Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) share The Governor signed a “Florida’s Future-Focused Budget” for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, which includes plans to cut spending compared to last year and create a surplus of approximately $17 billion.
Florida has a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, with past surpluses, most recently last year. This is a solid approach in a world where most states have small surpluses. And Florida stands in stark contrast to California, which has a surplus of about 10 million euros. $100 billion Even with the federal government’s cash injections during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state has fallen into a $26.7 billion deficit in just three years. Associated Press Including measures already passed and signed by the Legislature and Governor, California’s budget deficit is estimated to be nearly $45 billion.
Florida shows that it’s not just money that gets good results, it’s competent, fiscally restrained governance.
Outside of state governments, the federal government has neglected its duty to be fiscally responsible and to be good stewards of capital.
The US federal debt is ballooning to an unmanageable extent at best. Nearly every major financial institution, including the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Congressional Budget Office, and the International Monetary Fund, as well as financial heavyweights like JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Citadel’s Ken Griffin, have criticized the US fiscal course as unsustainable. Americans are feeling more personal financial pain, even though deficit spending as a percentage of GDP remains around twice the historical average.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Florida has shown that a good model for fiscal responsibility exists.
The state does not impose an income tax on its residents and balances this with controlled spending. KFF Show Florida spends less per capita than every other state except Texas and the District of Columbia.
Despite this, Florida continues to produce excellent results for its residents. For example, in May, U.S. News and World Report ranked Florida as the top state for education, marking the second consecutive year that Florida has earned the top spot in education. According to the Florida Tax Watch group, “The Governor and the Florida Legislature deserve credit for spending available funds in a largely responsible manner. They have been able to make significant investments in infrastructure, the environment, education and teachers while enacting record tax cuts and maintaining exceptional levels of reserves.”
Moreover, the state continues to attract large numbers of residents, primarily at the expense of poorly run states.
Florida’s net migration numbers last year were not as high as they will be in 2022, Population growth Florida has become the most popular state for Americans to move to, but by 2023, Florida will Second highest population growth rate domestic.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Florida is perfect from a governance standpoint, nor from an overall cost of living standpoint. Some of the latter, such as the rising cost and difficulty of obtaining homeowners insurance, has more to do with geography and other industry-specific issues.
Yet in contrast to a federal government struggling with massive deficits, a nearly $35 trillion national debt, and interest payments that outpace every other spending item, Florida has shown that it is not just money that drives good results, but competent, fiscally restrained governance.
