As Republican leaders finish up the winter RNC meeting, your local leaders are weighing in on the direction the party should take.

“I think we should treat people as individuals and not write people off and say that somehow they don’t want to do well,” says Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis says a big lesson from the election is that people can’t be treated as groups based on age or race, but rather individuals.  That’s also a key to his further vision around welfare and entitlement reform.

He says the climate right now encourages people to stay dependent on welfare.  DeSantis says this isn’t something that should be blamed on the person, rather on the system that needs to be fixed.

“Incentivize work, put in time limits and caps, so that people are not given an incentive to stay on the program,” he says.

It’s difficult to move in that direction right now because the budget and spending cuts seem to be now overwhelming political debate.

“We can’t just make our party be bean counters and just accountants that all we care about is this spending and that spending there. Yeah, that’s important, but you also gotta connect that to a larger vision,” he says.

He says long term change could need a new administration, but it’s a direction the party needs to begin to push for now.