Republican Property Tax Disaster

The Republican legislature’s near total failure to place meaningful property tax reform on the January ballot provides an historic opportunity for Florida progressives to seize the issue, build the movement, bash the Republicans and, possibly, elect more progressive Democrats next fall. This is serious, people. An opportunity like this, and this big, doesn’t come often. It could be the fourth pillar of a realignment in this state on top of the Bush revulsion, the fracturing of the Evangelical movement and the Independent shift of Republican Hispanics. Advice to the Democrats: without endorsing or opposing the ballot measure, start running TV and radio spots slamming the Republicans for not putting real relief on the ballot. Soften them up.

Just look at the deep grave the Republicans have just dug themselves. Don’t you want to shovel the dirt on top of them? It’ll be up to you. By increasing the effective homestead exemption by a paltry $15,000, the average property tax cut they have just proposed is $240, which is no relief for the couple million angry voting Floridians who have bought homes in the past ten years and are paying taxes in the thousands of dollars. More recent buyers are paying in the double digit thousands. The taxes on my modest 1900 sq. ft. home jumped over 50%, $1200, when I bought it in 2000 and crept up another 21% since, while my income …. Well, let’s just say it hasn’t kept pace, and I’m one of the people less affected. The ballot measure DOES NOTHING for first time home buyers (renters), many many of whom are locked out of home ownership because they cannot afford the exorbitant property taxes on current values. The ballot measure perpetuates the grossly unjust disparities in tax rates on identical homes created by the annual 3% Save Our Homes cap, where next door neighbors with similar homes pay tax bills that differ by the thousands. Even the 10% annual cap on non homestead assessment increases is insufficient, having no relation to a business’ revenue. One result of this will be to force businesses such as public marinas to sell to condo developers, worsening the condization of Florida’s disappearing beaches. I mention this because it is common ground between the business and progressive communities and might serve as a source of funding for a progressive ballot initiative, at least from the more progressive elements of the business sector.

And on top of all of this, the ballot measure slices education spending in a range of $80 million to $600 million a year when we ought to be increasing our starving schools by a billion.

The only good feature of the measure, aside from the token tax relief, is that homeowners will be able to transfer their 3% cap exemptions to a new home. They’ll no longer be trapped in their homes, unable even to downsize because the taxes on their new home will be far greater than their capped taxes on their current home. Still, even this is a lot of illusion: it really only benefits long time homeowners who have accrued substantial assessment savings. It does almost nothing for people who have bought homes in the past five years or more.

Tomorrow: why we need to get a progressive tax reform on the November ballot.

A Progressive Tax Reform Initiative

A state’s tax and revenue structure is the single most important issue in its politics. Florida’s skeletal system, pathetic to begin with, has broken down. It needs to be fixed. The Republicans and their decent but weak publicity hound running for President governor have failed to fix it. This creates a golden political opportunity for progressives, and dare I say, Democrats, to show leadership, to use this opportunity to build the progressive movement in this state. How do we do this?

The January property tax ballot measure is a patch on a worn out tire. It’s almost inconsequential whether it passes or not, in the bigger scheme of things. Even if it passes it solves little. The property tax crisis and all our other fiscal problems will continue to fester and probably get worse. There will probably be another billion dollar deficit next year. Too many people are being screwed by the dysfunctional property tax system. Something’s eventually going to give. It can’t go on like this.

The Republicans will make another attempt next year to fix things and we now know the quagmire they will remain in. The legislative Democrats will propose their plan but it will only be the back benchers’ plan. Besides, the Party is too conflicted and influenced by high income organized special interests to offer a populist plan. The issue is heading for the November ballot in what promises to be the big fight of ‘08. The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission will be placing amendments on the November ballot, but nothing good can come from this Jeb Bush-Republican dominated group chaired by Allan Bense, who says that the top concerns are businesses, owners of second homes and investment properties. Rubio is talking about putting something up. An anti-tax right wing radio host in Palm Beach is using his show to organize a petition drive. (Geez, is he giving me an idea?). We progressives have to be a part of that fight. We need to place our own plan on the November ballot. If we don’t offer a competing measure we lose. We remain sight seer bloggers talking about THEIR agenda, bitching and moaning about it and remaining irrelevant.

We need to do this not only to do what is right, not only to become players in state politics, but as an essential organizing strategy of the Florida Progressive movement. With so many of us locked out of electoral politics by local establishment power structures and the campaign finance system, we need to make the initiative process a key part of our strategy. We need to be putting progressive initiatives on every ballot every two years. Maybe most important of all, this will get us organized in a real way. It forces us to organize and build the infrastructure that will extend to the candidate, party, grassroots and media spheres.

We need to form a steering committee to start planning. Now. We need to hash out the kind of tax reform that is both good progressive public policy but also something than can win at the ballot box. I believe the two are the same. We may need to qualify several tax reform initiatives for the ballot. We will need 610,000 signatures by May. I know, I know. It may be too late. The progressive infrastructure in this state is too weak. But we have to start some time. This forces us to get serious and this is an historic opportunity. And you never know. Lightning strikes. Maybe the 12 perfect people will coalesce who can make this happen. That’s all it takes. Including a sugar daddy and mommy.

Tomorrow: a progressive tax reform plan.

2008 Florida Tax Relief and Reform Initiative

Here it is, the initiative Florida progressives should get onto the November ballot. This is critical, people. If we don’t do this, the right wingers will have their budget busting tax-breaks-for-the-well-off on the ballot and win it because we haven’t given the people an alternative.

(P.S: You right wingers out there are going to LOVE this!!! Though I have to admit, you anti-tax people are the sole remaining rational people in the Republican Party. I appreciate your posts).

I base this on basic Progressive principles. A tax system should be
1) based on a person’s ability to pay the tax
2) spread across a broad and diverse tax base
3) generate lots of money, whoopee! To fund an ambitious lite-socialist agenda such as fully funding existing government programs plus universal early education, parent training, park land acquisition and Everglades restoration, living wages and self-help anti poverty and economic development programs (subject to rigorous audits to prevent waste and corruption)
4) moderate the economic predation and inequalities of wealth that occur when large corporations and high-paid professions use their undue economic power to extract excessive amounts of money from lower and middle income people

2008 Florida Tax Relief and Reform Initiative

Section 1: Tangible Property tax.
A) Abolish all taxes on tangible property.

Section 2: Sales tax
A) Reduce state sales tax to 4%
B) End all exemptions to sales tax except for food, prescription drugs and permanent residential rentals
C) Extend sales tax to all non-medical services (B&C=$66 billion/yr)

Section 3: Intangible property tax
A) Reinstitute tax on investments over $1 million/individual abolished by Big Business Henchman, My-Daddy-didn’t -know -what-a-supermarket-price-scanner-was Jeb Bush. ($1.2 billion/yr)
B) Qualified pension plans shall be exempt.

Section 4: Corporate income tax
A) Adjust upward the corporate income tax to maintain revenue neutrality of current corporate contribution to state revenue in wake of property tax abolition
B) Close Jeb “my-mom-kept-calling-it-Hurricane Corrina-cause she doesn‘t care about the news” Bush loopholes and expand base ($1.6 billion/yr)
1) Reinstitute combined reporting
2) Tax S-corps
3) Tax LLCs

Section 5: Establish a graduated personal income tax ranging from 3% to 15% beginning on taxable income of $18,000 on a head of household ($$$$$!!!!)

Section 6: Inheritance tax
A) Recouple state inheritance tax to federal estate tax on estates over $1 million per individual ($1.2 billion/yr)

Section 7: State general revenue reserve fund.
A) The state shall by the end of Governor Mark Weaver’s first term maintain a $12 billion reserve fund (invested in a secure portfolio) to cushion budget shocks during economic/revenue downturns.

Gimme $1 million so I can get this on the ballot!

Day

I would veto the Rubio property tax disaster

The Rube Goldbergian, patchwork Republican tax reform shell game is shaping up to be a fiscal disaster worse than the property tax crisis that spawned it. We have to fight it. We need to convene a statewide conference of progressives to put together a progressive tax reform initiative for the November 2008 ballot to compete with whatever garbage the Republicans (and dare I say I am worried about what our Democrats) are going to come up with.

The solution to Florida's fiscal crisis is actually very simple, and should be kept so, and need only follow one simple principle: base taxes on people's ability to pay them. That means abolish the property tax and replace it with a progressive state income tax like 43 other states use. And in the coming days I will be blogging about a great model: Ohio.

The current problem of confiscatory property taxation is rooted in the fundamentally flawed and dysfunctional nature of the property tax itself: it is never directly related to people's means to pay it. It eats away at people's income over time (even with the 3% cap) and forces those whose life circumstances change after they have bought a house, in many cases to sell their house and move. That's wrong. It is happening to thousands of Floridians and could happen to any of us next week, month or year: a major illness, a divorce, a layoff or salary cut, especially when the next recession hits.

Our message should be very clear: abolish the property tax. Any discussion of an income tax should always be secondary and quickly turned back to a discussion of the REAL issue: we are proposing, in this order, tax cuts, tax reform and tax fairness while preserving public education and vital local government. I don't want to hear any more talk, especially coming from the Democratic leadership, about how an income tax will never fly in this state. Such talk is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It just takes leadership. If Republican anti-tax states like Utah can enact an income tax, so can we. But its clear that leadership is not going to come from our current Democratic leaderships. That's why we progressives need to step up to the plate and provide that leadership with a statewide conference.