The Patriot Post® · DeSantis Lays Out an Economic Vision

If there’s one thing most Americans can agree on, it’s that Bidenomics means high inflation and a limping economy. This president and his team have added trillions of dollars to the national debt, and when we complain, they then try to sweet-talk us into believing that the economy is just fine; in fact, they insist, we’re better off.

The economy is one of Joe Biden’s weakest areas (one of many), which was made particularly clear in a recent CBS News/YouGov poll. Fifty-eight percent of respondents feel that the economy is getting worse. Seventy percent stated that their incomes aren’t keeping up with inflation. Sixty percent said President Biden is doing a bad job, and the main reason they believe that is because of the economy and inflation.

Addressing the struggling economy is going to be a major point of contention in the 2024 presidential election cycle. One particular GOP candidate just put forth a policy plan to dig our country out of the hole created by COVID and feckless spending. That candidate is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

As part of his campaign reboot, he outlined his 10-point vision for the economy that he has already had the opportunity to test in Florida with great success. The Sunshine State has the best economy in the nation. Here is what DeSantis proposes:

Tackling China, incentivizing investment, energy independence, ridding ourselves of woke policies, and reining in the federal government all sound very good. However, as The Wall Street Journal points out, some of DeSantis’s economic growth projections might be undermined by his politics. In a New Hampshire speech, DeSantis talked about not paying for useless college degrees with government funding, but also making student loans forgivable should that student declare bankruptcy. This is a clear bid for the younger generation’s votes and a direct challenge to Biden’s loan forgiveness schemes. This clever political ploy would still undermine the overall goal of reducing debt.

Another political economic motivation that could hinder the actual goal of economic growth is China. Realistically, decoupling our economy from China presents myriad challenges, and it’s going to hurt before it gets better. Companies that have invested in China need incentives beyond patriotic feeling to pull their money from a huge market. It is worth doing, but there is going to be a cost.

Some goals are a good mix of politics and good economic sense, like becoming energy independent. Another is reining in the “picking winners and losers” practice of this administration with electric vehicles. Team DeSantis would also like to “save the American automobile” by undoing Biden’s EPA proposal that would force all automobile companies to be primarily producing electric vehicles by 2030.

DeSantis has some good ideas and a stellar track record in Florida that speaks to economic sense. President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner, also happens to have a good track record with a (pre-COVID) booming economy. It would be a major misstep for any GOP candidate to ignore or underplay this obvious point of attack against the sitting president.