DeSantis’s economic platform: criticizing Trump’s spending, banning TikTok, protecting crypto, bankruptcy for troubled student debt

Some of the “declaration” highlights:

• Criticizing Trump’s spending: DeSantis said he’s fighting reckless federal spending, and Trump seems to be in the line of fire. When a tweet from Trump’s team said DeSantis’s economic proposals are similar to Trump’s plans, a member of DeSantis’s team responded that he is different because he “isn’t going to lock down the country and add $8 trillion to our debt,” in a reference to Trump’s approach to COVID-19.

• A possible TikTok ban: A pillar of DeSantis’s plan is “taking back control of our economy from China,” and that could include banning TikTok, the governor said in a Wall Street Journal interview following the release of his economic plan. “I am inclined to not want TikTok in the United States,” he said. “I think it’s creating a security vulnerability for us. I think they are mining a lot of data.” Trump tried to ban the popular Chinese-owned video-sharing app while president, but his efforts hit legal hurdles.

• Ending an “abusive” relationship with China: The governor’s other China-focused goals include revoking that country’s preferential trade status, preventing U.S. companies from sharing critical technologies with China and banning the sale of American assets, such as farmland, to members of the Chinese Communist Party and their affiliates.

• Student loans: DeSantis’s plan said he’s seeking to allow student loans to be “discharged through bankruptcy like any other loan,” referring to how that currently can be difficult to do. He also intends to “make universities, not taxpayers, responsible for the loans their students accrue,” saying he “will no longer incentivize useless degrees and courses with blanket government loans.”

• Crypto protections: He plans to “protect cryptocurrencies and work to end politically driven de-banking and financial doxing,” unlike other players in Washington, D.C., who, he said, “sought to regulate and inhibit innovation such as bitcoin
  BTCUSD,
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• Goals for the Fed: The governor has promised to appoint a Federal Reserve chair “who will focus on maintaining a stable dollar instead of the political pressures of the day,” adding that the U.S. central bank “must focus on stable prices” and “cannot be allowed to be an unaccountable economic central planner.” He said he would block the Federal Reserve from implementing a central-bank digital currency. 

From MarketWatch’s archives (March 2023): Could Congress actually ban TikTok in the U.S.? Analysts see ‘procedural and practical hurdles.’

Read on: Trump says he expects to be indicted ‘any day now’ in Jan. 6 probe