Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says if he’s elected president, he’ll push congress to extend the Trump era tax cuts and set up new federal scholarships to help cover the costs of attending a private K-12 school.
The tax plan President Trump signed into law in 2017 expires at the end of 2025 and DeSantis today said that gives the person elected president in 2024 an opportunity. “If you’re not thinking as the candidate about how you would use that to implement policy, then you’re already behind the curve,” DeSantis said during taping of “Iowa Press” which airs tonight on Iowa PBS.
DeSantis said it would be “a disaster” to have federal income tax rates go up in what could be a recession. “You’re going in on January 20, 2025 and it’s probably not going to be all sunshine and roses,” DeSantis said, “so raising taxes in that situation would be a big mistake.”
The “National School Choice” program DeSantis envisions at the federal level would be modeled on a tax check-off program in Florida. It lets businesses send corporate income tax payments to a scholarship fund. “We did a billion dollar program between administration and scholarships. That served 100,000 kids in Florida,” DeSantis said. “…If you did just $25 or 50 billion dollars, which in this day and age is budget dust basically, you’re going to be able provide scholarships to a low of working class and low income families.”
DeSantis indicated as president in 2025, he would push to include a wide range of policies in a package to avoid the requirement that 60 senators support it and pass with just 51 yes votes. He’d include repeal of Biden era spending and some of his own spending priorities, like funding to build more Navy ships.
Video of DeSantis on Iowa Press has been posted online. The program will be broadcast tonight at 7:30 p.m. on Iowa PBS.