STORM SCOURGE: Ron DeSantis voted no on Hurricane Sandy relief in 2013
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis praised President Biden for his assistance with the impending Cat 4 Hurricane Ian on Sean Hannity’s show Tuesday night, we are certain much of the audience either choked on their Milwaukee’s Best or, worse than that, experienced seizures.
And imagine how DeSantis felt squeezing out the words, “very thankful” in the same sentence as the man whom he has maligned for much of his reign of fascistic folly.
But, you see, DeSantis had little choice. Though the right-wingnut groundlings were already pulling up their chairs waiting for the one-sided verbal wrestling match in which their fave Florida bully berated the President, it never happened.
With the impending doom of a disastrous storm on the horizon, DeSantis had no choice but to beg Biden for natural disaster federal assistance, even if it took him a while to muster up the courage to do so. But DeSantis wasn’t always so caring about hurricane relief, however.
As a newly elected Florida congressman, Rep. Ron DeSantis voted against a bill to provide $9.7 billion in flood insurance aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy, the worst storm of 2012 that pummeled much of New York and New Jersey, inflicting nearly $70 billion in damage and killing 233 people across eight countries from the Caribbean to Canada.
According to a Florida Times-Union report from June 2013, DeSantis, who was a generally unknown, unimpressive congressman back then, said clunkily about the bill, “It just was so much extraneous stuff.”
Uh, stuff, right. Insert that “for me, not for thee” proverb here. In fairness, Bible-quoting Senator Marco Rubio also voted no.
When asked if he’d vote differently if the hurricane hit his district, the Trump Afterbirth of a Florida governor replied, “If a hurricane came here, I would want any relief plan to be fiscally responsible,” he said. “[I] would not want to add extra things and say that because this is a vehicle that’s moving, let’s try to Christmas tree it out.”
Christmas tree it out. Rrrright, Ron. Whatever you said. In the meantime, the victims of Ian, a devastating Cat 4 storm that made landfall just outside of Fort Myers Wednesday afternoon, can thank President Biden for any relief provided in the wake of the storm.
And DeSantis can thank him for giving him more opportunities to take credit for that which he did not do.
Too bad that relief can’t do anything to fix the worst property insurance crisis in Florida history that has been exacerbated while the governor tilts at culture war windmills and traffics legal migrants on taxpayer dime.
But that’s a whole different disaster, now, isn’t it?
Lesley Abravanel rode through Hurricane Andrew in her grandma’s Miami bathtub and is a former entertainment columnist who realized that fighting fascism is more important than keeping up with the Kardashians.
Follow her on Twitter@LesleyAbravanel.
This is an opinion column that solely reflects the opinions of the author.
