DeSantis, Abbott celebrate 'Boom Belt' as 11 Southeast states generate $9T in annual GDP
Gov. Ron DeSantis joins 'Hang Out with Sean Hannity' to discuss mass immigration to Florida and why green states like New York and California are experiencing population decline.
A new economic iron curtain is falling across America as the “Boom Belt” – the powerhouse of 11 states in the US Southeast – is breaking records and challenging the traditional financial dominance of New York and Chicago.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined Miami on Tuesday to celebrate a state with a $9 billion gross domestic product (GDP) that now surpasses all four other states in population, jobs and investment.
“I often tell people, as Governor of Florida, my job is to closely follow California, Illinois, New York, so I can do the opposite of what they're doing,” DeSantis said during a panel at the Pérez Art Museum. “Florida has changed more income in our state since I've been governor than in any state in the history of the United States.”
“Visionary business leaders are looking for where the puck isn't right now, but where it's going … while other states where the puck was in the past, now they're burdened with high taxes, restrictive laws, anti-business policies,” Abbott said.
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The governors pointed out how Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas now generate $9 billion in annual GDP, trailing only the US and China globally, while accounting for 70% of all US population growth over the past five years.
Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, from left, Paul Atkins, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jim Lee, founder and CEO of the Texas Stock Exchange, Jim Esposito, president of Citadel Securities, and Ron De (Getty Images)
Migration has been fueled by more than just sunshine; it's a smart retreat from the regime of wealthy tax proposals passing through green state legislatures including California, New York and now Washington.
“We are in the 250th year of the founding of the United States. The founding fathers, they wanted a system based on the consent of the government… They wanted to have the law and they wanted some of these things, especially personal property, to not just be controlled by those kinds of desires,” said DeSantis.
“So, in Texas, even though we've never had a state income tax, we wanted to make sure that future generations wouldn't be able to pay income taxes, so we made the income tax unconstitutional in the state of Texas,” Abbott said. “We have made the wealth tax unconstitutional. We have made the death tax unconstitutional, and as [Citadel’s] Jim Lee pointed out that the transaction tax is unconstitutional.”
Texas Board of REALTORS chair Jennifer Wauhob talks to Fox News Digital about the Lone Star State's recent fortunes and population growth that is 'creating great things for Texas.'
“I know there's been a lot of very healthy competition between states like Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, some of these. And I think that's really good,” commented DeSantis. “When Greg does things, people say, 'Look [at] what Texas just did.'
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and TXSE CEO Jim Lee warned that the US has lost half of its public companies over the past 30 years because the federal government has made it “complicated, expensive and legally manipulative” to go public.
“When the capital, companies and people all move in the same way, with that kind of consistency and that kind of scale, we have to ask why. I believe that the answer, more often than not, is the continued adherence of the region to the original policies, including those that strongly protect investors without companies that are disabled unnecessarily,” said Atkins. “So for our part, the SEC is returning to those same principles by restoring the conditions that make our public markets a natural environment for companies to raise capital and for investors to share in their success.”
The 'Big Money Show' explores blue state tax policies as the wealthy move to lower tax states.
“As Chairman Atkins has repeatedly commented, it used to be cool to be public, so what happened? The answer is we made it more complicated, expensive and legally tricky to be a public company. Staying private was the only logical choice. This is not an accident. It is a result,” stressed Lee.
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As the person who helped lead the company's move from Chicago to Miami, Citadel Securities President Jim Esposito highlighted the practical, important reasons why the “Boom Belt” is winning the battle for capital – making the Southern approach an inspiration to all of America.
“All over Florida, Texas and other states that are growing well, government officials have created places where businesses can operate, invest. And most importantly, grow with confidence,” he said. “This type of public-private partnership should be a model for the rest of our country.”
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