The unbeatable Save Our Homes

They tried to kill off Save Our Homes, perhaps on the sly, but lawmakers now generally agree that if a new property tax plan goes before voters on Jan. 29, it will have to preserve the popular protection against big tax increases.

"In a time when people's taxes keep going up, it's very difficult to go to voters and convince them they should let go of a security blanket like Save Our Homes," House Speaker Marco Rubio said Friday. "Now you can argue that it's bad policy for the state of Florida, that it's led to some of the problems. But the truth of the matter is, people like Save Our Homes."

Story here.

Comments

The Speaker's learning curve is improving.

A superb solution for property tax relief:

Eliminate the school portion of property taxes and add 1% more in sales tax. Make Save-Our-Homes portable and transferable to immediate family members. Roll back taxes to 2003 level before real estate boom & add back in inflation and growth. Cap local government from the outrageous out of control spending.

YOU WOULD GET NEARLY 70-80% SUPPORT FROM VOTERS IMHO.

I'd vote for that!!

Let's get the Legislature onboard.

Actually around only .85 of 1% is needed to fund local school portion of property taxes. So under 1%.

New FL sales tax would be 6.85% (currently 6%)

[brian]

better yet! end some sales tax exemptions and keep the sales tax rate flat.

end exemptions and drop it to 4.5 %

The sales tax is incredibly unpredictable. This unpredicitability and the economic slump Florida is suffering is why the Legislature is back in Tallahassee writing a new budget just a couple months after finishing writing the previous one. It would be unwise to put more weight on the sales tax.

Because some feel it is immoral to tax property and an income tax is NEVER going to happen in Florida, CONSERVATIVES need to tell Florida exactly what level of taxation is appropriate and set the spending at that level.

For all their claptrap about smaller government and less spending, all we have ever seen from in the REPUBLICAN-LED government is spending increases at the government level, passing of the buck regarding property taxes to local schools districts and billions of dollars in tax breaks to Florida special interests.

P.S.: When do I get mine?

nO SwApS - puh-leeeeze.

6:19
Don't understand your math.

5:56 - Great ideas!!!!! If only they'd listen - but they won't - there's no profit for them!!!!

1% sales tax is less than $4 billion; schools get more than $10 billion from property taxes. You do the math.

I think the $10 billion includes the state's contribution too.

I did read somwhere where under 1% will enough to pay for the current property tax part of public school funding. The .85 of 1% sound about right.

I think Speaker Rubio even talked about it in the June session.

Correction I believe I figure the numbers.

The .85 of 1 % in sales tax increase would be enough to eliminate the school property tax portion for Florida residents. Businesses & out of state owners would still have to pay the school portion. So if the $10 billion is correct, that may be right.

[zenator]

No sane Repub should or will support raising the sales tax by 1% or .85%.

Now, please repeat the following mantra 3 times--"less taxes, less government, more freedom..."

you know zenator, perhaps you're right!

After all violent felons need to work too and why should they not be able to work in nursing homes or schools - we don't need those pesky state investigators telling us what to do!!!

And, the poor businessman running a restaurant has enough problems without one of those nast state inspectors conducting surpise visits to make sure the coolers are keeping the foods properly chilled and there aren't thousands of roaches crawling all over things - after all what's a little "extra" protein in your dish anyway???

And what about those kids in foster care - removed from abusive and neglectful homes? Those kids should be grateful that they are placed in the homes of strangers and are given any food to eat at all - so what if they are "messed around" with or beated and there aren't enough social workers to make sure they are safe - these little rugrats don't vote and they are not your children - so why should you care?

And who cares if the water is clean - you can always boil it? Or if the dentist is actually trained and licensed? Or if vet is really a vet?

Why don't we repeal all laws - life in the wild west was exciting!!!

What? The Republicans now want to RAISE taxes?

I bet increasing the sales tax would lead to the largest tax INCREASE in Florida history.

Where's the smaller government, less taxes, more freedom crowd now?

Well, I guess ABSOLUTE POWER changes Republicans, absolutely.

[terminator]

Zenator:
you've got to stop drinking that Charlie Crist cool-aid!

[zenator]

Termie:

That quote is former Senator Connie Mack's summation of the Reagan creed.

9:01

I take it that you believe that big government is the means to solve all our problems. I respectfully disagree.
As Reagan once said: "The 11 most terrifying words in the english language are:'Hello, I'm from the government and I am hear to help.'"

[terminator]

Zenator:
I'm familiar with sloganeering and it sounds as empty and baseless now as it did back then.
Wasn't Reagan the one that put us into trillion dollar deficits?
And wasn't it Clinton that balanced the budget before leaving office?
And hasn't W put us back into trillion dollar deficits?
If China and Japan called our margins we'd be in terrible condition.
I fail to see what Charlie has accomplished except for a few meager dollars in tax savings (probably not enough to take your family to McDonalds).
Do you really feel most Floridians are happy with the recent "tax cut"?
Insurance is as big a mess as it was before with Charlie powerless to do anything about it (shy of putting Floridians on the hook for $28 billion in damages after a catastrophic storm).
Like O'Reilly likes to say, where am I going wrong here?

[Prometheus]

www.AxTheTax.org

Raising sales tax 1% and eliminating the school portion of property taxes for FL residents is the perfect solution.

I love the idea.

As Reagan once said: "The 11 most terrifying words in the english language are:'Hello, I'm from the government and I am hear to help.'"

Posted by: zenator | October 07, 2007 at 11:11 AM
_____________________________

Meant to be a joke - not a literalist statement like fundamentalists within any religious tradition.

[Chris W]

terminator, why bother? For conservatives it's win-win. If they manage to fornicate the canine while running the government, they get to say "see, government *doesn't* work!". And if they manage to keep it going and not throw the economy into recession (which doesn't seem to be in their skill set), they can say "conservative government works!"

They keep quoting Goldwater because they haven't had a new idea since 1960, and they keep quoting Reagan because his B-movie acting and TV announcer voice managed to make people forget the implications of what he was actually saying. They're all running away from Duh-bya as fast as they can because he's the public face of failure of conservative governance.

Watch what happens after this next budget go-round in Tally. Sales taxes will go up, or schools will lose a bunch of money (or they'll do the cowardly thing and pass most of the costs down to the counties and cities), and since the GOP has been in charge of state government for a long time there will be no other destination for the fecal matter when it hits the oscillating rotator.

We need good, strong local government right now in order to protect us from the exploitation of the state Neo-Cons and their wannabees. Nothing is the same as it was before Nixon introduced serious dishonesty and Reagan made the presidency a game show, so your quotes are irrelvant. Local Governments are now the last vestiges of democracy which can be said to be responsible to local voters and not special interests. If you don't like what they're doing YOU can vote your opinion and it will actually be heard. Don't accept the tax bone the Neo-Cons in Tallahassee are tossing you in order to centralize all power under their state govt. Give them the green light with no effective local regulations and they will divide and sell our state to the highest bidders so fast you won't know what hit you.

yea right, the same local government that have been spending like drunken sailors on shore leave the last few years.

The same local government that has increased their budgets an outrageous 100%+ in only a few years. Yea, I trust these fatcat idiots with my tax money.

The Florida Legislature need to pass a major property tax reduction & do it fast.
FL families are being taxed out of their homes by local government.

The only drunken sailors I've seen recently are the ones in
Tallahassee stumbling all over each other to see who can give the biggest tax cuts to their rich developer friends.

Yeah, lets pass that tax reduction. Include ONLY "FL families" and not tax breaks for investors and businesses or any home built in the last five years. And using tax cuts as and excuse for eliminating environmental protection or regulation of business or development. I'll sign up as long as it doesn't serve to jump start another growth cycle. (But we know that's really what its all about, don't we?)

Florida has one of the highest property taxes in the nation. It's time to use an axe not a scapel to get homeowner's relief.

Even my aunt's home in high tax area near D.C. is around 40% less in property taxes.