Slow down tax cut train

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published October 17, 2007

This is what passes for a thoughtful, reasonable approach in the Florida Legislature: Unveil on Friday a complicated tax-reform bill negotiated in secret. Talk about it on Monday in a couple of committees whose members have many questions but few answers. Make substantial changes before rushing it through the committees on Tuesday, and send it to the full House and Senate for a possible vote today.

That is neither thoughtful nor reasonable, but the Republican-controlled Legislature isn't concerned with appearances. Its obsession with tax cuts regardless of the consequences prevents rational discussion about creating a fairer system. If the Democrats could find their spine and weren't so petrified of being portrayed as pro-tax, they would slow things down and block efforts to put a new constitutional amendment on the Jan. 29 ballot until sanity returns.

The more the tax-cut package is held up to the light of public scrutiny and debated, the greater the flaws and the political pandering. For example, Republicans initially emphasized that education would not be affected by the tax cuts. It turns out that's not true. Education would not be affected by adding an additional $25,000 homestead exemption and granting homeowners the ability to take a Save Our Homes tax break with them when they moved. But public education could lose more than $2-billion over four years because of other provisions, including a new property tax break for low-income seniors. A promise to make that money up another way in an uncertain economy is simply not enough.

Even more offensive is another portion of the constitutional amendment that would REQUIRE the Legislature to limit increases in local property taxes. That is a power grab that violates another section of the constitution granting local governments the authority to levy property taxes. Home rule would be history, and the Legislature would become everyone's city council and county commission. Republicans contend they have to take control of local taxes because local officials have acted irresponsibly. There already is a remedy for that: local elections.

Then there is the brazen hypocrisy. Here's a Legislature that raised more than a half-billion dollars in local property taxes for education last spring complaining about local government living off higher property values. Here's a Legislature that routinely transfers responsibilities and new requirements to local government without sending any state money now demanding that cities and counties get by on even less. To see irresponsible politicians, state lawmakers have only to look in the mirror.

Florida TaxWatch, The Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Association of Realtors have all warned that this tax-cut package does little for business owners, renters and owners of investment properties who aren't protected by Save Our Homes and have been hard-hit by rising property values. But legislators can't even address that without grandstanding.

Rep. Ron Saunders, D-Key West, offered a reasonable 7 percent cap on assessed value on nonhomesteaded property Tuesday. The Republicans trumped it with a 3 percent cap without a clue about the cost, members of both parties embraced it, and it will be considered by the full House today. Blindly bidding up tax cuts in a partisan poker game only raises unreasonable expectations by taxpayers who have been disappointed too many times.

This train is moving too fast, but most Republicans could care less. That leaves it up to Democrats to slow things down. They don't have enough votes to defeat these schemes on their merits, but they have enough to prevent placing an amendment on the Jan. 29 ballot. They should use that leverage to insist that each tax-cut is well-vetted before lawmakers vote - and that the worst of the bunch are discarded.

[Last modified October 16, 2007, 21:01:55]