Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted the recently passed COVID relief bill as a “windfall” to states that “destroyed” their economies during the fight against COVID-19.
Appearing on Saturday night’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” the Florida governor told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that his state’s low unemployment rate caused it to be “penalized” regarding funding allocations from the bill.
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“We are getting penalized by $2 billion because we have low unemployment,” DeSantis said. “Because we’ve saved the economy, because also we have lower COVID mortality than a lot of these lockdown states.”
“So what this bill does is it says if you locked down, if you destroyed your state, if you destroyed your economy and you failed to stop COVID as well, you are gonna get a windfall,” he continued. “So some of these lockdown states are getting an extra billion, 2 billion, 3 billion, dollars, so it’s effectively a transfer of money from states like Florida and Georgia to states like New York, Illinois, and California. It stinks to high heaven.”
Congress passed the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus package last week without any Republican support. It includes money for vaccine distribution and $1,400 in direct payments to most Americans, but also many non-virus-related items on Democrats’ wish list. (RELATED: Kevin McCarthy Calls $1.9 Trillion Bill ‘The Pelosi Payoff,’ Says To Stop Calling It ‘COVID Relief’)
DeSantis, who has kept Florida open and largely restriction-free during most of the pandemic, called the bill a “bailout for blue states” and “fundamentally unfair” during a press conference last week.