Gov. Ron DeSantis has a history of message-sending with his budget vetoes.
The most recent came last year, when the governor vetoed all $32 million in cultural and museums grants because a fraction of the money went to left-leaning festivals.
When the governor turns to the $115.1 billion state budget recently approved by lawmakers, this year’s action may contain a new theme.
With President Trump guiding a turbulent economy, the size of DeSantis’ veto list may draw some national scrutiny as a measure of GOP confidence – or lack of – in White House policies.
Whatever DeSantis chops from the spending plan gets tucked back into state reserves, banked for an economic “rainy day.”
With Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate already beefing-up state reserves, if DeSantis adds to them, it may signal that the governor, a prominent leader of the nation’s third largest state, has concerns about where the U.S. economy is headed.
DeSantis already has vowed to veto “at least” $500 million from the spending plan. With the budget year beginning July 1, the governor is certain to act soon.
Could scope of vetoes be a message – about Trump?
“It sounds to me that even my Republican counterparts know that we’re likely heading into a recession,” said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa. “So I think they are, in some ways, hedging their bets.”
Like every government, Florida’s general revenue is shaped by tax receipts.
About three of every four dollars comes from the state’s 6% sales tax, whose collections can swiftly turn with any signs of a slump in tourism.
Home sales are another big tax driver, and Florida’s housing market has cooled from the scorching levels of the past couple of years.
Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress’ push for handing more federal services over to states has raised questions about how much more Florida taxpayers may have to shoulder in coming months and years to maintain Medicaid, education, environmental work and emergency preparedness.
Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said the state last year drew down $38 billion in federal money – about one-third of the budget.
“Functionally, that is uncertainty. Because I’m not making any assumptions about where the federal spending is going to be,” Albritton said.
Economy may cause DeSantis to bank more dollars through vetoes
Will that “uncertainty” move DeSantis to veto more programs and projects to keep state money on hand in the event of an economic downturn?
Lawmakers in the budget steer an additional $750 million into reserves, bringing the state’s total to $12.4 billion. That allowance could stave-off any short-term economic slump. The $115.1 billion budget also is $3.1 billion smaller than the current year’s spending plan.
DeSantis, though, has set out to bank vetoed money before.
In 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and business closures, layoffs and travel restrictions foretold a looming hit to state finances, DeSantis vetoed $1 billion from the state budget.
But DeSantis topped even that level in early 2022 – as he was preparing for his re-election campaign. He vetoing $3.1 billion to bring the budget down to $109.9 billion, a target he seemed intent on reaching.
Prior to the kick-off of his failed presidential run, he vetoed $510.9 million in 2023. Last year, he spiked up again – with almost $950 million in vetoes.
‘Dish best served cold’? The revenge factor
Another veto motivator for the governor this year could be his fractious relationship with the Florida Legislature.
The House, under Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, clashed with DeSantis over a wide landscape of tax breaks and policy and, most bitterly, over the Hope Florida Foundation, a nonprofit that’s the signature initiative of First Lady Casey DeSantis.
A House panel, headed by Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, probed how the foundation received $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement and directed it to two nonprofits that, in turn, gave millions to a political committee chaired by DeSantis’ chief-of-staff, James Uthmeier, who the governor appointed Florida’s attorney general.
Uthmeier’s committee last fall was helping DeSantis in his fight against the constitutional amendment on recreational marijuana that failed to win voter approval.
Tallahassee-area State Attorney Jack Campbell is now investigating the Hope Florida case.
Andrade’s name is attached to 36 budget requests submitted to the Legislature, with many of the spending items included in the $115.1 billion budget DeSantis must act on.
Not all of Andrade’s projects made it into the budget. But those that did – amounts as small as $75,000 for public restrooms at Pensacola’s Palafox Market to $2.5 million for statewide aquaculture restoration – likely risk meeting DeSantis’ veto pen.
Revenge is commonly deployed by the governor. When former Florida Republican Party chair, Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota, was the only state lawmaker to endorse Trump over DeSantis in the presidential race in early 2023, the governor exacted a toll.
DeSantis vetoed millions of dollars for university, road and environmental projects sought by Gruters for his home Sarasota County.
“It’s mean-spirited acts like this that are defining him here and across the country,” Gruters said at the time.
Gruters is running for the currently vacant Florida Cabinet post of state chief financial officer. Former CFO Jimmy Patronis resigned to run for the Panhandle congressional seat vacated by Matt Gaetz. He won the office handily.
DeSantis, though, is likely to appoint an ally, Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, in coming weeks to fill the vacancy, setting the stage for an Ingoglia-Gruters Republican primary contest next year.
Perez, though, downplayed any hidden reasons for expanding the state’s reserve fund, dismissing that it had anything to do with Republican lawmakers harboring doubts about the current economy.
“It is a concrete savings account that the state will use if it’s ever in a pickle, in a bad place,” Perez said. “If it’s ever in a recession – a place I don’t intend us to be in next year.”
John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @JKennedyReport.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: DeSantis’ budget veto toll may send message about Trump economy
Reporting by John Kennedy, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
