Funny what the state taking a measured, realistic, non-authoritarian approach will do, no matter how much Democrats and the national media like to rail at Republican governor Ron DeSantis
Florida’s pandemic response gets a second look from the national media
After a solid year of living with a pandemic, the national press is beginning to ask the question that even Democrats have been quietly pondering in the Sunshine State: Was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response right for Florida?
Don’t forget: More than 32,000 Floridians have died, a number the state’s leaders rarely acknowledge, but our death rate is no worse than the national average — and better than some states with tighter restrictions.
The Los Angeles Times compared Florida and California’s responses:
- “California imposed myriad restrictions that battered the economy, and have left most public school students learning at home for a year. … Florida adopted a more laissez-faire approach decried by public health experts — allowing indoor restaurant dining, leaving masks optional and getting children back in classrooms sooner.”
- But, it points out, “If California had Florida’s death rate, roughly 6,000 more Californians would be dead from COVID-19, and tens of thousands of additional patients likely would have landed in already overburdened hospitals. And if Florida had California’s death rate, roughly 3,000 fewer Floridians would be dead from COVID-19.”
Maybe. Maybe not. It certainly didn’t help that lots of Yankees, especially from the NYC area, decided to get the heck out of dodge as the pandemic was starting, potentially dragging it to other states, including Florida.
On Sunday’s front page, the New York Times explored the positives — from the booming real-estate market to Florida’s low unemployment rate — of an early reopening: “Much of the state has a boomtown feel,” writes Patricia Mazzei, “a sense of making up for months of lost time.”
The Times notes that Florida’s unemployment rate is 5.1%, compared to 9.3% in California, 8.7% in New York and 6.9% in Texas.
How long will it take for business to return to California? Lots of businesses and entrepreneurs were already in the process of leaving California due to their bad government policies on business and raising the minimum wage, along with other measures like a massive cost on living. So many are nowhere close to being able to fully reopen and start to make money.
Our (Axios Tampa Bay) thought bubble: We’ve long known that the state’s pro-business Republican leadership was making a sort of grand bargain: that the death toll was the price paid for keeping commerce flowing and keeping kids in school.
The leftists at Axios seem upset that Floridians would be pro-freedom and pro-not losing their livelihoods. DeSantis wasn’t sending seniors to nursing homes to die. He kept commerce going in the face of the knowledge that people would die. They would die regardless. It was, what’s that phrase? A global pandemic. Funny how so many in the Credentialed Media had harsher words, and still do, for an American governor but few if any for the Chinese government that spread COVID around the world.
NY legislature proposes nearly $7 billion in new taxes on wealthy
New York wants to sock it to Wall Street and the wealthy.
Both houses of the state legislature have proposed budgets that include nearly $7 billion in new and increased taxes on businesses and the rich.
The tax increases come despite a $100 billion avalanche of fresh federal aid to New York, including $12.6 billion directly to state government coffers. (snip)
To help cover the new proposed expenses such as rent for “New Yorkers who do not have access to unemployment, federal stimulus funds and other assistance programs’’ — including illegal immigrants — the pols said they want to raise the nearly $7 billion in new revenue through the taxes.
This is the kind of thing a Democratic state which implemented massive authoritarian controls on businesses needs to do, and wants to do. New York’s business is not really coming back at this time. And, something like this will simply drive away those who fund and create businesses. These people can simply move their primary residence elsewhere. Can you imagine if they moved the stock market to a business friendly state, like Florida? The last thing New Yorkers need is spending money on illegal aliens rather than actual Americans, but, Americans never seem to be the priority of Democrats.
