Gov. DeSantis pitches four U.S. constitutional reforms to hold Washington accountable

Citing how well the state of Florida is run, Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing four amendments to the U.S. Constitution to fix what he says is a broken federal government.

The first would impose term limits for members of Congress and the second would require a balanced budget at the federal level.

The third proposal would give the president line-item veto power on budget items and the fourth would prohibit members of Congress from imposing laws on citizens that do not apply to themselves.

“Washington is never going to reform itself,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Naples Monday standing at a lectern with a sign that says “Hold Washington accountable.”

DeSantis dropped his bid to be the Republican nominee for president on Jan. 21, just before the New Hampshire primary, then endorsed his rival Donald Trump.

State House Speaker Paul Renner was with DeSantis when he announced the proposals, with DeSantis adding that Renner is taking the lead on the proposals during the current session. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo of Naples was not present.

“One of the things Florida has always taken the lead on but I think even more so is holding Washington accountable and at the end of the day, you look at what’s going on in D.C. and the results are very poor,” DeSantis said. “They are never really doing the business of the American people. They are really focusing on themselves. They’re focusing on their power.”

On the budget, he said that from 1789 to 2000, the federal government racked up $5.6 trillion in debt,  but by 2024, the debt had climbed to $34 trillion.

DeSantis said federal lawmakers keep adding trillions to the debt with really no thought about it and they just want to keep doing it.

He spoke about the debt clock on display in New York and said that if Florida had one you would see the debt in Florida would not be counting up but down.

More: Marco Island wants to declare itself a Bill of Rights sanctuary city, following Collier

On his ability as governor to veto individual items in the budget each year that are he says are unnecessary, he said that needs to be established at the federal level to eliminate wasteful spending. He cited tax dollars going to support transgenderism in Bangladesh.

“Federally they put a big bill on the president’s desk and you have to either sign everything or veto everything,” he said. “Ultimately you can elect some better people that can make a difference but the incentives are designed to produce poor outcomes.

He lauded how Florida requires a balanced budget each year and under his leadership Florida is paying down its debt and has $11 billion in reserves.

He pointed to Democrat-led California, which he said has a $60 billion deficit, Illinois, which he called fiscally insolvent and New York, which has millions fewer people compared to Florida but a budget that is twice Florida’s.

On term limits for federal lawmakers, DeSantis said Americans want that and that extends across Republicans and Democrats.

In terms of prohibiting Congress from passing laws that don’t apply to themselves, DeSantis cited President Biden’s executive order on the vaccine mandate against COVID-19  yet members of Congress were exempt.

Taking shots at Biden, he said the president could have closed the southern border and what’s proposed now at the federal level is a farce. What’s being proposed is that Biden can close the border once there are more than 5,000 illegal crossings a day.

On Friday, Biden said: "What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country. It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law."

DeSantis also said the type of reforms he's proposing "I think the founding fathers would have looked kindly on,” he said. “They recognize that states needed to be able to make these proposals because there was going to be times when the nation’s was not going to reform itself.”

Renner said that Florida’s success in large part is built into the state Constitution where term limits and a balanced budget are required.

“We’re limited to eight years and I believe that allows for fresh ideas and better governance,” Renner said. “Even Republicans like to spend money and if they don’t have those constraints as they don’t in D.C., they spin and spin and print money.”

Renner added: “No one will ever confuse us with the federal government.”

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Gov. Ron DeSantis proposes federal term limits and balanced budget