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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Saturday, April 23, 2005

Intangibles Tax Giveaway

    This is the Florida GOP rewarding its politicalbase - wealthy retirees from out-of-state with no stake in Florida's future; nothing more, nothing less:
    This year's budget has been inflated by a one-time infusion of cash, generated by a frenzy of home repairs and other purchases following an unprecedented four-hurricane year. Lawmakers could bank this money -- at last estimate, about $2.2 billion -- against future needs. They could use it to pay for nursing-home care, public schools or children's health insurance. They could pay down the state's historically high debt.

    Instead, they plan to give it away -- but only to Floridians who already have a sizable surplus of their own. The deal announced this week would allocate about $180 million in this year's budget to reducing the state's so-called "intangibles" tax on stocks, bonds and other securities, and commit the state to tax cuts that would drain more than $300 million from each year's budget from now on.

    The intangibles tax has long been a target for Florida's conservative Republicans, who sell the tax cut as a benefit to retirees. That's a crock. This cut doesn't help those who have traditional pensions, individual retirement accounts or 401(k) plans -- the average person who would benefit from this cut has over $1 million in taxable assets.
    "Rash decision".

6:01 AM

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