Nothing like taxes to pull us together
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 23, 2007
Is the old stereotype of Florida as a "state of strangers," where we lack a sense of connection to our adopted home, finally fading away?
A majority of Floridians say they got involved in public affairs over this past year, one way or the other:
-53 percent of us say we contacted a government official by e-mail, letter, fax, phone call or visit.
-50 percent say we signed a petition of some kind.
-42 percent say we attended a town meeting, public hearing or a discussion of public affairs.
These are among the findings of the 2007 Sunshine State Survey, an annual poll of Floridian attitudes conducted by the group Leadership Florida.
This year's results, released in stages during the past week, contain all kinds of interesting nuggets:
-A majority of Floridians (52 percent) now consider the state's standardized public-school test, the FCAT, unnecessary. Democrats dislike it a lot more than Republicans, and women dislike it more than men.
-Floridians generally give lackluster marks to their government at all levels, and even those ratings are down slightly from last year's.
-We now rank taxes as our state's No. 1 concern, jumping sharply from last year and bumping education from the top spot. We hate property taxes more than any other tax.
-Paradoxically, we give Florida government its best marks for running elections and for excellence in higher education - although you certainly could make a case to the contrary in both areas. Seventy-one percent of us ranked higher education as "excellent" or "good," and most of us thought tuition and admission standards were "about right." Yet state universities are screaming for help and some are capping enrollment.
-An overwhelming majority of us, 76 percent, consider immigration a serious or somewhat serious issue. Floridians preferred a tougher approach, with tougher border security and a crackdown on employers, to a guest-worker or amnesty program. The split was 54-39.
But again, immigration attitudes vary. Democrats preferred the guest-worker approach 58-33, while Republicans strongly went the other way, 76-19. Blacks and whites tended to be on the same side, while Hispanics overall were divided on the best approach toward immigration. But non-Cuban Hispanics strongly preferred the guest-worker approach, 74-24.
The telephone poll of 1,200 adult residents was conducted Nov. 19-30 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. (Read the full poll at www.leadershipflorida.org.)
In the arena of civic involvement, one interesting sidelight was that residents under 65 reported a higher level of activity than seniors.
Comparing younger to older residents, more reported contacting the government (55-47 percent), signing a petition (53-41 percent) or attending a meeting (43-39 percent).
Maybe that's because more folks are worried these days. More Floridians believed our state's quality of life has gotten worse over the past five years (43 percent, up from 36 percent last year). One in five of us say we've considering moving. A third of us wouldn't recommend Florida as a good place to live.
What should we make of all this? We are worried about our state, not overly happy with our government at all levels, and definitely unhappy about property taxes.
But when it came to civic involvement, even some of the experts discussing the poll results were impressed at the percentage of Floridians who said they got involved over the past year.
Instead of a "state of strangers," maybe we're moving toward becoming a state of "stakeholders," asserting our interest in Florida's future.
For a state that for most of its history was built upon getting rich quick and bringing in the next generation of suckers, this does not seem like such a bad thing.
FCAT
Higher education
State government
Security
State performance
Civic involvement
2007 Sunshine State Survey
These are among the findings of Leadership Florida's poll of 1,200 adult residents. The poll was conducted Nov. 19-30 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
To read the full poll, go to www.leadershipflorida.org.