Governor Ron DeSantis Takes Questions on Changing Tax laws and Disney 5/16/22 Transcript

Ron DeSantis: (00:00) Anyone have any questions back there? Yes? Speaker 2: (00:05) [inaudible 00:00:05] Ron DeSantis: (00:14) So we have a special session on property insurance reform. This is a market that has been problematic in this state for a long time. And some people have seen obnoxious rate increases. Part of the reason that that happens is because we don't really have a competitive market. A lot of these companies, major companies, have left the state because of how hostile the underlying framework is. I'm a former military. Most people that join the military end up signing up with USAA. And I can tell you, car insurance, all that, when you have problems, they just fix it. It's a very good company. They don't do Florida for homeowners insurance because of the way that we have. We have 8% of the property claims nationwide and 78% of the litigation nationwide. That is causing these premiums to escalate. And so we have to address that. It's something that's very important. Ron DeSantis: (01:12) We tried to address it during the regular session and were unsuccessful. People said, "Are you going to do a special session?" I was like, "Well, if I know we're going to be able to get it done, I will." And so anytime you add anything or call a special session, it's because you have a sense that that is going to be significant, and that's going to be something that would pass. If there's something that you want to do and you kind of haphazardly go forward with it and it fails, then that sets the cause back. And so once I knew we had a framework in place to be able to do property insurance, we went ahead and did that. And so on any of these other issues, if the legislature wants to add, of course, they can add. If there are things that I think could be done, then we would do. But I would want to make sure that we had confidence that we were going to be able to get it done because failing, I think, is just not an option. Ron DeSantis: (02:08) But the good news is, on property insurance, I think we're going to get really, really significant reforms. Now, we did a package last year that had some good stuff. I think that there were some positives that came out of that. I know a couple companies decided to come in and start offering policies as a result of some of those reforms; but it just didn't do enough, I think, to really stabilize this situation. And so that's going to be what we're trying to do. And I think that that is something that we must do. Speaker 3: (02:38) Governor, [inaudible 00:02:39] from Spectrum News [inaudible 00:02:40]. I wanted to ask you [inaudible 00:02:43] weren't prepared for that. Governor, I wanted to ask you essentially about Reedy Creek. I know that you had spoken a little bit about this, but we want to just see where you are. Ron DeSantis: (02:53) Sure. Speaker 3: (02:56) What would happen if [inaudible 00:02:57] most people think that it'll go through the taxpayers. Ron DeSantis: (03:00) No. Yeah. That's a great question. I'm glad you asked that. Just think about it. The same people who criticize me for saying you're punishing Disney are also saying we're going to relieve Disney of $766 million in debt. How would that be a punish? I mean, it makes no sense that would be the case. And so I can tell you this, that debt will not end up going to any of these local governments. It's not going to go to the state government either. It's going to absolutely be dealt with, with the taxpayers who are currently in that district. And we're going to have a proposal to kind of make sure that that's clear and that is 100%. Ron DeSantis: (03:40) And we understood that, but when the legislature did what they did, they set a date for June of next year, knowing ... And it's not just Reedy Creek. There was a handful other of these legacy special districts that had powers that are just unacceptable. Reedy Creek gave Disney the power to seize property outside of Reedy Creek boundaries with eminent domain. There's a lot of other subsidies in there that are just not appropriate. You also had some stuff in other parts of the state, obviously not as high profile. So of course, all of that is going to be dealt with. I'd say some of those special districts may just go away. Some may be amended. Some potentially could be reauthorized. Obviously, with Reedy Creek, the path forward is Disney will not control its own government in the state of Florida. Disney will have to follow the same laws that every other company has to follow in the state of Florida. They will pay their fair share of taxes and they will be responsible for paying the debts. Ron DeSantis: (04:38) And so at the end of the day, all we're doing is putting them on a level playing field with all the other companies in Florida, making sure there's no special privileges, no special deals. But that debt will be honored. Now, you hear people that will try to say locally, in central Florida, "Oh, this is going to force us to raise taxes." Understand from our perspective at the state, any local government raising taxes on their citizens is unjustifiable to do that. There is not going to be any basis to do it because they're not going to have any additional liabilities. And you know what? Even though there are ways where you could potentially have local communities absorb jurisdiction over Disney, after seeing them threatening to raise taxes on their citizens, we are not going to be in a situation where we're just going to be giving them locally control. More likely that the state will simply assume control and make sure that we're able to impose the law and make sure we're collecting the taxes. Ron DeSantis: (05:41) I look at these firefighters, I think these firefighters there should be making more money. There's a whole bunch of different things that we will be able to do. I'd much rather have the state leading that effort than potentially having local governments. First of all, it'd be a cash cow for them if they had Disney. But I'm worried that they would use that as a pretext to raise taxes on people when that's what they would want to do anyways, and then try to blame Reedy Creek. So we're not going to give them that opportunity. Don't worry about that. But the debts will absolutely be paid and you will see that. We're working on some proposals. I think we've got to pretty much what we want to do, but I'm going to work with the legislative leaders who are going to come in after the election to make sure that we're all in agreement. And then we'll be able to have that ready, as well as dispositions and resolution of these other special districts. Ron DeSantis: (06:30) We have over a thousand in the state of Florida. There's nothing wrong with the special district. It's just these ones, prior to '68, really had a lot of problematic things in them where they were creating things that I think are aberrations in a normal free society based on the rule of law. So we're going to deal with all of that, and that is 100%. So do not worry about the debt, and certainly the state of Florida. First of all, we have the lowest per capita tax burden. I have the biggest budget surplus we've ever had. There would be no basis to ever do any type of raising taxes. And I think if you look at all the subsidies that Disney's gotten over the years, likely the state and local governments will likely be collecting more taxes. Ezzy Castro: (07:12) Good morning, Governor. I'm Ezzy Castro with WKMG here News Six. Central Florida Democratic lawmakers have criticized your decision to name Cord Byrd as Secretary of State. Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith said, "This is the most frightening appointment to date." How do you respond to those criticism? Ron DeSantis: (07:30) Well, Cord Byrd is very, very strong. We are not going to have to worry in Florida about [Zuckerbucks 00:07:38] infiltrating our elections with Cord as Secretary of State. We're not going to have to worry about ballot harvesting with Cord as Secretary of State. We're going to make sure that the elections are run efficiently and transparently, but we are not going to allow these external influences to come in and to corrupt the operations. And we're certainly not going to allow political operatives to harvest all these votes and then dump them somewhere. And so I think that we have a great framework in place. I think Cord has been very, very strong in terms of wanting election integrity. And so we're going to be off to the races, I think, very, very quickly. So he's going to do a really, really good job and I'm excited for him to get to work. Melissa Thomas: (08:25) Governor- Ron DeSantis: (08:26) All right, everybody. All right, one more. Yes, ma'am? Yep. Melissa Thomas: (08:28) This is Melissa Thomas with Florida National News. Just kind of following up on this announcement here as it relates to nurse training and nurse funding, wanted to find out if you also included UCF. There was some kind of appropriation legislation submitted in the budget for particularly a building towards medical city or anything like that. So I just wanted to follow up and find out what the status was of that. Ron DeSantis: (08:49) So I'm reviewing all of that. I will say that there are literally tens of billions of dollars in the current budget for expanded infrastructure relating to nursing programs, UCF, USF, some other places. I have not decided that I would veto any of those as of now. And so we'll see how we're going. We haven't completed the full review. But regardless of how it comes out, I think almost assuredly, you will see a really significant amount of money go to both state colleges, actually some school districts, as well as universities, to be able to expand some of the facilities that they have. And it only makes sense if you have more and more students that you're training, you want to make sure that they have the capacity there to be able to get all those students through. So stay tuned on that. But I think there'll be some really good news when it comes to that. Ron DeSantis: (09:46) And of course, the facilities are important. You need to be able to do that. But what I like about what we're doing is, this money here, that's really focused on people. Because at the end of the day, it's the people that really make the difference. It's the nurses themselves that make a difference. And I think that we're also looking to see ways we can increase physician slots. The way they do [inaudible 00:10:08] medical education, federal government's involved and it's kind of weird. We want to be able to do that, too, because there is a need to have more physicians trained in the state of Florida. We have some physicians that we will train and then they will go to other states. And so we see a need, too, on the physician level. But certainly with the nurses, we're putting an awful lot of resources in place and I think it's going to end up proving to be money well spent. Okay, everybody. Thank you so much. We'll see you. Melissa Thomas: (10:34) Governor, one more question please. Ron DeSantis: (10:34) I got to run. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Good luck.Ron DeSantis: (00:00) Anyone have any questions back there? Yes? Speaker 2: (00:05) [inaudible 00:00:05] Ron DeSantis: (00:14) So we have a special session on property insurance reform. This is a market that has been problematic in this state for a long time. And some people have seen obnoxious rate increases. Part of the reason that that happens is because we don't really have a competitive market. A lot of these companies, major companies, have left the state because of how hostile the underlying framework is. I'm a former military. Most people that join the military end up signing up with USAA. And I can tell you, car insurance, all that, when you have problems, they just fix it. It's a very good company. They don't do Florida for homeowners insurance because of the way that we have. We have 8% of the property claims nationwide and 78% of the litigation nationwide. That is causing these premiums to escalate. And so we have to address that. It's something that's very important. Ron DeSantis: (01:12) We tried to address it during the regular session and were unsuccessful. People said, "Are you going to do a special session?" I was like, "Well, if I know we're going to be able to get it done, I will." And so anytime you add anything or call a special session, it's because you have a sense that that is going to be significant, and that's going to be something that would pass. If there's something that you want to do and you kind of haphazardly go forward with it and it fails, then that sets the cause back. And so once I knew we had a framework in place to be able to do property insurance, we went ahead and did that. And so on any of these other issues, if the legislature wants to add, of course, they can add. If there are things that I think could be done, then we would do. But I would want to make sure that we had confidence that we were going to be able to get it done because failing, I think, is just not an option. Ron DeSantis: (02:08) But the good news is, on property insurance, I think we're going to get really, really significant reforms. Now, we did a package last year that had some good stuff. I think that there were some positives that came out of that. I know a couple companies decided to come in and start offering policies as a result of some of those reforms; but it just didn't do enough, I think, to really stabilize this situation. And so that's going to be what we're trying to do. And I think that that is something that we must do. Speaker 3: (02:38) Governor, [inaudible 00:02:39] from Spectrum News [inaudible 00:02:40]. I wanted to ask you [inaudible 00:02:43] weren't prepared for that. Governor, I wanted to ask you essentially about Reedy Creek. I know that you had spoken a little bit about this, but we want to just see where you are. Ron DeSantis: (02:53) Sure. Speaker 3: (02:56) What would happen if [inaudible 00:02:57] most people think that it'll go through the taxpayers. Ron DeSantis: (03:00) No. Yeah. That's a great question. I'm glad you asked that. Just think about it. The same people who criticize me for saying you're punishing Disney are also saying we're going to relieve Disney of $766 million in debt. How would that be a punish? I mean, it makes no sense that would be the case. And so I can tell you this, that debt will not end up going to any of these local governments. It's not going to go to the state government either. It's going to absolutely be dealt with, with the taxpayers who are currently in that district. And we're going to have a proposal to kind of make sure that that's clear and that is 100%. Ron DeSantis: (03:40) And we understood that, but when the legislature did what they did, they set a date for June of next year, knowing ... And it's not just Reedy Creek. There was a handful other of these legacy special districts that had powers that are just unacceptable. Reedy Creek gave Disney the power to seize property outside of Reedy Creek boundaries with eminent domain. There's a lot of other subsidies in there that are just not appropriate. You also had some stuff in other parts of the state, obviously not as high profile. So of course, all of that is going to be dealt with. I'd say some of those special districts may just go away. Some may be amended. Some potentially could be reauthorized. Obviously, with Reedy Creek, the path forward is Disney will not control its own government in the state of Florida. Disney will have to follow the same laws that every other company has to follow in the state of Florida. They will pay their fair share of taxes and they will be responsible for paying the debts. Ron DeSantis: (04:38) And so at the end of the day, all we're doing is putting them on a level playing field with all the other companies in Florida, making sure there's no special privileges, no special deals. But that debt will be honored. Now, you hear people that will try to say locally, in central Florida, "Oh, this is going to force us to raise taxes." Understand from our perspective at the state, any local government raising taxes on their citizens is unjustifiable to do that. There is not going to be any basis to do it because they're not going to have any additional liabilities. And you know what? Even though there are ways where you could potentially have local communities absorb jurisdiction over Disney, after seeing them threatening to raise taxes on their citizens, we are not going to be in a situation where we're just going to be giving them locally control. More likely that the state will simply assume control and make sure that we're able to impose the law and make sure we're collecting the taxes. Ron DeSantis: (05:41) I look at these firefighters, I think these firefighters there should be making more money. There's a whole bunch of different things that we will be able to do. I'd much rather have the state leading that effort than potentially having local governments. First of all, it'd be a cash cow for them if they had Disney. But I'm worried that they would use that as a pretext to raise taxes on people when that's what they would want to do anyways, and then try to blame Reedy Creek. So we're not going to give them that opportunity. Don't worry about that. But the debts will absolutely be paid and you will see that. We're working on some proposals. I think we've got to pretty much what we want to do, but I'm going to work with the legislative leaders who are going to come in after the election to make sure that we're all in agreement. And then we'll be able to have that ready, as well as dispositions and resolution of these other special districts. Ron DeSantis: (06:30) We have over a thousand in the state of Florida. There's nothing wrong with the special district. It's just these ones, prior to '68, really had a lot of problematic things in them where they were creating things that I think are aberrations in a normal free society based on the rule of law. So we're going to deal with all of that, and that is 100%. So do not worry about the debt, and certainly the state of Florida. First of all, we have the lowest per capita tax burden. I have the biggest budget surplus we've ever had. There would be no basis to ever do any type of raising taxes. And I think if you look at all the subsidies that Disney's gotten over the years, likely the state and local governments will likely be collecting more taxes. Ezzy Castro: (07:12) Good morning, Governor. I'm Ezzy Castro with WKMG here News Six. Central Florida Democratic lawmakers have criticized your decision to name Cord Byrd as Secretary of State. Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith said, "This is the most frightening appointment to date." How do you respond to those criticism? Ron DeSantis: (07:30) Well, Cord Byrd is very, very strong. We are not going to have to worry in Florida about [Zuckerbucks 00:07:38] infiltrating our elections with Cord as Secretary of State. We're not going to have to worry about ballot harvesting with Cord as Secretary of State. We're going to make sure that the elections are run efficiently and transparently, but we are not going to allow these external influences to come in and to corrupt the operations. And we're certainly not going to allow political operatives to harvest all these votes and then dump them somewhere. And so I think that we have a great framework in place. I think Cord has been very, very strong in terms of wanting election integrity. And so we're going to be off to the races, I think, very, very quickly. So he's going to do a really, really good job and I'm excited for him to get to work. Melissa Thomas: (08:25) Governor- Ron DeSantis: (08:26) All right, everybody. All right, one more. Yes, ma'am? Yep. Melissa Thomas: (08:28) This is Melissa Thomas with Florida National News. Just kind of following up on this announcement here as it relates to nurse training and nurse funding, wanted to find out if you also included UCF. There was some kind of appropriation legislation submitted in the budget for particularly a building towards medical city or anything like that. So I just wanted to follow up and find out what the status was of that. Ron DeSantis: (08:49) So I'm reviewing all of that. I will say that there are literally tens of billions of dollars in the current budget for expanded infrastructure relating to nursing programs, UCF, USF, some other places. I have not decided that I would veto any of those as of now. And so we'll see how we're going. We haven't completed the full review. But regardless of how it comes out, I think almost assuredly, you will see a really significant amount of money go to both state colleges, actually some school districts, as well as universities, to be able to expand some of the facilities that they have. And it only makes sense if you have more and more students that you're training, you want to make sure that they have the capacity there to be able to get all those students through. So stay tuned on that. But I think there'll be some really good news when it comes to that. Ron DeSantis: (09:46) And of course, the facilities are important. You need to be able to do that. But what I like about what we're doing is, this money here, that's really focused on people. Because at the end of the day, it's the people that really make the difference. It's the nurses themselves that make a difference. And I think that we're also looking to see ways we can increase physician slots. The way they do [inaudible 00:10:08] medical education, federal government's involved and it's kind of weird. We want to be able to do that, too, because there is a need to have more physicians trained in the state of Florida. We have some physicians that we will train and then they will go to other states. And so we see a need, too, on the physician level. But certainly with the nurses, we're putting an awful lot of resources in place and I think it's going to end up proving to be money well spent. Okay, everybody. Thank you so much. We'll see you. Melissa Thomas: (10:34) Governor, one more question please. Ron DeSantis: (10:34) I got to run. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Good luck.