Getting it done

To the editor:

While campaigning in Iowa, Ron DeSantis urged his supporters to help him oust President Joe Biden because “he can’t get anything done.” Rich stuff coming from a guy who still hasn’t repaired street name and other traffic signs damaged by Hurricane Ian nearly nine months ago. In fact, much of Ian’s damage in Southwestern Florida remains as it was back in September 2022.

DeSantis is great at culture wars, but terrible at everyday administration. Let’s review how the two men — Biden and DeSantis — stack up. Beginning with the president, Biden passed the bi-partisan Infrastructure Act, the first such legislation since Eisenhower was president; all Florida GOP Congressional members voted against it.  

He passed the Chips Act, making the U.S. a world leader in computer chip production and less dependent on foreign suppliers. Biden passed the PACT Act, protecting veteran’s health and providing coverage from duty-related toxic exposures like burn pits and agent orange. 

He pushed through the Inflation Reduction Act, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, capping insulin costs at $35/month (many producers applied this cap for all insulin sales).

Finally, Biden passed the American Rescue Plan, which righted state budgets, saved tens of thousands of civil service jobs and put the country back on a path to job growth (13+ million to date) following President Donald Trump’s botched Covid response.

Now, DeSantis. He passed bills banning teachers and students from discussing race relations, the Civil War, the Jim Crow South, gender identity and female menstruation. Relatedly, DeSantis banned hundreds of books and fired school officials (one for showing students Michelangelo’s masterpiece statue of David).  Not surprisingly, Florida has one of the nation’s highest teacher vacancy rates. 

He also banned all abortions after six weeks. In an attempt to fix Florida’s troubled insurance industry, which “went broke” on his watch, DeSantis approved a $1 billion taxpayer bailout, while simultaneously stripping away homeowner power to sue insurers. And, he has engaged in a failed attempt to “cancel” his state’s largest employer, Disney.

Remind me, who “can’t get anything done”?

Joseph Cannisi