Tackling Florida's Financial Crisis
Today, Florida families are being crushed by the weight of a $40 trillion national debt—a figure that has grown by more than $4 trillion in just the last year alone. We are at a breaking point where the price of daily essentials is no longer affordable for millions.
The current "money crunch" is not just a statistic; it is the harsh reality of grocery bills and fuel costs rising while wages struggle to keep pace. To address this crisis and protect our collective future, we must commit to several fundamental shifts in how Florida is governed:
Remove the regulatory barriers between Florida farmers and Florida consumers. Direct farm-to-consumer sales lower prices at both ends. No beef from overseas.
No sales tax on food. Protect the grocery exemption we already have.
Roughly eight hundred thousand Floridians fall into the coverage gap. We will direct the Agency for Health Care Administration to pursue a waiver, and durable funding will require the legislature.
Florida's prescription drug importation program has been signed into law and federally approved but has hit a roadblock. We will press to start the process of bulk purchasing to bring drug prices down, including insulin.
We will move to suspend state gas taxes during price spikes and to negotiate bulk fuel contracts for the state.
We will order a full audit of toll road revenue and complete transparency on SunPass. Where the bonds on a road have been retired, the toll should come off. Where bond covenants still govern a road, the state has to honor the contract, and will say so plainly rather than promise something we cannot deliver.
On power: protect net metering for homeowners, support distributed solar and battery storage, and harden the grid. Utilities should not be permitted to convert the energy transition into a monopoly they bill you for. Rates are set by the Public Service Commission, so the governor's real leverage is appointments and legislation.
Florida's fifteen dollar minimum takes effect September 30, 2026 under the constitutional amendment voters approved. I will move to tie future increases to Florida's cost of living rather than a national index, and to remove the state preemption that blocks local governments from setting their own wage floors.
The honest part nobody says out loud: at a certain wage level, corporations automate. Wage policy alone leaves people stranded.
Florida should be building entrepreneurs, skilled tradesmen, and craftsmen, not a permanent minimum-wage workforce. That means real investment in vocational programs, apprenticeships, and agricultural training alongside any wage floor.
Gig workers deserve basic protections, including injury coverage and transparent pay calculations, without being misclassified into a category that serves the platform instead of the worker.
Florida homeowners pay the highest property insurance premiums in the country. Premiums have climbed faster than incomes for years while the reasons for the increases stayed hidden inside filings almost nobody reads.
We will direct the Office of Insurance Regulation to publish loss ratios, reinsurance costs, executive compensation, and rate justifications in plain language, so that any Floridian can read why a rate went up.
We will move to cap insurer profit as a share of revenue minus expenditures, and to require rate reductions when loss ratios improve, and to return any surplus funds back to policyholders. Any cap has to be built with actuarial review and solvency protection so carriers stay in Florida and pay claims.
Mitigation should mean something. If you harden your home, the discount should be real and it should show up on your bill. We support expanding My Safe Florida Home and tying it to enforced building codes.contributor to our current debt crisis.
Floridians pay among the highest auto insurance rates in the country. I will move to reform PIP, address uninsured motorist rates, ban credit-score-based rating, and require consent before a telematics device reports your driving to an insurer.
On flood: update the flood maps, require honest disclosure to buyers and renters before they sign, open the market to private flood alternatives, and address inland flooding and repetitive-loss properties instead of pretending the risk stops at the coast.
Institutional investors are buying single-family homes in Florida and renting them back to the people who used to be able to buy them. A family bidding on a first house should not be bidding against a fund.
We will move to bar institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes in Florida, with exemptions for legitimate builders, community land trusts, nonprofits, and small local landlords.
We support renter protections: just-cause eviction, capped security deposits, and ninety days notice before a rent increase above five percent.
On growth: no mass sprawl. Walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods where people can live near where they work. Large developments should require community approval, not a rubber stamp.
The time for half-measures has passed. We must demand a government that is accountable, a budget that is balanced, and an economy that works for every American, not just the few at the top.
No Veteran Left Behind
Veteran homelessness is a crisis we can no longer ignore. In Florida, there is approximately 3000 heroes with no safe and secure place to sleep. The streets they swore to protect now serve as their only shelter. Basic needs like food and shelter should not be out of reach for veterans; it is a moral failure on the part of Americans that the men and women who gave their all to protect our liberties are homeless, hungry and without hope....
A Mission for the Common Good
I. The Call to Duty
Friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. To the veterans in this room who have worn the uniform: you know what it means to serve a cause greater than yourself. To our seniors: you are the backbone of our community, the ones who built the prosperity we enjoy today. And to the Floridians—those of you tired of the partisan bickering that puts slogans over solutions—I hear you. Floridians are paying on the ...