On the ballot this year… “Florida Amendment 3, the Additional Homestead Property Tax Exemption for Certain Public Service Workers”:
A “yes” supports authorizing the Florida State Legislature to provide an additional homestead property tax exemption on $50,000 of assessed value on property owned by certain public service workers including teachers, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, active duty members of the military and Florida National Guard, and child welfare service employees.
I wonder if this will catch on nationwide as a stealth way to increase the amount of money that flows from those who aren’t part of the government to those who are. Instead of increasing property tax rates and then giving government workers a raise, which would be readily noticed, the scheme gives government workers a boost in spending power by relieving them of paying property taxes (to at least some extent). Note that this only helps government workers who are rich enough to own houses. Landlords who rent to government workers won’t get a property tax reduction so government workers who rent, like our local friend who is a police officer for a city down the coast, won’t get a rent reduction.
This could be expanded so that when government workers purchase items at retail they don’t have to pay sales tax (there is typically already a mechanism for sales tax exemption for resale, non-profit orgs, etc.).
Separately, the local police officer renter is an interesting example of someone who benefits from open borders. Without all of the crime committed in a Haitian immigrant neighborhood, the seaside city where she works wouldn’t have needed or wanted to hire additional police officers.
An additional $50K homestead property tax exemption for law enforcement officers — many law enforcement officers are among the highest paid workers in FL, especially after they retire at 50 on six-figure pensions and then get another $100K/yr job.
My sister’s neighbor (a surly black woman, local FL government worker, certainly a millionaire) owns five low-end rental properties, plus her own home with her husband. Despite being fully ambulatory, w/o any observable handicap, and working construction jobs for over 30 years, the husband is declared as a disabled veteran. He gets a 100% property tax waiver from the county for his residence.
“the local police officer renter is an interesting example of someone who benefits from open borders. Without all of the crime committed in a Haitian immigrant neighborhood, the seaside city where she works wouldn’t have needed or wanted to hire additional police officers.”
Law enforcement has been a growth industry in S. FL for over forty years, largely due to uncontrolled legal and illegal immigration. As far back as 1980, and with the encouragement of Ronald Reagan, Fidel Castro opened his jails and insane asylums and allowed all of the inmates to flee to S. FL.
I’m a 45-year old Miami firefighter with 25 years of “service.” For my dedicated “service” to the good citizens of Miami, I deserve to get paid! I’ve got bills! Alimony & child support to three ex-wives, payments on my Escalade, Harley, and speed boat. I’m juggling three girlfriends, and have some serious gambling debts due to my bookie and at the Hard Rock. I now make close to $200K per year but deserve more! Not too bad for a high school grad who was washing cars before I got on with the MFD. I did, however, earn my A.S. degree in “Fire Science” on the City’s dime. You wouldn’t believe how easy that was. The “instructors” were buddies on local FDs, so I passed w/ all As and didn’t have to do any studying! And that silly degree got me promoted three times to Sr. Deputy Assistant Deputy Big-Cheese Battalion Chief Indian Chief. I still have lots of free time to work out while on the job. I trying to get on next year’s “Hottest Firewhiners of Miami-Dade County” calendar.
Last year I “worked” tons of OT to spike my pension and will soon start accumulating my $100K/yr pension in DROP, and I’m only 45 years old! In 20 years, I’ll be 65 (the retirement age for most of you stiffs), the 3% COLA will have doubled my pension to $200K per year! My life expectancy is 88 years, so my pension will double again to $400K per year by the time I die. It gets better; my lovely 20-year old mail-order bride will collect my pension long after I die. Her life expectancy is 90 years. She’ll collect my growing pension for another 25 years after my death! The City of Miami has been very, very good to me. And I know you don’t feel appreciated, but a big thank you to the Miami taxpayers. Now get back to work and pay those taxes! I deserve the extra $50,000 property tax exemption! Oh, by the way, F.U. Pay Me!
The Florida Free State has many things going for it, but clearly it’s not immune to the first law of government, i.e. government always wants to expand the powers of government. I don’t suppose Governor DeSantis has the power to veto this, were he even inclined to do so?
Martin: I think Florida Republicans, including presumably Ron DeSantis, are actually behind this one. Presumably the teachers’ unions in the big cities are going to vote 100% Democrat, but this may be a way to buy votes from other government workers. If the Tyrant of Tallahassee if re-elected, I will have to find some other things that he does that I can appreciate.
The Amerikan people have no concept of government by the people for the people. In the Amerikan brain, people are born to feed the government & die.
Several school districts in FL are importing foreign teachers to teach public school students. The current native-born public school teachers are so dumb and woke that they support their own replacement. Just like the importation of Indian H-1B programmers, the H-1B teachers are lowering teacher wages and killing job opportunities for many prospective teachers, including blacks.