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
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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 Thursday, November 24, 2005

The Saints At Tax Watch Get Slammed

    It is a rare thing to see the hacks at Tax Watch - who have been shills for big business since day on, yet are so often portrayed as saintly guardians of the average taxpayer - take it on the chin:
    A business-backed budget watchdog group stepped up criticism of three sales tax overhaul initiatives Tuesday. A petition drive leader responded by accusing special interests of trying to save their unfair tax breaks.

    Florida TaxWatch president Dominic Calabro argued that the proposed state constitutional amendments could raise sales taxes by millions or billions of dollars, have dangerous unintended consequences and hurt Florida's competitive stance with other states.

    "It basically takes the rule of law and turns it upside down and turns it against the taxpayers and the voters," Calabro said at a news conference.

    Floridians Against Inequities in Rates, or FAIR, contends the amendments, if adopted next November, would force the Legislature to review and close loopholes that allow a broad range of items and services to go untaxed. Those include professional sports stadium skyboxes, for-profit legal services, haircuts, advertising and land development.
    Here's the short and sweet response, by a GOoPer no less:
    "TaxWatch is simply doing the bidding of those special interests that benefit from the sales tax exemptions that most Floridians do not enjoy," McKay said in a telephone interview.
    "Budget group attacks proposed sales tax overhaul amendments".

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