Ian: DeSantis seeks assist from Biden, no extra 'Don't Tread on Florida' – Palm Seashore Put up

Pricey America: 

Please tread on Florida. 

I do know. I do know. This isn’t the message you’ve been listening to from us on the $25 T-shirts on the market on the Gov. Ron DeSantis re-election site.

However we right here in Florida are quickly suspending all criticisms of federal handouts and some other type of socialism. And as for these “Don’t Tread on Florida” T-shirts, ball caps and flags, we’re not in a go-it-alone temper anymore. 

Extra:DeSantis turns back on his own roots: Immigrant’s journey from 1917 echoes in Florida

Extra:Time to welcome new batch of foreign workers to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club/crime scene | Frank Cerabino

Extra:Frank Cerabino: When that Florida gunman turns out to be a 3-year-old child

Possibly we might simply unload that outdated-messaged merchandise as rags for the reduction staff from different states who will come right here to assist us in our time of want.

You see, Hurricane Ian has quickly washed away our bootstraps with the storm surge. And now we are able to’t pull them up on our personal. 

So, what we actually want proper now could be to rejoin the US of America so we are able to depend on the all-for-one ethos of this nation, an ethos we’ve out of the blue turn into keen on.

We’re by means of posturing ourselves as a breakaway state working in defiance of the federal authorities. 

Positive, we’ve acted that means quite a bit lately, refusing to take part in nationwide well being care expansions, and being the one state to refuse submitting a plan for utilizing federal reduction {dollars} for faculties, and pre-ordering COVID-19 vaccinations for kids.

Freedom, shmeedom. We’ve out of the blue outgrown that pablum for the feeble-minded. Please ship FEMA.

New appreciation for fast federal support

We notice that some folks might level out that our beloved governor, when he was a Tea Social gathering member of Congress, was one in every of simply 67 U.S. Home members who voted towards permitting the Federal Emergency Administration Company to pay out claims to the New York and New Jersey residents who held federal flood insurance coverage insurance policies throughout SuperStorm Sandy.

“I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and consider that those that bought flood insurance coverage ought to have their claims paid,” DeSantis had mentioned. “On the similar time, permitting this system to extend its debt by one other $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere just isn’t fiscally accountable.”

I can guarantee you, Gov. DeSantis just isn’t speaking about fiscal duty taking priority to federal payouts to Florida flood victims after Hurricane Ian. 

In actual fact, whereas the storm was coming ashore this week, DeSantis was already asking President Joe Biden to order FEMA to write down a clean test to Florida by offering one hundred pc federal value sharing for particles removing and emergency protecting measures within the state for the subsequent 60 days, with a 90 % federal value sharing burden after that preliminary interval.

DeSantis’ request says the federal reduction ought to come routinely with none prior evaluation of want, harm assessments or potential fraud.

“The danger {that a} frivolously impacted county would obtain pointless Federal help is minimal, at greatest,” DeSantis wrote. “Given these concerns, harm assessments could be a transparent waste of assets throughout a time of important want.”

See how a lot we’ve grown up?

No extra Biden nicknames?

And whereas we’re apologizing, we’re actually sorry about our governor’s latest behavior of calling President Biden names, equivalent to “President Brandon” or “The American Nero.” 

If DeSantis solely knew that Biden’s fast response to the Florida-bound storm could be magnanimous — “We’ll be there each step of the best way,” Biden mentioned — our governor might have been much less petty and juvenile in his Fox Information performances.

Oh, and Massachusetts, thanks for sending us no matter you’ll be able to in storm reduction. 

I do know, we’ve lately despatched you some determined asylum seekers from Venezuela, unceremoniously dropping them on Martha’s Winery. Trying again on it, we behaved like a bunch of delinquents taking part in a recreation of ding-dong-dash however with folks’s lives.

That’s not us anymore. Not since Hurricane Ian.

Now we’ve got newfound appreciation for displaced folks in want of assist. And we don’t assume it’s humorous anymore to abuse them. So, we respect something you may give us.

Hey, and when you’re at it, you can begin by sending again these migrants we gave you. 

We’re going to wish loads of staff to wash up the storm rubble. And the snowbirds absolutely aren’t going to do it. When the going will get robust, they’ll simply keep up north this winter and begin actual property in western North Carolina.

So, please give us again these migrants. There have been loads of able-bodied staff in that bunch. And we’d like a lot of folks with good backs and robust arms now.

In actual fact, we are able to use all of the Central American labor — documented or undocumented — the remainder of America can spare. And we promise, so long as they’re right here, working and placing our state again collectively once more, we won’t to solid them as evil drug mules, pedophiles and terrorists.

We’ll simply discover another marginalized group to choose on.

Tread on us, please

What I’m attempting to say is that this hurricane has actually made us rethink our empty bravado and culture-war foolishness. This storm will create hundreds of thousands of displaced Floridians, because it delivers a knock-out blow to the already teetering property-insurance market within the state. 

Or to place it one other means: We’re too “soak” to maintain flogging “woke.” 

So, please, come tread on us together with your federal support, together with your utility vans from distant states, and your emotional help.

And we’ll give you a extra applicable motto for these T-shirts.

Frank Cerabino is a columnist on the Palm Seashore Put up, a part of the USA TODAY Florida Community. You may attain him at [email protected]. Assist help our journalism. Subscribe today.