Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touted his response to the coronavirus during his State of the State address, saying Floridians “have a right to earn a living” with an open economy.
“While so many other states kept locking people down over these many months, Florida lifted people up,” the Republican governor said Tuesday. “Florida’s schools are open, and we are one of only a handful of states in which every parent has a right to send their child to school in person. All Floridians have a right to earn a living, and our citizens are employed at higher rates than those in the nation as a whole. Every job is essential.”
“Economic lockdowns are a luxury of the largely affluent Zoom class. Many Floridians can’t do their jobs over a computer, they need to show up,” DeSantis said. “Throughout this entire pandemic, Florida has not touched one red cent from our rainy day fund. So, the bottom line is this: By saving Florida’s economy, our budget outlook is much more positive.”
DeSantis enacted stay-at-home orders during the early months of the pandemic but vowed to never repeat lockdowns last year.
“The governor will not lockdown and hurt families who can’t afford to shelter in place for 6 weeks. Especially not for a virus that has a 99.8% survival rate. One area of concern is Assisted Living Facilities. Since those over 70 face the greatest threat from [COVID-19] the Governor is monitoring those numbers daily and is prepared to move therapeutic and prophylactic assets to those facilities as needed,” a DeSantis spokesperson said in November.
His anti-lockdown platform was also touted during his Conservative Political Action Conference speech this past weekend.
“We are in an oasis of freedom in a nation that’s suffering from the yoke of oppressive lockdowns,” DeSantis said at CPAC, which was held in Orlando. “We look around in other parts of our country, and in far too many places, we see schools closed, businesses shuttered, and lives destroyed. And while so many governors over the last year kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up.”
A straw poll conducted during the conference found DeSantis as the clear choice of attendees for the 2024 presidential election if former President Donald Trump doesn’t run.
