Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell says that if she is elected to serve in Washington next year, her top priority would be to sponsor a bill filed in the U.S. House of Representatives that aims to lower the cost of homeowners’ insurance by 25%.
“Right now, we have a bill in the House, it doesn’t have a companion in the Senate, and it basically means we would have a federal program that would back insurance companies so they can have funding available to insure customers and not put those costs on the consumers themselves,” she said during a Zoom conference call with reporters on Wednesday.
“This is going to affect not only the rent and property insurance market, but it’s going to start affecting our mortgage lending, and it’s a critical issue that we need to deal with immediately,” she said.
The specific proposal Mucarsel-Powell is referring to is sponsored by South Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz. It would cover a range of natural disasters, including fires, tornadoes, and earthquakes, as well as hurricanes and other severe storms.
That idea is one of many included in Mucarsel-Powell’s plan released earlier this week to deal with Florida’s affordability crisis.
In regards to the high cost of housing, she says she’ll back a proposal introduced in Congress earlier this year that would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships, or Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that manage pooled funds for investors, sell all single-family homes over 10 years, and ultimately prevent them for owning those properties completely.
When it comes to helping out working families, Mucarsel-Powell says she backs what has been a priority for congressional Democrats the past few years — expanding the Child Tax Credit that was originally part of the American Rescue Plan Act signed into law in 2021. That temporary one-year expansion of the program was considered a success, resulting in 2.1 million fewer children living in poverty, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It expired in 2022, and President Joe Biden and Democrats have been campaigning to expand it back to 2021 levels ever since.
Mucarsel-Powell also says that, if elected, she’ll fight to create good-paying jobs in Florida to increase solar panel production.
“China controls 80% of the world supply chain for solar panels,” she said. “We live in the Sunshine State. We can bring that supply chain here to the state of Florida to create good-paying jobs, and we could also lower our energy costs by expanding solar panel use.”
Inflation
While the Biden administration has been on defense for much of its time in office over some of the highest inflation rates in decades, Democrats like Mucarsel-Powell are looking at ways to address the record profits taken in by grocery store chains in recent years.
One such company that has been thriving is Publix, whose net earnings last year were up 49% from a year before. Mucarsel-Powell says in her plan that she will fight against corporate consolidation of big grocery chains by joining other Senate Democrats to urge the Federal Trade Commission to revive enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, which was designed to create a level playing field for retailers by ensuring that both large and small firms pay the same price for comparable products.
Mucarsel-Powell was joined on the Zoom call by Orlando state Democratic House Rep. Anna Eskamani and Karen Clay, president of the Florida Democratic Party’s Disability Caucus.
Eskamani and Mucarsel-Powell said GOP U.S. Sen. Rick Scott was asleep at the wheel when the affordability crisis began to emerge during his tenure as governor (2011-2019). Speaking specifically about the housing situation in Florida, Eskamani noted that lawmakers raided funds year after year from the Sadowski Affordable Housing Act fund, created in 1992 as a dedicated source of financing for affordable housing.
But as a 2011 story by 10 Tampa Bay notes, lawmakers swept more than $500 million out of affordable housing trust funds from 2008 to 2011, before Scott took office, although those funds continued to be raided during Scott’s two terms as governor.
“We know that the cost of living right now continues to skyrocket across our state, and Rick Scott is doing nothing about it,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “But worse than doing nothing, he’s making it much more difficult for Floridians to make it.”
Scott response
The Scott campaign sent out a detailed press release responding to Mucarsel-Powell’s proposals on Wednesday, headlined, “Debbie Mucarsel-Powell Supports Rick Scott’s Economic Policies.”
The document asserts that Mucarsel-Powell argues for an extension of the child tax credit “despite the fact that she said she would have voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which doubled the child tax credit to $2,000 per child and added another $500 for older children and other dependents. What changed, Debbie?” it asks.
“Congresswoman Mucarsel-Powell’s economic plan is laughable,” said Scott spokesman Rick Hampton in a written statement.
“She and Joe Biden have crushed our economy with crippling inflation, and her own plan to fix it is to pass the buck and do many of the things Rick Scott is already doing! Sen. Scott is a champion for growing the economy, reining in Washington’s reckless spending, championing U.S. jobs, and getting inflation under control. He’s a China Hawk and will always fight to put America first. He has introduced legislation to make it harder for Congress to raise taxes and saved Florida taxpayers billions while governor. We’re excited to see how strongly Rep. Mucarsel-Powell approves of Rick Scott’s economic policy initiatives, and hope she’ll consider endorsing Sen. Scott if she loses her primary.”
Mucarsel-Powell is running in a primary contest against four opponents. If she’s successful on Aug. 20, she’ll take on Scott in November.
A CBS News poll published over the weekend shows Scott leading Mucarsel-Powell by 8 percentage points, 45%-37%. A RealClearPolitics average shows Scott leading Mucarsel-Powell by an average of more than 10 points.