the table in Washington. And for too long, nobody's cared
4:57
about the taxpayers, much less the next generation who's
5:00
ultimately going to have to pay for all of the mismanagement
5:04
that we've seen over these many, many years.
5:06
Now, as I said, in Florida, we were doge when no one is even
5:10
talking about it before was even cool to do.
5:13
We've worked hard to make this government as efficient and as
5:18
effective as possible. My first year as governor, we
5:22
took a look at all the professional and licensing
5:25
regulations and apparatus that have kind of grown almost like
5:30
barnacles on a ship throughout Florida over these last many
5:33
years and even decades. We brought in people from all
5:37
around the state and say we want to find solutions.
5:40
We don't want people bogged down, and we don't want to
5:44
create barriers to entry for people who potentially could
5:48
make a living in one of these things.
5:50
And so our licensing boards proposed a major overhaul.
5:57
We were able to enact major legislation that was one of the
6:02
biggest streamlining of government that we've seen in
6:05
modern state history. It was called the most sweeping
6:09
occupational license reform in all of Florida history because
6:15
it it abolished requirements or or loosen them across more than
6:20
30 different boards and professions.
6:22
And so that's a huge, huge transfer of power away from
6:27
bureaucracy and towards people being able to be successful in
6:31
our state. We've also made it a priority to
6:34
prune and eliminate spending, particularly spending that isn't
6:39
appropriate or is wasteful. We want to make sure that people
6:43
are good stewards of your hard earned dollars.
6:46
And so just look year over year, what we're spending in this
6:51
current fiscal year is billions of dollars less than what we
6:54
spent in the previous fiscal year.
6:57
Imagine that you actually spend less money year over year in a
7:01
government who, who's, who's ever seen anything like that?
7:04
And notice what they talk about in Congress, you'll hear them
7:08
say, oh, we're going to work on a deal for one 1 1/2 trillion
7:12
dollars in cuts. Just understand that's
7:16
Washington speak. It's not actually cutting year
7:19
over year. What it is is they they project
7:22
out 10 years, they project out massive increases in spending
7:27
over 10 years. And they basically say they're
7:30
going to reduce the anticipated increases in spending over a 10
7:34
year period by 1.5 trillion. They don't actually cut 1 cent
7:39
from the current baseline. The baseline will keep getting
7:43
higher, just not as high as the forecasts are.
7:46
So they are not cutting 1.5 trillion in this current year.
7:52
I think when we do things and the certainly with the
7:55
legislature, they're looking, what'd you do last year?
7:57
What are you going to do this year?
7:58
We can't say, Oh yeah, we're going to cut spending and we'll
8:00
project out 10 years. Nobody does business that way.
8:04
You can't operate certainly your family's budget that way.
8:07
I mean, imagine if you wanted to go on a spending spree during
8:10
Christmas and you said, well, I'll just offset it with I'll,
8:14
I'll reduce spending in the family budget, but I'm going to
8:17
do it over a 10 year period, not right now while I'm actually
8:19
spending the money. That wouldn't fly.
8:21
Nobody would say that that's something that's OK.
8:24
So to actually reduce spending year over year is a really major
8:29
thing. And we were able to do that here
8:32
in Florida. And keep in mind, certainly
8:34
since I've been governor, we've had explosive population growth.
8:38
So just having just doing the normal things you do, you got to
8:43
do more. You got to build more schools,
8:44
you got to do more roads. You have to do different things
8:48
for the services to be there of the core things that everyone
8:50
thinks government should do. And we've had the biggest period
8:54
of inflation because of obviously what the guys have
8:56
done in Washington, the Federal Reserve, all this stuff.
8:59
So we had projects like major projects that everyone thinks
9:02
are good, but then I had to go back like a year later and put
9:06
10s of millions of more dollars into it because the cost went
9:10
up. So much fact, you look at the
9:11
cost of some of these things, just go back five or six years.
9:15
Some of these projects have gone up 50%, seventy, some of them
9:19
have doubled in terms of how much it costs.
9:22
And that's driven by supply chain, inflation, all these
9:25
other things. So we've had to deal with that
9:28
big population growth and big increase and yet we're still
9:32
able to bring in the budget billions of dollars less than we
9:36
did the the year before. We also have by the end of this
9:40
fiscal year, we will have. So Florida became a state in the
9:44
1840s, accumulated debt all the way until basically the the
9:49
present time. So when I became governor, if he
9:51
took all that debt up until 2019, we've now retired 41
9:56
percent of our state's total historical debt.
9:58
And I don't think there's any other state that can say that
10:01
that's a major deal. And so our debt per capita
10:08
dropped from 14157 dollars about 15 years ago.
10:15
Now it's $664 per person in Florida.
10:20
So that's a 54% increase. And just put that in
10:23
perspective, your share as a Florida resident is less than
10:27
$700.00 a person of our outstanding state debt.
10:30
Your share of the federal debt as an American is over $100,000
10:37
per U.S. citizen. I mean, that is something that's
10:40
a stark, stark difference in terms of what you do.
10:43
We also have maintained a AAA credit rating, which not every
10:48
state can say. And we have more than tripled
10:53
our rainy day fund. We call it the budget
10:55
stabilization fund. We have major, major plush
10:58
reserves, which had not always been the case as well.
11:02
And get this, you want to talk about efficiency.
11:05
Florida has the lowest number of state government workers per
11:10
capita of any state in these United States.
11:14
That is what you call a small government.
11:16
And yet if you compare our services to peer states like New
11:21
York and California, where would you rather go to the DMV?
11:25
Would you rather go here or would you rather go there?
11:28
Where would you rather open to try to open and start a business
11:31
in Florida or some of these other places?
11:33
And so our services, even with that small footprint are
11:38
actually better than what they're doing in these other
11:42
states. And of course, when you're
11:44
efficient and you're good stewards of the taxpayer
11:46
dollars, returning money to the taxpayers in relief is something
11:52
that's really, really significant.
11:53
And so just this current year of the legislature was able to pass
11:57
and I signed 1.5 billion in tax relief.
12:01
Some of those are permanent tax cuts.
12:03
We, for example, recently, I think it was two years ago, we
12:08
eliminated all sales tax on all baby items permanently.
12:12
So you have a, you have a kid and you need to buy all these
12:16
different things, the diapers, the cribs, everything that goes
12:18
along with that. And it's expensive.
12:21
You now do that tax free. So that saves families hundreds
12:24
of dollars a minimum a year, probably more depending on how
12:28
things are in this stuff gets more and more expensive every,
12:31
every single day. We also do toll relief.
12:35
So we will have two straight years where we've done a 50%
12:39
rebate for tolls for all of our commuters.
12:41
So if you're a commuter, you're paying at a certain number of
12:44
times a month. They just refund your bill 50%
12:47
at the end of each month. That's say, Floridians, you
12:50
know, families, hundreds of dollars a year as well.
12:53
And of course, we do do our special sales tax holidays,
12:57
things like back to school disaster preparedness, our
13:01
Freedom Summer tax holiday where you can do a lot of activities
13:05
and outdoor stuff during the summer.
13:07
In this coming year, I've actually proposed a Second
13:11
Amendment summer where your ammunition and firearms are tax
13:15
free from Memorial Day through July 4th.
13:18
And I hope that the legislature includes that.
13:20
It's honestly not not big of a fiscal impact, but I think it's
13:23
something that a lot of our sportsmen and gun enthusiasts
13:27
will really appreciate, especially on the ammo because
13:30
that gets more and more expensive as the supply has been
13:33
pretty tight over these more recent years.
13:35
So we have delivered record tax relief.
13:38
I think every year, certainly for the last three or four
13:41
years, we've delivered more tax relief than had ever been
13:43
delivered in the history of the state of Florida.
13:46
Going forward, we're looking to eliminate another tax.
13:50
So Florida's the only state in the country that charges tax on
13:55
business rent. So if you start a business and
13:58
you and you have to rent a place, an office, you have to
14:00
have to pay tax. They pay tax on the rent going
14:03
in and it just doesn't make sense.
14:05
It's not a really good way to do do this.
14:08
And so we've put a proposal, we've already reduced it a lot
14:11
since I've been governor and that's been helpful.
14:14
But we've put that proposal in. So over 2 year period, we'll
14:17
just simply eliminate the business rent tax entirely and
14:20
that'll be very good for a lot of folks who are trying to start
14:23
businesses. It's also just an inappropriate
14:26
way to tax. I mean, if we're the only state,
14:29
like, look, we lead and so we do things other states don't do.
14:33
So I'm not saying we have to mimic other states by any
14:35
stretch of the imagination. Heck, you look at what we've
14:38
done, we're the, we're the only state that's enacted all this,
14:42
the legislation to crack down on the illegal immigration and to
14:45
help people like Tom Holman remove illegals from the state
14:49
of Florida. I mean, we need to do that.
14:51
And so we went above and beyond on that.
14:53
No other state is done. Maybe some other states will,
14:57
because I think they see people like what?
14:59
Like what we did, but the reality is we don't necessarily
15:02
follow suit. At the same time, there's a
15:04
policy that's been in place for decades and nobody else is doing
15:08
it. I then look and say, OK, no one
15:11
else is doing this. We're a low tax state.
15:13
If even California doesn't tax this, if even New York doesn't
15:17
that, should we really be taxing him?
15:19
So we said no. So, so we hopefully be able to
15:21
get that done. I know we've had a lot of great
15:23
success with the with the legislature on reducing that
15:28
anyways. But if we do do that and all the
15:30
other tax relief proposals, including the Second Amendment
15:33
summer, including the marine boating gas holiday where you
15:37
wouldn't pay tax on marine fuel. And that's a huge deal for a lot
15:41
of our our fishermen, a lot of our boaters.
15:44
Coincidentally, I met with the new Secretary of Commerce,
15:49
Howard Ludnik. He's a good guy and, and I
15:53
showed him because commerce overseas, NOAA, which overseas
15:57
the fisheries and we obviously have a nice, nice peninsula,
16:02
sunny peninsula. If you go on this side, if you
16:06
go into the Gulf. We have been delegated in the
16:09
state of Florida the ability to manage our red snapper
16:13
population and to make sure people can go or not go
16:17
depending on what it is. Obviously we want the population
16:20
to be healthy. We're required to do that under
16:22
the law. But we've been able since I've
16:24
been governor to dramatically expand golf red snapper season.
16:28
We now have like 100 and five days, I think, for golf red
16:31
snapper season. That's a huge, huge thing for so
16:35
many people who are on the West Coast of Florida.
16:38
Meanwhile, you go across the peninsula to the Atlantic Ocean,
16:44
you know how many? And we don't manage the Atlantic
16:46
red snapper that is managed by the federal government.
16:49
So as we're doing 105 days for golf red snapper, you know how
16:53
many days they gave us for Atlantic red snapper?
16:58
One day. Are you trying to tell me
17:00
there's only one day worth of fish?
17:02
And that of course not. And we know that the, the
17:05
boaters that go out there, the fisherman that goes at least
17:07
these fish are everywhere. That's what they were telling us
17:09
about the, the, the Gulf. And that's why we did our
17:13
overhaul and said we're going to do it.
17:14
And the population is even healthier.
17:16
So I told them, I said, listen, give us the ability to manage
17:21
this. I was like, this is ridiculous.
17:23
I was like so many people on the East Coast of Florida will be
17:25
happy if we're able to do it. So hopefully we'll be able to
17:29
get that delegation. We'll be able to expand Atlantic
17:32
red snapper season. We obviously are have golf.
17:35
I may be able to expand it even more.
17:37
We're working on that. And we always, always tell these
17:40
guys, I was like, give me more days, give me more days.
17:42
So we may be able to do that again.
17:43
We'll have an announcement on that shortly.
17:45
But this marine fuel holiday, that's going to save people a
17:49
lot of of money. So hopefully the legislature
17:51
will be supportive of that. I know there's a lot of their
17:53
constituents that that really are doing that.
17:56
So more relief for taxpayers, elimination.
18:01
In our budget, we are proposing an elimination of 740 state
18:07
government positions. And so we already have the
18:09
smallest footprint of any state and we're pruning even more and
18:13
that's 740 on net because we do have to add positions in certain
18:18
areas, for example, corrections, we need more people there.
18:21
We need more folks to help with some of our Highway Patrol or
18:24
lawn. But there's different things we
18:26
have to do that everyone would agree have to do.
18:29
So we look at that, what's the, what's the increase?
18:31
But then what's the decrease? And the net is going to be 740
18:35
fewer positions as a result of what we're doing.
18:39
So we want to continue with these proposals.
18:43
So, so this has been our frame of mind from the day I took
18:46
office. I'm proud to be able to say that
18:50
our state has never been in better fiscal health.
18:53
When you're paying down 41% of the the state's debt that it's
18:56
accumulated after 180 years, 100 and yeah, 180 years, that's a,
19:02
that's a huge, huge thing. Tax relief, all this stuff,
19:05
very, very good, reducing spending, which no one else is
19:08
really doing. But we always want to get
19:10
better. And so we look to see what Musk
19:13
is doing with the Doge in Washington DC.
19:16
And the one thing I think that that they're doing that we need
19:20
to incorporate is to utilize and leverage technology like
19:25
artificial intelligence to be able to police the payments and
19:29
the operations and the contracts that are done in government.
19:31
You know, for example, we have people that review these
19:34
contracts and if there's DEI, they Nix it and things like
19:37
that. But this is some high-powered
19:39
stuff and I think would be able to provide us some good
19:43
information. So, you know, we have already
19:44
been doing this stuff. This will really help enhance
19:48
that. So today I'm pleased to announce
19:51
that we are launching a comprehensive initiative to
19:54
continue to streamline our government and to continue to
19:58
eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and to continue to
20:02
ensure tax dollars are used in the most efficient way possible.
20:06
We are creating a state DOGE task force that will implement a
20:11
multi prong approach to eliminating bureaucratic bloat
20:15
and modernizing our state government to best serve the
20:18
people of Florida in the years ahead.
20:20
This will be. A1, just similar to the federal
20:23
Doge. It's going to be a limited
20:25
amount of time. It'll be a one year term.
20:27
It will sunset following the completion of the mission.
20:31
Now we've already been looking at things that we can do leading
20:35
into this upcoming legislative session and we've already
20:39
earmarked over 70 state boards and Commission for abolishment
20:45
and to sunset them. This will restore power and
20:48
accountability to Floridians. I mean, I get all these boards
20:51
and we have, I've gotten rid of some and then we get
20:54
appointments to all this different stuff.
20:56
And I'm like, well, why can't we just do that through the agency?
20:59
Do we even need this? And so we've asked these
21:01
questions over the last really couple years to tee up this
21:05
major reform. So we will be proposing over 70
21:09
state boards and Commission to sunset and to get them off the
21:13
books. Again.
21:14
I don't know that there's that many other states that are doing
21:16
actually Iowa Governor Reynolds, I know she's sunset at a lot of
21:19
agencies and that seems to have worked very well.
21:22
There may be a couple examples around the country, but by and
21:25
large that's not happening. We want to make sure that these
21:28
boards and commissions aren't just continuing to grow without
21:32
ever being reviewed for effectiveness.
21:34
So that's what we're doing. And I know there's a lot of
21:37
support in the legislature to be able to eliminate some of these
21:42
redundant entities. And, and we have been working on
21:44
reviewing every single board and there's hundreds of these
21:48
things. A lot of people never heard of
21:50
any of these things, but they're there.
21:52
And we've examined the budgets, we've examined appointments,
21:54
vacancies, the mission, trying to assess whether the mission
21:58
still relevant, whether it overlaps with other boards or
22:01
authorities, whether has been become obsolete over time.
22:05
And there are some that actually serve their purpose.
22:07
So they did what they had to do. They maybe they issued a report
22:10
and so then you get it off the books.
22:12
That's the way to do. Some of these boards haven't met
22:16
in recent years. Some of them haven't had
22:18
appointments for many, many years, but we gathered feedback
22:21
from state agencies as well as stakeholders.
22:24
We wanted to make sure that we were doing this right.
22:27
And this is part of a broader strategy to be able to
22:31
streamline government. So a total of 900 positions,
22:34
This is in addition to the ones I said will be eliminated that
22:38
will be good for the state of Florida.
22:41
So that's one thing that we've already found that we've already
22:44
proposed. We do need the legislature to
22:47
ratify that and to enact those reductions.
22:50
But I think that that we've gotten good feedback.
22:52
I've spoken with both this this speaker and the Senate
22:54
President. We also want to make sure that
22:56
we're proactive and that we're doing all we can to make sure
23:01
our State University and college system are being good stewards
23:05
of your tax dollars. Now, we have not raised tuition
23:08
since I've been governor. You now have the the lowest
23:11
tuition in the United States of America for a Florida resident.
23:15
There's ways you can get that paid for if you're in bright
23:17
future. So we're proud of that.
23:20
But what we've also done over that period is we have increased
23:24
appropriations to our State University system in really
23:27
significant ways. And a lot of that has been
23:30
really good. A lot of that has helped.
23:32
For example, we now give a pot of money for the universities,
23:36
for the presidents to recruit faculty so they can bring in
23:40
faculty. If you have somebody that's good
23:41
at like MIT, you can offer them money, you can give them a
23:45
position. We don't let the current faculty
23:48
blackball anyone because they don't tow the ideological line.
23:51
We want people that are going to bring different perspectives,
23:54
particularly with how stale academia has gotten, with just
23:58
the intellectual vapidity that you've seen where they're
24:01
basically parroting us similar ideology that's not good for
24:05
university. So we've worked really hard to
24:08
create different perspectives and I think it's been good, but
24:10
that's money well spent if you're bringing in really high
24:14
quality professors to be able to do this stuff.
24:16
So we're proud of that and there's so many other things
24:18
that we've been able to do, but we also need to make sure that
24:21
the money is being spent as wisely as possible.
24:25
So yes, we do have the lowest undergraduate tuition and fees
24:28
of any state in the country. It's about $6300.
24:32
Most universities that are public are about 12,000 is the
24:37
average. So we're almost half of what the
24:39
averages. And there's some in these
24:40
universities that that are over 20,000 even for in state.
24:44
Certainly I know there's a bunch that are, but are like 18,000
24:47
for in state. And some of these are good
24:49
schools, but still that's a lot different.
24:51
If you have $6300, you don't need to take out one red cent
24:56
and loan. You really don't.
24:58
Between what the parents, even parents are very low income and
25:01
can't afford a lot. You can work part time jobs.
25:03
There's things that you can do to be able to get through there.
25:06
So you can graduate with either no debt or at A, at the worst,
25:09
very minimal debt. You can 18,000 tuition, room,
25:13
board, all that stuff. You're not going to probably be
25:15
able to make enough in a part time job to be able to pay that.
25:18
So you likely will take on debt. And that's even at some of these
25:21
state universities, but not in Florida.
25:23
We have some of the highest ranked public universities in
25:25
the country. We have 4 ranked in the top 50,
25:29
University of Florida, Florida State, South Florida and Florida
25:32
International University. Of course, Florida
25:35
International. Now, as a new president, our
25:37
former Lieutenant governor Jeanette Nunez got in installed
25:41
there last week. There was some protest from left
25:44
wing student and faculty and people said, oh, man, did you
25:47
see the protest? I was like, good.
25:49
I was like, if they're not protesting her, then I must have
25:52
done something wrong. So that's like a confirmation
25:54
that she was the right choice to be able to do that.
25:57
So, So we're happy with all that and we want to make sure that
26:00
this has value. We have a lot of money earmarked
26:04
in our budget for higher Ed. The legislature has been very
26:07
supportive of our State University and college system,
26:11
and I know they're very thankful of that.
26:13
But we also want to make sure that this is going well.
26:17
So I'm announcing my As part of this initiative, universities in
26:21
Florida will be subjected to an independent review and audit to
26:27
study efficiency and effectiveness of their
26:29
operations in finance and financing.
26:33
This is the dozing of our State University system, and I think
26:37
it's going to be good for taxpayers and it's ultimately
26:40
going to be good for students as well.
26:42
We will conduct a deep dive of all facets of university
26:45
operations and spending, including debt and financial
26:49
management practices, and make recommendations to the Board of
26:52
Governors to consider and implement pathways to eliminate
26:56
any unnecessary spending now. This will include examining
27:01
courses, programming and staff at the institution to ensure
27:05
that Florida students are receiving an education that will
27:07
best equip them to gain meaningful employment after
27:10
graduation. You know, there are certain
27:12
subjects that you know, look, if you want to do some of this, go
27:16
to Cal Berkeley, go to some of these other places.
27:18
We don't really want to be doing some of this stuff in Florida.
27:20
We want to do the core important subjects, not only with a, with
27:26
a goal towards employment, because there's classical
27:28
liberal arts subjects that are really important, can help you
27:32
become a better thinker and ultimately see the world in, in,
27:35
in better ways. So, so there's a whole host of
27:37
things. It's not like it's rigid, but
27:39
some of the ideological study stuff, we just want to prune
27:43
that and get that out. And we want to make sure that
27:45
these universities are really serving the classical mission of
27:48
what a university should be. And that's not to impose
27:51
ideology. It's really to teach students
27:53
how to think and to prepare them to be citizens of our Republic.
27:58
Now examining the institutions administration, which we will
28:01
do, will help ensure that no excess or bloat of personnel is
28:07
is there that doesn't have a meaningful impact on students.
28:11
We also want to make sure we did things.
28:14
We were the first state in the country to eliminate DEI in
28:18
higher education. You're now seeing a lot of that
28:21
being done at the federal level here in 2025, but we did this
28:25
couple years ago. The problem is, is I think what
28:28
you see in some bureaucracies is they say, oh, we can't do DEI,
28:32
so they just rename it and continue to do it just kind of
28:35
under a different banner. And we are going to be looking
28:39
to see whether that's going on because obviously the university
28:44
top is not going to be able to get away with doing it.
28:46
We know that. But you know, you have so many
28:48
programs that are embedded and we we want to be able to see, we
28:51
want to be able to unleash the audit on that.
28:53
And then if there is, then we need to sunset that.
28:56
You can't simply say you're following our law to eliminate
29:00
DEI by just simply recharacterizing it using
29:04
different terms. You're still violating the law.
29:07
And if we find that, we will absolutely hold accountable.
29:10
So we look really forward to this.
29:12
I think it's very, very important that we do.
29:15
We may need to work with the legislature to tweak some
29:18
statutes to make sure that this goes as strongly as possible.
29:22
But this is something that I know our taxpayers will
29:26
appreciate very much. Now state agencies, I am
29:31
ordering that Allstate agencies and they we always audit, we are
29:36
always constantly doing this, but we are going to add these IT
29:41
and technological tools that the federal DOGE is using.
29:45
So we're going to use artificial intelligence that we're going to
29:48
have people that have strong IT going in there and looking from
29:53
that vantage point because it's just a different vantage point
29:56
than how you do normally. And I think that's going to be a
29:59
great supplement to our efforts. So, for example, we stop any
30:04
contract that is DEI, but you know, AI, maybe they know ways
30:08
around people, how to use different language.
30:10
AI picks up on that, flags it for us, and then we can put the
30:13
kibosh on it. So I'm really looking forward to
30:16
amplifying our current efforts with the use of artificial
30:19
intelligence. Now local governments, it's
30:22
interesting, I don't know that there's very many local
30:24
governments in Florida that have reduced their budgets like we
30:27
have at the state level. Maybe there are.
30:30
You can tell me. I don't think in this area
30:32
there's been very many that have done that.
30:34
So the question is, is I think a lot of these local budgets have
30:38
have ballooned in recent years. I think there's been a lot of
30:41
spending. I don't know that the taxpayers
30:43
have always had a seat at the table.
30:45
I don't know that the visibility on how money has been spent has
30:48
been very good. But we're going to find out.
30:50
State of Florida, we have focused on lowering the budget,
30:53
paying off debt as well as by delivering tax relief.
30:57
We know many local governments have done the opposite.
31:00
They've opted to increase their own budgets and even subject
31:05
their citizens to higher taxes, such as higher property taxes to
31:09
pay for these spending habits. And you know, these property
31:12
taxes, It's like you, you buy a home, you buy land.
31:18
You maybe you buy the home outright, but maybe you pay off
31:20
a mortgage over 30 years and then, OK, you've paid off the
31:24
mortgage, you bought the land, you've been taxed many times.
31:28
It's like, is it your property or not?
31:31
Just for being on your property, you got to write a check to the
31:33
government every year. So you're basically paying rent
31:36
to the government to live on your own property.
31:39
And our homestead exemption is not strong enough to help these
31:43
folks because the property gets assessed so high.
31:46
And that's the thing. If you buy a home for $300,000
31:51
and you know there's certain tax, well then what, 10 years
31:55
later they say it's worth 700,000 And so and then they
31:58
say, you know, there's homestead stuff that helps protect you to
32:01
a certain extent, but you're paying more and a lot of people
32:04
can't afford that. So I think that that's a big
32:06
issue. And I know we're going to be
32:07
really looking at ways to bring people relief from that because
32:11
I think it's been really something that's pinching a lot
32:13
of homeowners, particularly seniors on fixed income.
32:17
But the reality is, is people have seen, and this is not the
32:20
state, we don't control this. You know, we've not allowed any
32:23
of that stuff to happen. We've been cutting taxes, but
32:25
people have seen their property tax, property tax liability go
32:28
up over these last years because the property is being assessed
32:32
higher and higher. And the reality is, is you don't
32:34
really know how much your home is worth until someone offers
32:38
you money and and is willing to pull the trigger on a sale.
32:40
That's how a market works. You can say it's worth this
32:43
much, but if no one's cut and no one's willing to come and offer
32:46
you that much, then why, why should you pay taxes on that
32:49
amount? And so there's a lot of things
32:51
that need to be done with that. But as part of our DOGE
32:55
initiative, our state task force will look into local government
32:59
expenditures by utilizing publicly available county and
33:03
municipal spending records so that we're able to provide this
33:07
information in a digestible way for the taxpayers throughout the
33:12
state of Florida. I am also going to request, and
33:16
I've spoken with the leaders of both chambers, Speaker Perez and
33:20
President Albrighton about legislation to be able to give
33:24
the DOGE team enforcement power so that these municipalities and
33:30
counties have to comply with these audits.
33:33
So right now we're basically, I can request information of any
33:37
of these entities as governor that can be a back and forth.
33:40
Sometimes they're not very eager to to respond.
33:44
And then you need to, you know, judicial procedure.
33:46
There's a lot of things that can happen.
33:48
It can kind of take time. But if we get legislation there,
33:52
you know what? And we wouldn't do it
33:54
permanently. It'd be like a year like they're
33:56
doing federally. But for the next year, you know,
33:58
doge teams can show up and they can show up the county and they
34:02
can audit and they can use AI to be able to do some of the things
34:06
that we're seeing at the federal level.
34:08
I think that'd be really healthy.
34:10
I think people would probably be surprised at some of the things,
34:14
you know, that the money is is being spent on.
34:16
I mean, the fact that FEMA in the midst of an active hurricane
34:21
season was spending 10s of millions, probably more than
34:24
that to house illegals in these nice hotels in Manhattan
34:29
instead. And then how?
34:30
I mean, they haven't been great for a lot of people in Tampa Bay
34:33
and you just have to scratch your head.
34:35
But I think they'll be things that are going to be found out.
34:37
So, so we're going to be looking to do that.
34:39
I think we can have strong legislative effort to be able to
34:42
provide with an ability to doge at the local level, be able to
34:48
give the citizenry very good information about how their
34:52
money is being spent. Finally, we want to aid what
34:57
they're doing in Washington to save taxpayers money.
35:00
So we want to help claw back some of the ideological spending
35:06
under the Biden administration. Under my leadership, state of
35:09
Florida has actually rejected billions of dollars in federal
35:14
funding because they had ideological strings attached.
35:18
They wanted us to change our behavior.
35:21
So you accept the money from them and then you give them
35:24
power over how the state conducts operations that I
35:28
refuse to do. I am not going to let them come
35:31
in and contort our operations just so we can get some crumbs
35:37
from some of these massive federal spending programs.
35:40
And the reality is, is, you know, a lot of that stuff, it
35:44
really shouldn't have been enacted to begin with.
35:46
I mean, that's just the reality. So this included, we were the
35:49
only state in the country to reject money from the Biden
35:56
Infrastructure Initiative. We turned down $320 million
36:00
because if you accepted that money, it would have forced us
36:04
to track the tailpipe emissions of personal vehicles and
36:08
implement other Green New Deal style policies to limit carbon
36:12
emissions from our vehicles. I don't want to be policing your
36:16
tailpipe. I think it's ridiculous.
36:18
I have a budget surplus. We don't need the 320 million.
36:22
That 320 million is not even close.
36:25
I mean, the behavior they want us to do, I mean, that is
36:28
nothing. That's peanuts to expect us to
36:31
do that. So we didn't do that, and we
36:33
were the only state in the country to reject the money
36:36
coming from Biden. But here's the thing.
36:39
We rejected it. We said we're not playing your
36:41
game. We're not doing it.
36:43
We want to give the money back. We use it to reduce the debt,
36:46
use it to reduce the deficit. But Despite that, the Federal
36:50
Highway Safety Administration could not find a way to accept
36:54
the repayment because there's no mechanism in place to allow a
36:58
return of funds. How ridiculous is that, that
37:03
they can't even accept money that we don't want to spend?
37:07
We've also through our Department of Children and
37:09
Families, we are able and we're attempting to return almost $600
37:14
million to the federal government and funds that we did
37:17
not need to execute the use for programs because we've done it
37:22
more efficiently and effectively.
37:25
We are asking the Trump administration, let us return
37:29
some of this unused or surplus amounts of federal funds, apply
37:34
that to the DOGE savings, apply that to reducing the debt.
37:38
And the reality is, is my view as governor, even though a lot
37:43
of the stuff that goes on in Washington with Congress, I
37:45
think is insane, if there are federal programs that can help,
37:50
whatever levers are there, I try to use and help.
37:53
So when we have the disasters, you know, we ask for FEMA to
37:56
unlock different things. People get individual
37:58
assistance, all this stuff. And that's fine.
38:01
But when you start conditioning this on us changing who we are
38:06
as a state and embracing really noxious concepts and policies,
38:11
and we're not going to do that. And we're going to make sure
38:13
that we continue representing the people in the way that they
38:16
elected us to represent them. So we do have money that's
38:19
available, even though we have used in other instances when
38:22
there's no strings attached on this one, on some of these, it
38:26
created problems. So we can between between both
38:29
DCF and transportation, that's close to a billion dollars that
38:34
we can return to, to the federal coffers and luck our we're
38:38
running $2 trillion plus annual deficits.
38:42
It's a really, really bad picture.
38:44
I'm not saying that this billion dollars is going to make or
38:47
break the fiscal viability of the Republic at this point.
38:51
But I also am not one of the people like you have a lot of
38:54
people in the media that will say, oh, USAID, it's only 40
38:58
billion like that's nothing compared to the deficit.
39:01
Well, that way of thinking that leads it to get to two 2
39:05
trillion. If you actually said no, a
39:07
billion dollars is real money. And Washington say it's not real
39:10
money, you know, it's real money.
39:11
Let's save it here. Let's say 5 billion here, let's
39:13
say 50 billion there. Eventually you create a culture
39:16
and that's what we've done in Florida.
39:18
I mean, we've really worked hard to make sure we have strong
39:21
finances and strong operations of the government.
39:23
So I'm excited about this effort to to take some of what we've
39:28
seen in Washington that they're doing with Elon Musk and apply
39:33
it to Florida, both our local governments, our universities.
39:37
And then particularly looking at how we have been auditing
39:41
ourselves and doing this over many number of years.
39:44
And of course, that's how we got the 70 boards to eliminate.
39:47
But applying some of the technology and artificial
39:50
intelligence, I think it's going to help us do even better going
39:53
forward. So I want to thanks to everybody
39:55
who's been involved in in helping with this.
39:58
I do think there's something that can be very meaningful and
40:01
will continue leading the way. And the bottom line is, yeah,
40:04
you see what they need to do in Washington to try to right the
40:07
ship. If they just make America
40:10
operate like Florida, we will be in much better situation.
40:13
OK, Chris Spencer, come on. Well, thank you, Governor
40:25
DeSantis for having me here today for this very important
40:27
announcement. I'll start first.
40:29
Florida has among the lowest tax burden per capita in the entire
40:33
country. And yet Despite that, that has
40:35
not stopped any of the transformative investments that
40:38
the state has made and things like Everglades restoration,
40:40
traffic congestion relief, infrastructure improvements and
40:43
support for law enforcement. And Florida has a proven track
40:47
record of always doing more with less.
40:49
And the governor's already made the comparison to the state of
40:51
Florida versus the state of New York.
40:53
But the drill that down a little bit further, the city of New
40:56
York, NY City's budget is roughly equivalent to the
40:59
current year budget for the state of Florida.
41:02
And obviously, as the governor said, there's a lot more people
41:04
in the state of Florida than in the state of New York and a lot
41:07
more people than in the state or in the city of of New York as
41:11
well. This strong track record of
41:13
fiscally conservative fiscal management has proven very
41:17
successful for the state of Florida.
41:19
As the governor said, Florida's credit rating among the all the
41:22
major credit rating agencies, including Moody's, Fitch and
41:25
S&P, is the highest that it can be, and it's higher than the
41:28
credit rating for the federal government.
41:30
And this translates into material benefit for the state,
41:33
which also means better cost savings for Florida taxpayers.
41:38
As the governor's highlighted, under his leadership and with
41:40
the support of the Legislature, the state of Florida has had an
41:43
accelerated debt repayment program.
41:45
And that's important to to to note even further to drill down.
41:48
That means not just paying down the debt of the state, but
41:51
accelerating the pay down of the debt of the state at a time when
41:54
Washington largess has been driving the national debt to
41:56
historic highs. So, Governor, I want to thank
41:59
you for this initiative. I think it's very, very
42:00
important. And it's always prudent to
42:02
regularly assess opportunities for further efficiencies in
42:05
government. As Executive director of the
42:07
State Board of Administration, we see this drive for
42:09
efficiencies and all the private enterprises that we invest in on
42:13
a regular basis. And it's just common sense.
42:15
Those who are entrusted with scarce taxpayer resources should
42:18
always be looking to optimize those taxpayer resources.
42:22
And I'm already a part of this initiative, Governor, and
42:24
looking forward to hitting the ground running and to deliver
42:26
great taxpayer savings for Floridians.
42:28
Thank you. OK.
42:28
Thanks, Manny. Good morning and thank you
42:39
Governor for having me here today.
42:42
As the governor mentioned, Florida has led the nation in
42:45
fiscal responsibility and providing high quality education
42:48
that is focused on education and not indoctrination.
42:51
While other states spend beyond their revenues and rack up
42:54
budget deficits. Under the leadership of Governor
42:57
Ron DeSantis, Florida has built up reserves while paying off
43:00
records amount of debt. While other states have raised
43:04
tuition at their universities and colleges.
43:07
Florida has made earning a higher education degree
43:09
affordable. As you, as the governor
43:11
mentioned the lowest tuition in the country and by keeping that
43:15
tuition low and also funding the Bright Futures Scholarship
43:18
program to help students based on merit.
43:22
Together we have worked to reduce spending on programs that
43:24
do not have outcomes on students like DEI and critical race
43:28
theory and shifted our education buck budget back to the main
43:32
focus of providing quality education of our students.
43:36
The Governor has focused on educational programs with high
43:38
return on investment, expanding workforce education programs
43:42
that lead to high demand, high wage jobs that actually help
43:45
Floridians support themselves and their families.
43:48
This is why Florida has ranked number one in education for two
43:51
years in a row and ranked number one in higher education for
43:55
eight years in a row. The Governor has also taken
43:58
steps to reduce extraneous spending on programs that have
44:00
no educational value. In 2023, the Governor signed
44:04
Senate Bill 266, which prohibited institutions from
44:07
spending federal or state funds on discriminatory initiative
44:11
initiatives and DEI programs. To further comply with this
44:15
statute, the Florida College System and the State University
44:18
System began a review of all the courses listed in general
44:22
education. In January, the State Board of
44:25
Education approved the updated General General Education course
44:28
list from all 28 colleges. This updated list represents a
44:32
reduction of 57% of the number of courses under general
44:37
education. So improving the focus of our
44:40
foundational skills and transferability of courses
44:43
instead of spending money on courses and programs that just
44:47
do not work. Some of them were just dormant
44:49
as well. But we know we can't rest on our
44:52
laurels and when it comes to providing high quality
44:54
education, our public institutions and reducing
44:57
administrative blow. That is why I wholeheartedly
45:00
support the Governor's mission to review higher education
45:03
spending. We will review every dollar
45:06
spent at our public institutions, ensuring that all
45:09
programs and administrators are laser focused on improving
45:12
student outcomes, which is what the money should be spent on.
45:15
The programs that are higher Ed institutions should provide our
45:18
students with a strong foundation rooted in the
45:21
principles of our country, what it was founded upon, which leads
45:24
students to a long lasting career.
45:27
While other states have pushed students into degrees, as as the
45:30
governor often likes to mention in zombie studies, Flora's
45:35
focused on the workforce and the needs of our economies.
45:38
While Florida has made great strides in refocusing our higher
45:42
education system on educating students for their future, we
45:45
must continue to dive into administrative spending and
45:48
reduce blows to our record of success may continue.
45:52
It is a great time to review higher education spending with a
45:54
fine tooth comb, particularly when it comes to programs that
45:57
do not contribute to the students future success in the
46:01
job market. Our students rely upon us to
46:04
keep higher education affordable so that they do not have to take
46:08
mounds of debt before they even enter the workforce.
46:11
And to accomplish that goal, we must keep spending manageable
46:15
and focused on driving student success.
46:18
And as we go into the out years, as the governor's mentioned it,
46:21
this this review is incredibly important because you remain
46:25
lean and regardless of what happens in the out year with the
46:27
budget, it's always not going to be a rosy picture.
46:30
And so we have to make sure that we are focused on the main
46:33
things and I would have this extra spending.
46:35
So, Governor, thank you very much.
46:37
I look forward to participating in this initiative and keeping
46:41
Florida efficient. Great.
46:49
And and look, we, we very we could, we wouldn't, we don't
46:53
really need to be. I mean we've already have a
46:55
record where we can say we're the best in the country and all
46:58
this and you could rest on your laurels, but that's just not the
47:01
way we roll. We want to figure out how we can
47:03
do it even better. I I look forward to leveraging
47:06
some of the technology. I look forward to look looking
47:09
what's going on with, you know, the universities nationwide if
47:13
you go back and it really tracks almost perfectly for when you
47:17
had the gusher of student loans. You know, it used to be like a
47:20
loan was something that was a little rarer, wasn't something
47:23
then it just kind of became like and people are like the students
47:27
are told, oh, don't get a job, don't do anything, just just
47:29
take out more loan money. And that's not worked out well.
47:32
But but it's interesting. As more money was available for
47:36
universities nationwide in the form of these loans, has it
47:40
improved the actual education? I don't think so.
47:44
What has changed? No question.
47:46
You've seen an explosion and administrative staff since that
47:51
money has gone into the universities.
47:53
You go back decades, it's shot up dramatically.
47:56
And that's not what we're looking to do.
47:58
And we're going to see kind of where Florida ranks and all that
48:01
stuff. But it, but it's important.
48:04
I don't anticipate us, even though we've been doing this,
48:07
even though we're going to try to find other more innovative
48:10
ways to supplement the efforts. And I don't think you're going
48:12
to see in Florida the stuff that you've seen in Washington.
48:16
I mean, in Washington, you'll have massive buildings in DC
48:20
that nobody's been to in four years.
48:23
The people just, they quote work from home.
48:25
But what ends up happening is you got some of these folks that
48:29
are basically in the bureaucracy in DC.
48:31
They're told you don't have to show up to the office.
48:33
So then they go buy a home in like Tennessee, which is cheaper
48:38
to live than Washington, but they still get cost of living
48:41
for being in Washington. So they're getting that cost of
48:44
living and pocketing it, not having to show up to the office.
48:48
And look, I, I just don't think that works.
48:50
I don't know how you can sustain that.
48:53
But that's basically been the rule up there for the last four
48:56
years, even at the we and we were at the White House on on
49:01
Friday, Saturday. And they have a there's a
49:05
building right next to the White House called the Old Executive
49:08
Office Building, Eisenhower Executive, I think they call it
49:11
now. And so, you know, you do
49:13
meetings there. So yeah, I had some meetings in
49:16
the white, but then I had some there and people were telling me
49:20
that before January 20th, no one had really even been in there
49:24
for the last four years. It was like a ghost town.
49:27
Like, this is like a key part for like, the administration,
49:30
the White House staff to utilize, and they just weren't
49:33
doing it. So it's all just, hey, just, you
49:34
know, stay at home in your pajamas.
49:36
And, you know, I'm somebody that the default for me is, you know,
49:39
you got to show up to work, right?
49:41
There may be times where work from home can make sense.
49:44
I'm not saying you can never do it, but I think what's happened
49:47
in our federal government is they created under Biden almost
49:50
an entitlement to not show up to work.
49:52
So that if you're told to go into the office, that's like a
49:54
big imposition. And there's some people that
49:56
have already moved far away from Washington, DC and they're told
50:00
to work. And now it's it's going to be a
50:01
little bit more difficult for them to show up because some of
50:03
the choices they made. So, so some of the stuff that
50:06
we've seen in these practices, I think I've been really, really
50:09
bad. I'm glad that doge is is, is
50:12
uncovering a lot of this federally.
50:14
I mean, honestly, Congress should have been uncovering this
50:17
years ago. That's their job to do.
50:19
You really shouldn't even need to have, you know, the doge, but
50:22
but it is what it is. So I'm looking forward to this.
50:25
I think we're going to have some some good opportunities here.
50:28
And I'm also excited to be down here.
50:29
We've got spring training is starting.
50:32
I know Steinbrenner feels gotten improved.
50:34
That looks great. We're going to see how it does
50:37
over the course of the regular season when the Rays are playing
50:39
there and imagine that they'll probably be a lot of interest
50:43
and and going to those games since you don't have to now
50:45
cross the bridge over to Pinellas if you're here in
50:47
Hillsboro. So they'll probably probably do
50:49
pretty well in terms of the attendance.
50:50
But it's a good time of year to be in Florida.
50:52
We've got spring training kicking up.
50:54
We've got the the golf tournaments.
50:56
You know, we've got four weeks of golf tournaments, including
50:59
Copperhead here in the Tampa Bay area.
51:02
And it's just that we had the Daytona 500 couple weeks ago.
51:05
So so it's a good time. Seems like everybody, you know,
51:08
they say Canadians aren't going to come because of the tension
51:11
with the US. I'm not seeing any downtick in
51:13
that. I'm seeing massive numbers of
51:15
people here. I mean, it's hard.
51:17
You know, we're we're accelerating so many
51:19
infrastructure projects. We're going to have some more
51:21
announcements on that this week. It's hard to keep up with with
51:24
the flow and the traffic and everything that's coming down.
51:26
So enjoy these particularly these next couple months.
51:30
I think you're a great time to be to be down here in Florida.
51:32
OK, do we have any questions? Yes.
51:42
You know, my view is, is Donald Trump just got into office.
51:47
I want these congressmen focused on enacting his agenda.
51:51
They haven't done very much yet. They're not putting his
51:54
executive orders into place. We'll see what they do on the
51:57
spending. But we have such a narrow
52:00
majority that to be trying to campaign other places and
52:02
missing these votes, I think is not something that's advisable
52:06
at all. And so the reality is, is, you
52:10
know, we've we've achieved victories in Florida.
52:13
We need to start achieving those victories up there.
52:16
So I think people look at it and say, you know, you got a guy
52:19
like Byron, he just hasn't been a part of any of the victories
52:23
that we've had here over the leftover these last years.
52:25
He's just not been a part of it. He's been in other states
52:28
campaigning, doing that. And that's fine.
52:31
But OK, we'll then deliver results up there.
52:34
You know, that's what I want to see.
52:35
I want to see them delivering results for the people of
52:38
Florida. We deliver it here all the time
52:41
for the people of Florida. And that's what we need to be
52:43
doing. And so, you know, I've, I've
52:45
said I'm going to be, you know, raising money.
52:48
We're going to be looking to have somebody that's going to be
52:50
able to continue and build off the success that we've had here
52:54
in Florida. I think a lot of people think
52:57
somehow the battles been won and you don't have to worry about
53:00
it. We could revert very quickly.
53:02
That could happen 100%. And so it really needs to be OK.
53:07
Are you going to be somebody that's going to fight for
53:08
people, especially when it's not easy?
53:11
Have you been willing to get in and, and, and get involved in
53:14
these big battles that we've had and have won over these many
53:17
years? And if you're not willing to do
53:19
that, then I, I think we are going to see this state revert.
53:22
So I would not take anything for granted.
53:25
I know people have been been, we've had hundreds of thousands
53:28
of people move here specifically because of the policies that we
53:32
have. And, and I think that that's
53:34
something that you should not take for granted.
53:36
This is not necessarily something that just goes on
53:39
autopilot. And it's just something that I
53:41
think is really, really important.
53:43
So my thing is, is yes, we've achieved these victories.
53:46
We have more to do, but you got to solidify that and then you
53:50
got to take it, take it to the next level.
53:52
And that's really what, what the name of the game is.
53:57
I, I haven't really thought about
54:09
the Lieutenant governor as much. I'm going to wait on that.
54:13
We're working through this legislative session that's going
54:15
to start next week. We also, I think they'll be a
54:18
position for chief financial officer starting at the end of
54:21
March. We'll wait on that till after
54:23
the legislative session as well. We want to we want to focus on
54:28
what's it's really important. I also want to be able to watch
54:31
how how different people are able to perform over the next
54:34
couple weeks. I'm in the legislature and some
54:36
out of the legislature. So we'll look at that as we get
54:39
out of, you know, the the thing. And so in terms of this now, you
54:44
know, people ask me all the time about our wonderful first lady
54:47
who has done a fantastic job as first lady of Florida.
54:52
And there's been a lot of people, you know, I was asked on
54:55
it on, on Fox the other day about, you know, all these
54:58
people are chattering about, about her running.
55:01
And what I said was, you know, that's not, she's never angled
55:04
for anything, right? Because that's just not who she
55:07
is. I mean, she kind of, you know,
55:08
does what she does. But I will tell you this, you
55:11
know, you're talking about somebody like her.
55:14
I won by the biggest margin that any Republicans ever want a
55:17
governor's race here in Florida. She would do better than me.
55:20
Like there's no question about that that would happen.
55:23
And and she's somebody that has, I think the that the intestinal
55:28
fortitude and the dedication to conservative principles that,
55:32
you know, anything we've accomplished, she'd be able to
55:35
take to the next level. And I remember back in the day,
55:40
this is man, this is years ago now, probably my first or second
55:44
year as governor. We were down in Palm Beach and
55:47
we were at a dinner and we were sitting next to Rush Limbaugh,
55:52
who's, who's a, who's a good friend of mine and is a good
55:54
supporter. And, and the first lady's just
55:57
holding court with Rush about conservatism and all this other,
56:01
all this other stuff. And you can see, like, Rush, his
56:03
eyes are lighting up because, you know, Rush would always say
56:07
the spouses are more liberal. And it pulls the office holder
56:10
to the left. And on this case, he's saying,
56:12
like, that is not true. And so at the end of the dinner,
56:15
he's like, put his finger in my chest.
56:17
He's like, do you only person I would rather have as my governor
56:21
than you is her. And he pointed to her.
56:24
And I was like, that's a pretty good endorsement there.
56:27
Anyone else? Well, I'd say a couple things,
56:49
just just one. You know, how do we perceive of
56:52
the proper role of government? And do you think it's fine that
56:56
you buy property, you buy a home, you own it outright free
57:00
and clear, and yet you have to continue to pony up money to the
57:04
government just for the courtesy of using your own property?
57:07
That's not, we don't tax like that in almost any other
57:10
instance. You know, if you want to go buy
57:12
a car, they can tax you on the sale.
57:14
There's other ways you buy a house.
57:16
They do a doc documentary, stamp tax as part of that.
57:19
And so it's really an anomaly. So you could have someone that's
57:22
done everything right, maybe a senior citizen on fixed income.
57:26
The value of the home keeps getting appraised higher.
57:28
Even with Homestead, that doesn't insulate you entirely
57:32
from that. And then you're having to to
57:34
write these checks to the government and that's a burden
57:36
on people. And that's pinched a lot of
57:38
people, particularly as home values have been assessed higher
57:41
in Florida. So that's something I recognize
57:44
and and I want to be able to help folks.
57:46
The other thing is, just as you've seen with so much stuff
57:51
that's more costly now, when you look at the cost of groceries,
57:55
you look at all these other things that have gone up and
57:57
everything's gone up in the last four, 4 1/2 years.
58:00
The taxes are one thing that we can control through a referendum
58:07
on the ballot, through basically government action.
58:10
And yeah, you're right, the legislature couldn't do it.
58:11
You'd have to put on the ballot all this stuff to be able to
58:14
give people relief. But we can control that.
58:16
There's nothing we can do in Florida to directly just cut the
58:19
price of eggs by 50%. If I could, I would.
58:22
But that's just not the way that there's things in the private
58:24
economy that are happening beyond what we're able to, you
58:30
know, what we can control. We don't control the economy.
58:32
We can have an impact on it for sure.
58:34
And we've done that in different respects.
58:36
So this is pinching people and I think that's something that that
58:40
you should look at. I also think that we're in a
58:43
unique situation as a state because we could choose to
58:46
offload more of our tax burden to visitors and to non residents
58:51
if we wanted to. That's just, I mean, you have
58:54
some people that are seasonal residents, how you handle their
58:57
property. You have some of these investors
58:59
that will buy different pieces of property and homes.
59:02
You have people that are tourists and they rent and then
59:05
they go to the hotels, all the stuff.
59:07
So I actually think that that you could do it to give major
59:10
relief to people who are Florida residents and they have a
59:15
homestead here and and probably not Mississippi, but that's one
59:20
of the reasons we want to doge the local governments because
59:23
some of these budgets have ballooned and they'll say, oh,
59:26
well, we need all these taxes. But the question is, do you need
59:28
to be spending all that? Obviously we're going to have
59:31
police forces and fire departments in the core.
59:34
But if you look, there's a lot of other things that that some
59:37
of these governments are spending money on.
59:39
And so people are going to be able to look to see, OK, we can
59:43
talk about taxing. We want tax relief.
59:46
I know some of them probably want higher taxes.
59:48
Let's have that debate. But let's also have a debate
59:50
about the spending. And, and are you spending too
59:53
much? Can you deliver the same
59:55
services at less? And I got to think the answer
59:57
that's yes, because we deliver the core services in Florida
1:00:01
with a budget that's less than half of New York's budget, even
1:00:04
though we have millions of more people.
1:00:05
And when you say we have millions of more residents than
1:00:08
New York, that's true. But like at this time of year,
1:00:11
we have probably millions on top of that.
1:00:13
Right. Who are here using the roads and
1:00:15
doing all this stuff and yet we find a way to make it work.
1:00:19
So I just think we what we can control in terms of the things
1:00:23
that are really pinching folks are, are the, are the property
1:00:27
taxes. We have to do it through the
1:00:29
Constitution. We can't just do it at state.
1:00:31
It is a local function. But people do need relief.
1:00:34
The homestead exemption is not enough for people.
1:00:38
Their their assessments are going up.
1:00:39
They're having to pay more and and we don't we don't want to
1:00:42
see that. You know, we've, we've taken
1:00:43
action on sales tax relief, we've taken action on all these
1:00:48
other things. You know, we did the, it took a
1:00:50
while for the legislature to, to, to move it, but they did
1:00:53
move it the end of 22 to shore up the insure property
1:00:57
insurance. And that's been a big issue.
1:00:59
It's gone up. But last year in 24, it's gone
1:01:02
up everywhere. By the way, the S&P Global rated
1:01:05
Florida as having the smallest increase in the country.
1:01:08
You know, you have others that are people are leaving the state
1:01:12
and other states. We've had 12 companies move in,
1:01:15
in the last year, 13 months. No one thought that was
1:01:18
possible. People thought the whole thing
1:01:19
was just going to implode because we were having these
1:01:21
storms like EN and, and Idalia. But even with doing that and,
1:01:26
and, and people have said the market's stronger.
1:01:29
The reinsurance was down last year.
1:01:31
All this stuff, we, we don't control those.
1:01:34
And I can't just say, yeah, let's pass a law, reduce it by
1:01:37
50%. If you try to do that, then you
1:01:40
end up what happens in California.
1:01:41
But the taxes, that's purely a government function.
1:01:44
So if the taxes are pinching people, then let's, let's do
1:01:49
something about it. And so I look forward to seeing
1:01:51
what they're doing. The legislature, I think our
1:01:54
DOGE audits can be very, very instructive.
1:01:57
And hopefully, you know, we'll do what, what we can with the
1:01:59
public available. But if they are able to take
1:02:03
the, the legislation, provide some teeth to the auditing so
1:02:07
that we can kind of do a doge on, on some of these local
1:02:10
governments, I think it's going to be very positive.
1:02:12
I think the taxpayers are really going to like it and I think
1:02:14
it's going to really increase transparency.
1:02:27
So we'll be producing that list shortly.
1:02:29
We're working with the legislature on that.
1:02:31
I think by and large, they're, they're in agreement of I think
1:02:34
almost all of them want to make sure that that everything is, is
1:02:37
good. So, so that'll be coming for
1:02:39
sure. And yes, stay tuned for, for us
1:02:42
putting putting some folks together.
1:02:44
You will see, I know Chris Spencer will be involved, Ben
1:02:47
Watkins, our bond finance will be involved in and these are
1:02:50
guys that have a lot of wherewithal.
1:02:52
They will be leveraging the IT and the tech that I think can
1:02:55
really help us take these initiatives to the next level.
1:02:58
OK, thank you. God bless.
1:03:13
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1:03:14
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