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Chairman's
Message
"Freedom
Works"
“We have made Florida the freest state in
these United States.”
Governor DeSantis delivered a rousing State of
the State speech Tuesday to launch the 2022 Legislative
session in Tallahassee, noting Florida’s stand-out successes this past
year and reaffirming his priorities for year ahead.
Here’s a
summary look at the Governor’s address.
Freedom
Governor
DeSantis fully embraces President Reagan’s adage that “Freedom is a
fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from
extinction,” and has made Florida a beacon of freedom in the nation.
He said:
“While
so many around the country have consigned the people’s rights to the
graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard.
In
Florida, we have protected the right of our citizens to earn a living,
provided our businesses with the ability to prosper, fought back
against unconstitutional federal mandates and ensured our kids have
the opportunity to thrive.”
Fiscal Responsibility
At a time
when the federal government has been spending money we don’t have at
obscene levels, burdening our children with crushing debt for no
discernable reason, Governor DeSantis is proposing a $99.7 billion
budget that loads fully $15 billion into reserves while still
increasing funding in key areas such as education, the environment and
law enforcement.
“Florida’s revenues have exceeded estimates by
billions of dollars over the past year. December’s revenues came in at
more than $500 million over the latest monthly
estimate.
And
this is all being done with no income tax and the lowest per capita
tax burden in America.”
A
Powerful Economy
A strong
economy impacts everyone’s quality of life and Florida is the envy of
the nation in this regard. Much of this success is owed to Governor
DeSantis’ strength and courage in maintaining Floridians’ freedoms in
the face of authoritarian dictates. Everyone has
benefitted.
“Job
creation in Florida is far exceeding the national average. And our
labor force has increased six times faster than the
nation’s.
Florida
also leads the nation in business formations, which have increased by
61% since I took office in 2019. In 2021, Florida saw 114,000 more new
businesses than second place California — even though California has a
population that is 40% larger.”
Putting Kids First
While other
states shamelessly locked kids out of school and then masked them up
if they ever let them return, all in a moral perversion to protect
adults, Florida put children first and kept schools open and children
breathing. Florida teachers met the challenge of the times and it
shows in our students’ scores. And educators have been acknowledged
with increased minimum salaries and bonuses, while the state also
enacted the needed Parents Bill of Rights to ensure parents can make
the best decisions for their children.
“Education represents a major pillar of Florida’s
future. I’m happy to note that Florida is again ranked number three
for K-12 achievement in the latest Education Week Quality Counts
rankings. We have worked hard to keep schools open, increase teacher
compensation, promote workforce education and protect the rights of
parents.
In
pockets across America, schools are closing once again. These closures
are enormously destructive and will not be tolerated in the state of
Florida. Florida has led the way in putting our kids
first.”
Environmental Protection
Florida’s
quality of life and economic security are inextricably linked to the
good stewardship of our natural resources. Governor DeSantis has been
a bold leader in this area, winning accolades from many environmental
organizations.
“We
Floridians are heirs to a unique environment that makes our state the
envy of the nation for fishing, boating and other outdoor activities.
Three years ago, we promised bold action to safeguard Florida’s
natural resources, improve water quality and restore the Everglades.
With the support of the Legislature, especially Speaker Chris Sprowls
and President Wilton Simpson, we have secured historic funding to
support these efforts.
Since
January 2019, 42 Everglades restoration projects have broken ground,
hit a major milestone or finished construction, record funding has
gone to conduct research and secure technologies to mitigate
blue-green algae and red tide, and the state now has dedicated streams
of revenue to promote coastal resiliency and water quality
improvements.”
Honor Law Enforcement and Protect
Communities
While
baffling and dangerous notions of defunding police, eliminating bail
and freeing violent criminals early have taken tragic hold in some
parts of the nation, Governor DeSantis has made it clear those won’t
happen in Florida.
“These
soft-on-crime policies have been tried in communities throughout the
country to disastrous results: crime has skyrocketed, morale for
police officers has plummeted and quality of life has been
destroyed.
We have
stood by the men and women of law enforcement. Not only do we reject
defunding law enforcement — we enacted $1,000 bonuses for all police,
fire and EMTs in Florida. I’m asking the Legislature to re-up these
bonuses for another year. They deserve it.”
Election Integrity
Perhaps
nothing is more essential to our republic than trustworthy,
transparent elections. Florida already has some of the best election
laws in the nation in protecting the sanctity of the vote, making it
easy to vote and hard to cheat. But there is still more to be done to
ensure that cheating is all but impossible.
“Ballot
harvesting has no place in Florida and we need to increase the
penalties for those who do it. We also need to ensure that supervisors
clean the voter rolls, that only citizens are registered to vote and
that mail ballots only go to those who actually request them before
each individual election.
To
ensure that elections are conducted in accordance with the rule of
law, I have proposed an election integrity unit whose sole focus will
be the enforcement of Florida’s election laws. This will facilitate
the faithful enforcement of election laws and will provide Floridians
with the confidence that their vote will count.”
Read the entire speech here: https://www.flgov.com/2022/01/11/governor-ron-desantis-state-of-the-state-address-3/
Florida
Governor DeSantis announced nearly $17
million to the City of Bonita Springs in Lee County through
the Rebuild Florida Mitigation General Infrastructure Program.
The flood
mitigation money will pay for critical improvements to 2.5 miles of
stormwater infrastructure through the heart of the city, and will
repair damage caused by Hurricane Irma.
“Today we
are excited to be able to make an impact in Bonita Springs,” Governor
DeSantis said. “This award will help the city make key stormwater
system improvements and is one of the many projects we have awarded
utilizing long-term recovery funds to make meaningful infrastructure
improvements. We are going to continue to support infrastructure that
builds our resiliency.”
Read more: https://www.flgov.com/2022/01/12/governor-ron-desantis-announces-nearly-17-million-for-stormwater-infrastructure-improvements-in-bonita-springs/
Governor DeSantis has secured an additional
15,000 doses of Regeneron for the people of Florida, which
will be immediately utilized to support new monoclonal antibody sites.
Unfortunately, this action was necessary because the Biden
Administration federalized distribution of the lifesaving monoclonal
antibody treatments based on political calculations.
Actually,
Democrats have continuously politicized Covid. The Department of
Emergency Management had covid testing kits that went unused when the
covid pandemic subsided, and has received three extensions on their
expiration date. In the deceitful world of Nikki Fried, these were
being “hidden.” But Florida was just waiting for the Biden
administration, and as the nation well knows, they are slow in
responding to every need.
So last
week, Governor DeSantis highlighted the importance of these lifesaving
therapeutics and called on the Biden Administration to release its
stranglehold on the supply of monoclonals and increase Florida’s
supply by at least 30,000 doses per week. In response to this
pressure, the federal government will be sending 30,000 more
monoclonal antibody doses to Florida.
Additionally, the Florida Division of Emergency
Management sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services offering logistical support to receive the additional doses
as quickly as possible, including picking them up and driving them to
Florida.
“But for
the federal government’s decision to restrict supply of monoclonal
antibody treatments to Florida, my administration would have already
opened additional monoclonal antibody treatment sites throughout the
state,” Governor DeSantis said.
Read more: https://www.flgov.com/2022/01/07/governor-ron-desantis-secures-15000-doses-of-regeneron-for-floridians/
Attorney
General Ashley Moody
In 2020,
Americans lost more than $520 million through robocall scams. Attorney
General Ashley Moody is taking action by pressuring the Federal
Communications Commission to put measures in place to stem the tide of
foreign-based illegal robocalls attempting to scam Americans.
Attorney
General Moody, as part of a bipartisan group of attorneys general,
sent a letter to insist the FCC require companies that allow foreign
calls into the United States to take steps to reduce or block
robocalls entering the U.S. telephone network. These necessary steps
include implementing STIR/SHAKEN, a caller ID authentication
technology that helps prevent spoofed calls.
“Scammers
often use robocalls in an effort to quickly engage millions of targets
across the country,” Attorney General Moody said. “Robocalls using
spoofed numbers are difficult to track and even harder to stop —
especially when they originate from overseas. That is why I am calling
on the FCC to work with telecommunications companies to put up
barriers to reduce the number of foreign robocalls bombarding
Americans’ telephones.”
Read more: http://www.myfloridalegal.com/newsrel.nsf/newsreleases/6C239762654091F6852587C600691DB5
Florida CFO Jimmy
Patronis
Chief
Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is highlighting his Born Free
legislative priorities for the 2022 legislations session. The CFO’s
top priorities include $10 million in funding for Florida’s Urban
Search & Rescue Task Forces, providing tax relief so Floridians
can protect their homes and lower their insurance premiums, and
continuing efforts to protect consumers.
“Florida’s
strength is based on a love of freedom. We’ve got over 800 people a
day flocking to our state because we have worked hard in Tallahassee
to protect freedoms; not squash them,” CFO Patronis said. “We’ve got
blue lock-down states working hard to crush their economies, undermine
law enforcement and fire firefighters over not taking the jab, while
allowing big corporate businesses – with zero loyalty to our country –
to treat Americans with complete indifference. We’ve also got an
Administration on the federal level unlawfully using rules to try and
turn the Sunshine State into a California or New York. We’re not
having ANY of it.”
Read more: https://www.myfloridacfo.com/sitePages/newsroom/pressRelease.aspx?id=6066
Read the priorities here: https://www.myfloridacfo.com/documents/Born-Free-Legislative-Priorities.pdf
Tweets
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1481075960342622212
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1481343635883020290
https://twitter.com/AGAshleyMoody/status/1481299587084296199
https://twitter.com/JimmyPatronis/status/1480952608802185225
https://twitter.com/FloridaGOP/status/1481356021985591297
https://twitter.com/teamrondesantis/status/1481011785629057024?s=20
https://twitter.com/TeamMarco/status/1481357312363220995
REMEMBER: @FloridaGOP and retweet and
share. The Republican message must be spread around the state, and you
are integral to making that happen.
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