As part of his plan to revitalize the American economy – and seeking to boost to his flagging presidential campaign — Florida governor Ron DeSantis unveiled an economic plan on Monday that calls for simplifying the tax code, reining in federal spending, taking on China, and reversing left-wing regulations that make it harder for private companies to create new jobs.

The plan calls for supporting school choice nationally, accelerating the development of vocational and apprenticeship programs to fuel an industrial revival, securing the border, limiting unskilled immigration, and ending ideological investment standards involving public funds.

DeSantis rolled out his ten-point "Declaration of Economic Independence" plan Monday during a campaign stop at a New Hampshire manufacturing facility.

During a speech that lasted just over a half hour, DeSantis shifted his focus away from "woke" culture war fights that some critics believe have become a drag on his campaign, and instead took aim at "elites" and the "failed ruling class" that he says has have failed average Americans and led the country into economic decline.

American families, he said, have for too long been saddled with weak economic growth, rising prices, an exploding national debt, a stagnating quality of life. And, he said, "the Chinese Communist Party continues to eat this country's lunch every single day."

"I'm running for president," he said, "because we cannot be satisfied with simply managing this decline a little bit better than the Democrats. I'm running for president because we need to reverse the decline of this country, and restore this country to the greatness that it deserves."

The new focus on the nation's economy, a top concern of voters, comes amid a much-publicized reboot of DeSantis's campaign, which has been criticized for overspending, as well as for being "too online" and too focused on fighting culture war issues. Over the last couple of weeks, DeSantis's campaign has shed about 30 percent of its staff.

DeSantis raised concerns about the nation's broken university system that he said churns out students in debt, often with degrees that won't get them a high-paying job. Covid lockdowns, he said, have exacerbated the nation's wealth gap and ended up transferring American wealth to the nation's largest corporations.

He also bemoaned the increasing number of deaths of despair in the country, and the decreasing life expectancy in the U.S. Millions of men in prime working age are not working or looking for work, DeSantis said.

"This is not normal. This is not acceptable," DeSantis said. "And yet, entrenched politicians in Washington refuse to change course."

"It would be great if all we needed to do to reach prosperity is just borrow, print, and spend with no end in sight," he added. "If you could do that, then heck, let's just borrow another ten, thirty trillion, fifty. Why not? Let's keep the party going. But we all know that is now how the world works. Ultimately, the bill becomes due. And the bill has become due in the form of average Americans paying exorbitant prices for the necessities of life."

According to his campaign, the ten planks of DeSantis's economic plan are:

Taking back control of our economy from China and restoring our economic sovereignty
Achieving three percent growth by incentivizing investment, eliminating bureaucracy and red tape, and keeping taxes low
Unleashing American energy independence
Ending environmental, social, and governance standards and political engineering by large investors
Restoring merit and respect for the individual as the central criteria for economic advancement
Reforming our education system and lowering barriers to entry for working class Americans
Creating a fair labor market by securing the border and enforcing our laws
Reining in the Federal Reserve
Opposing bailouts and holding bad economic actors responsible
Fighting reckless and wasteful federal spending.

To "end our abusive relationship with the [Chinese Communist Party]," DeSantis intends to ban the imports of Chinese goods made from stolen intellectual property, and to prevent American companies from sharing critical technologies with China, according to his campaign.

As part of his plan to achieve 3 percent economic growth, DeSantis intends to simplify the tax code, to seek a more competitive tax system to incentivize long-term investments over short-term returns, and to "slash the bureaucratic state." He told the New Hampshire crowd that he intends on "kneecapping ESG," or woke investments of public money.

According to DeSantis's campaign, he intends to unleash "our domestic energy sector, modernize and protect our grid, and advance American energy independence." As part of that, DeSantis wants to reverse left-wing ideological mandates and regulations, including "the federal government's attempt to force people to buy electric vehicles," according to his campaign.

"Biden's job-crippling and ideological regulations and executive orders will be reversed by me on Day 1," DeSantis told the crowd. He promised to "save the American automobile."

DeSantis intends to support education reform – supporting school choice and the development of vocational and apprenticeship programs – "in anticipation of our great industrial revival, with a goal to become #1 in the world for skilled trades by 2030." While he said he has sympathy for college students who graduate with massive debt, he is against a federal bailout. He told the crowd in New Hampshire that the onus should be on universities to ensure that their graduates have the skills necessary to obtain good jobs so they can pay off their loans.

"It's wrong to say that a truck driver should have to pay off the debt of somebody who got a degree in gender studies," DeSantis said.

The plan also calls for immigration reform that will "serve Americans – not multinational corporate elites," and appointing a Federal Reserve chairman who "focus on maintaining a stable dollar instead of the political pressures of the day."

"We have everything we need to be successful," DeSantis said. "We have the people. We have the natural resources. We have the ingenuity. And no matter how bad things get, we will always have that can-do American spirit."

DeSantis’s refocus on the economy comes days after he received blowback for suggesting that he would consider appointing conspiracy-theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democrat, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration.

While DeSantis has long been viewed by many as the top Republican challenger to Donald Trump, a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday shows DeSantis far behind former president. In the poll, Trump had support from 54 percent of Republican voters, while DeSantis was 37 points behind with 17 percent. The other Republican candidates all polled at 3 percent or less.