Disney World

A soon-to-be-public audit of Disney’s special governing district in Florida details the “shocking” ways in which the nearly $200 billion company was effectively governing itself for half a century. Investigators described the Reedy Creek Improvement District as Disney’s “creature” that maximized company profits at the expense of Floridians, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Spectator. Disney placated Reedy Creek employees with millions of dollars' worth of special park passes, significant discounts on cruises, food and merchandise and handpicked leadership through shady land deals to ensure that Reedy Creek would do its bidding.

Recently The Spectator sent me undercover inside Ron DeSantis’s Disney World. Allow me to explain. Back in April, Florida lawmakers voted to dissolve the so-called Reedy Creek Improvement District. Reedy Creek, for those unfamiliar with the seamy world of crony capitalism, was a self-governing enclave within Orlando, Florida, run by the Disney corporation. It had been set up to allow Disney World to effectively function as its own nation-state, setting its own rules, levying its own taxes, even administering its own public services. Reedy Creek was established in 1967. It was part of Walt Disney’s original vision for his parks, which was exceedingly ambitious, seeing, for example, EPCOT Center as growing into its own autonomous futuristic city.