Casey desantis and madison and mason. Desantis. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is john bush and i have the honor of being the executive director of the Ronald Reagan president ial foundation. And as can. You know, it truly has been an honor to be associated with this remarkable place named for such a remarkable man. By my count, this will be my 250th time up on this stage to introduce one of our nations finest. It is no secret to a few people here that it will also be my last introduction as executive director of the library. No, but as fate would have it, because of who our special guest is this morning, it could also probably be one of my most consequential and productions. But first. As always, in honor of our men and women in uniform who defend our freedom around the world, if you would, please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under god, indivisible and liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Before we get started, there are a few people in the audience. Id like to make sure i recognize. And ill start with the terrific member of our board of trustees, former california governor pete wilson, with his wife, gail. Governor. Former congressman elton gallegly, and his wife janice. Former ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland. Gordon. Best selling musical and Grammy Nominated artist john andres young microphone. Academy award nominee and grateful american who miller is a veterans and First Responder in our nation are grateful for mr. Gary sinise. Last night, mr. And this is just a special governor two sentences his wife katie and joined by their children madison and mason. Okay so theres been a lot of talk in the news lately about the basis on which we should judge our political leaders. One of them involves age, how old they are when they make a run for president. Reagan was once the oldest first term president at age 69. That is until donald trump was elected at age 17. Only to be outdone by joe biden. Now back to at the tender age of 78. Now reagan had a view on this subject. He quipped, Thomas Jefferson once said, we should never judge a president by his age, only by his works. Ever since he told me that, i stopped worrying about it. Little reagan here was always a good way to get things started. Our speaker today is at no risk of being judged by his age. No one can say his past as prime, nor can they say his index appearance. And with his new book, its clear hes asking all americans to simply judge him by his works just as president jefferson advised the courage to be free is floridas blueprint for americas revival. And Governor Ron Desantis is the leader who draft it and successfully implement it. That blueprint in the sunshine state, judging by the size of this enthusiastic crowd here on a sunday afternoon. And by how quickly this event sold out. Id say most of you have already become familiar with Governor Desantis as florida blueprint and you like what you see. You know that he has accomplished a great deal in his first term and one really auction in a land slide. There is no consensus on what percentage makes for a landslide. Politico says its when you beat your opponent by at least ten percentage points. If you were wondering what happened to that landslide, that big red wave predicted for november 20, 22 . Well, it showed up half the state of florida grew to a 20 points tsunami and reelect a governor by the name of ron desantis. But im willing to bet there are a few things you still dont know about the governor. Maybe you knew he went to yale, but did you know he captained the Baseball Team . You know, he went to harvard law. But did you know he earned a commission in the United States navy as a jag officer and deployed to iraq as an advisor to the navy seals. In the fight to retake fallujah. You know, he was a congressman, but did you know he was also a federal prosecutor who targeted and convicted child predators. We all know hes been a driven governor with the courage to take on woke educators, woke corporate leaders, woke big tech and woke social justice warriors. Thank you, ron desantis. But only he knows for sure what he plans to do next. And regardless of what he decides, i have a feeling america is about to learn a lot more about ron desantis and a lot more about his successful track record in florida. His new book is a great place to start, and theres no better place for him to help. Premiere it than here at the reagan library. So, ladies and gentlemen, please help me in welcoming the 40th governor of the state of florida, ron desantis. Thank you. Hello, california. I know you guys got a lot of problems out here, but your governor is very concern about what were doing in florida. So i figured i had to come by. Well, thank you so much. Its really an honor to be at the Ronald Reagan library. And as i was coming here, i started to think a little bit about president reagan and about some of the issues that were facing now. And, of course, you know, president reagan had a great sense of humor. And i thought about a story that there was a debate between three of our founding fathers, dr. Benjamin rush, Thomas Jefferson and ben franklin. And the debate was about what was the worlds oldest profession. And dr. Rush said as a physician, he said, the worlds oldest professions, the doctor, because eve was cut out of adams rib. So it has to be the physician. Thomas jefferson, who, you know, design monticello said no. The worlds oldest profession is the architect act after all. Was the architect who brought order out of all the chaos in the universe. And ben franklin said, no, youre both wrong. The worlds oldest profession is the politician. Who do you think created the chaos in the first place . And president reagan understood this. His famous quote that the most terrifying words in the english language from here, from the governor government. And im here to help. He he understood the vital role that government had to play. He didnt say no government. And he understood that there was a Core Functions of government. But he also understood how government could be a negative force if not applied properly. And i think if you look over the last four or five years and you look at the performances of individual states and you compare florida versus california and new york, illinois, some of those other states, we have had a great experiment, a great test in governing philosophies because, of course, you know, we approach things much differently in florida. Then you guys have out here much differently in florida than theyve done in new york and in illinois and many of these other states. And what is the result of that been . You know, you have an elections in your state and thats fine. But the American People as a whole, in some ways have voted about this experiment because they voted with their feet. And if you look over the last four years, weve witnessed a Great American exodus from states governed by leftist politicians imposing leftist ideology and delivering poor results. And youve seen Massive Gains in states like florida who are governing, according to the tried and true principles that president reagan held dear. Florida has led the nation in net inmigration. I think three or four years in a row, california has either been number one or number two in net out migration. New york is right up there with you on that. And its one thing with new york because there is a little bit of a rhythm of life where you can work and maybe youre retired of florida, get a condo in boca raton. Fine, maybe you get out of the minnesota winters and live in naples. Weve got a lot of that and thats always happen. But the extent to which people are moving and the reason for which theyre moving has been unique over these last four years. I just think about california and when i was in the navy, i was in coronado for a time before we went to iraq. It was beautiful. And i just thought to myself, you know, man, i understand why people try to get to california. And from the beginning of this states history, all the way until like the last four or five years, people beat a path to california. You didnt beat a path away from california. And yet now you see the state hemorrhaging population. I can tell you growing up in florida, i never remember seeing a california license plate. Why would you why would you leave right. And then all of a sudden, over these last few years, we start to see california and show up these license plates. And i can tell you thats spooked a lot of people in my state because they didnt know how those californians were going to vote when they got to the state of florida. But we saw that. And weve seen people move from the west coast, not just california, but oregon and Washington State in numbers like weve never seen. This is a result of better governance in states like florida. It is a result of poor governance in these left wing states. Thats why people are moving. Just think about fiscal fiscal management. The state of florida. We have millions of more people now than the state of new york does. And yet new york state, they have twice the size of the state budget than the state of florida does. And yet we have better infrastructure, Better Services and higher performing k through 12 schools. So where is all this money going . But not only does new york state have twice the budget that florida does. New york citys budget with 8 Million People is basically the same size as Florida State budget, with a state of over 22 Million People. Our per capita debt in florida is the Second Lowest in the United States. New yorks per capita debt is the fifth highest in the nation in the United States. We have no income tax. Were not taxing people like they are. They taxed the dickens out of you and theyre still deep in debt. Yes. In terms of taxes, of course. No income tax. Floridas the Second Lowest per capita tax burden in the United States. In new york and california rank among the top ten most tax states. And i dont have to remind you, not only do you have stiff income tax, youve got the highest sales tax in all of the United States in terms of business tax, climate. Florida has the fourth best business class. Business. Tax. Climate. New york is second worst, followed by california with the third worst business tax climate. Is it any wonder that the state of florida ranks number one in new business formations, even though were roughly half the size of california . We have more new business formations. And unemployment in the state of florida. The december numbers, we were 2. 7 . New york and california were 4. 1 . We have significantly more people employed than we did prior to covid. And states like new york still havent recovered. And for the first time in recorded history, the state of florida has more total people employed than the state in new york. And thats saying something because we got a lot of retired people in the state of florida. So those results speak for themselves. But, you know, weve always had lower taxes in florida. Thats nothing new. Weve never had an income tax and weve always worked to keep government small. So that in and of itself, while it contribute cuts, that is not the only reason why people have moved. I think the pandemic caused people to reevaluate who was in charge of their state governments more than any other event in my lifetime. And you had to make a decision about how you were going to handle that. Were you as the governor, going to look at everything or consume the data yourself, be mindful of your States Economic wellbeing, the education of your kids . Yes, health in terms of covid, but also health in terms of every other thing. Or were you going to basically subcontract out your leadership to Health Bureaucrats like dr. Fauci . Well, in florida, we were mindful of president eisenhower warning in his farewell address about the dangers of allowing a Scientific Technology vehicle elite to get a hold of public policy. Because eisenhower observed, they dont see the full picture. They are focused on one narrow aspect. And so you consult with that. But a statesmans got to harmonize all the different competing interests in society. T ford she doesnt know anything about the economy. He doesnt know anything about education nation. He doesnt know anything about your rights. Indeed, he doesnt care about your rights. And so. And so when the world went mad, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, florida stood as a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for people throughout the United States and indeed throughout the world. We refused to let our state descend into some type of faustian dystopia where peoples rights were curtailed and their livelihoods were destroyed. We made sure people had a right to work, and we got people back to work and businesses back open. We made sure that every school in the state of florida and that 2020 school year was open because people needed to be in school. And i can tell you, we had families moved from the Pacific Coast just for the fact that we had schools open in florida when you didnt have them, and many other many other states, we understood that the elite, the medical elite, whatever their intentions were originally, i dont know. But this devolved into something that became very political, and they wanted to use government to control your behavior. So we rejected the imposition of a biomedical Security State in the state of florida. We empowered people to make their own choices. And so we did things. We did things like ban vaccine, passports in the state of florida. Some states said, you want to go stay in a hotel, go to a restaurant, you got to cough up your vax papers on these mirror shots. And we said, thats none of their business. Everyone has a right to participate in society. Thats a personal choice that you make, whether to take that or not. And were not going to let you be excluded. Now, what ended up happening because we did that. One of the things that ended up happening was 2021 florida set a record for domestic tourism. If you compare the change in tourism in california from 2019 to 2021, california tourism declined by 22 . If you. Compare 2019 to 2021 for new york city, new york citys tourism declined 43 in the year 2021. If you look at all foreign tourism to the United States as a whole, florida accounted for almost 45 of our nations total tourism come from foreign countries. So people knew if youre going to spend your hard earned money and you want to go on vacation, you actually want to be on vacation. You dont want to get hit up for medical papers or told you have to wear a mask or do all these other things. They knew they could come to florida and they knew theyd be free. And this is not just something that we beat our chest about because were more free. This had a direct impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people who work in our tourism and hospitality industry. It boom like never before and people were better off as a result of the decisions that we made. We also understood that this being a personal decision with respect to the shots, nobody in the state of florida was going to be put to have to choose between a job they needed and a shot they didnt want to take. We protected all of our employees from the mandates. And i can cite statistics about how we performed during covid. One of the ones i think is most significant because clearly the economic and all that education. You know, we did so much better. But you look sense covid in every state saw an increase in excess mortality. Unfortunately, thats what happens in a pandemic. Florida had less increase in excess mortality than both new york and california. So all the mandates, all those other things. Florida had less of an increase. And you know how i know that that florida did it right . Because a lot of these locked down politicians and people that would go on cable news and criticize florida, the first chance they got to escape the policies they were advocating, theyd end up down in florida just living the dream. But that was a huge factor in causing people to make those decisions. Another important factor has been our approach to education. As i mentioned, weve had families move into florida with kids, School Age Kids in numbers like weve never seen before. And i was born and raised in florida. And as a kid, if anyone would have said florida could compete much less do better in k12 education than new york or california, people would have laughed at you. Fact is, you had some of the best Public Education in california as well as new york. Thats no longer true. The 2022 nations report card for fourth grade reading and math. A first postcovid assessment. Floridas fourth graders ranked number three in reading and number four in the nation in math. And if you control for demographics, were very likely number one in both. Were ranked number three in k12 achievement. In education weeks most recent Quality Counts survey 2021, we are ranked number one for parental involvement in education. And we are ranked number one for Education Choice in all of the United States. Now, there was a survey, so as the covid was going on, there would be surveys about what states had schools open in person, and sometimes it was by school, district or city or whatnot. So nine months into covid, ten months in october, january 2021, bocom did the survey state of florida 100 open in person. California and illinois less than 20 on their survey. Open and inperson for all students. I am sorry. That is a disgrace for this state and illinois and o