With budget vetoes, DeSantis bites the hand that feeds him

Gov. Ron DeSantis brought his veto pen to The Villages. Where else? It’s the favorite refuge of a Republican politician in search of unquestioned devotion.

The Villages was where DeSantis went Thursday to sign the new $110 billion Florida budget, and he didn’t disappoint the many retired Trump acolytes there who applauded every time he bashed President Joe Biden. At the start of a marathon speech, he demeaned the president as “a fellow by the name of Brandon” whose approval rating is “in the toilet” and whose reckless overspending is wrecking the country.

This wasn’t a budget signing. It was a presidential campaign speech — complete with a promise to round up undocumented immigrants in Florida and re-route them “to Delaware.” Are you listening, Iowa and New Hampshire primary voters?

The governor spoke without interruption for more than half an hour. But he didn’t have time to mention Biden’s role in providing billions in federal money that makes possible the largest budget in state history as he displayed his trademark flair for expediency over explication. Such partisan swipes are to be expected from a governor with his eyes seemingly fixed on the White House in 2024.

DeSantis bites the federal hand that feeds him. It’s hypocritical.

A surreal scene

That was nothing compared to his treatment of Republican legislative leaders, whose budget priorities were sliced to ribbons so he could brag about a “record” $3.1 billion in vetoed line-item spending. That led to a surreal scene, as sycophantic legislators stood behind the most powerful governor in Florida’s modern history. His fellow Republicans smiled and applauded politely as he talked about the need to reduce “pork barrel spending.”

DeSantis even tried to pull off taking credit for cutting a record level of local spending without directly criticizing the legislators responsible for it. Even the spending priorities of legislative leaders who personally guided all of DeSantis’ policy priorities to the finish line, Senate President Wilton Simpson and House Speaker Chris Sprowls, were sacrificed to make the governor look good. He bit their hands, too, but they kept applauding him.

Gone, for example, is the start of a massive 30-year commitment of $600 million to build a new campus of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Pasco County, north of Tampa — a Simpson priority. DeSantis said in a veto message that such a long-term project will inhibit budget flexibility.

Also gone was $75 million for a new Environmental and Oceanographic Sciences research and teaching facility at the University of South Florida, a project Sprowls championed. With the speaker silent over this massive rejection of his community, it fell to a Democrat, Rep.

Ben Diamond of St. Petersburg, to set the record straight. Diamond said DeSantis unfairly axed a project that would have made St. Petersburg a preeminent hub for marine science research in a time of rising sea levels that severely threaten coastal areas.

It gets worse. It looks vindictive and dangerous for DeSantis to veto $5.7 million to add 83 new employees to process a backlog of concealed weapons permits, and to screen applicants for criminal histories and other reasons for ineligibility. The positions are in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, run by Nikki Fried, one of DeSantis’ fiercest critics and a Democratic candidate for governor.

Fried said vetoing those positions proves that DeSantis is determined to pass an “open carry” gun law in Florida. “If anyone needed proof that he still wants to enact dangerous unlicensed open carry after weeks of horrific massacres across the country, here it is,” she said.

Laudable choices

There are some laudable spending decisions in this budget such as increased funding for emergency preparedness, foster care adoptions, people with disabilities, a teacher pay increase, bonuses for first responders, a 5.4% pay increase for state employees and a $15-an-hour minimum salary for all state workers, also a priority of Simpson’s.

But the budget does much too little to lift up the neediest among us, in housing and necessities of everyday life, even as it includes an astounding cash reserve of nearly $13 billion, fortified by line-item vetoes of hundreds of local, regional and state projects. Money that is appropriated by legislators and vetoed by the governor is set aside, unspent and unallocated.

For the second time, he vetoed $2 million for poor women to have access to a long-acting reversible contraception that its Republican supporters said would reduce the demand for abortions. He vetoed $5 million for capital improvements to Florida’s public radio and TV stations, and $500,000 for transitional housing for LGBTQ youth in Orlando. He vetoed money for resilience programs, erosion control, hurricane shelters and bike paths.

What survived his veto pen? Hundreds of millions of dollars in road projects tied to influential real estate developers, a rejuvenated World War II-era 400-member state guard under his control and a state elections police force we don’t need.

“We don’t want to be in a position where we’re repeating the mistakes of Washington by overspending,” DeSantis said.

The crowd at The Villages loved it — and with this governor, that’s all that matters.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.