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 Sunday, December 18, 2005

The American Dream ...

    Florida style:
    Between 2001 and 2004, the average salary in the Orlando area went up 3 percent. The cost of housing increased 41 percent. In 2005,the gap widened even further when housing costs escalated faster than almost any other area of the nation.
    Oh yeah, a couple of other things:

    Florida actually had a head start addressing the need for affordable housing in 1992 when lawmakers approved the William E. Sadowski Affordable Housing Act. That law created a trust fund that gets its money from a small tax on real-estate documentary-stamp fees. Money in that fund is used to help build affordable housing -- single-family homes and apartments -- throughout Florida. The money is matched with private, federal and local dollars. Apartments built with that money must be affordable for 50 years. Families of four who make 120 percent or less of the area's median income are eligible for the subsidies.

    The problem is that the Legislature has gotten fickle. Though the documentary-stamp tax last year raised $692 million for the fund, lawmakers limited to $193 million the money that could go toward the subsidized housing. The money over that cap has been raided over the years for other needs ... .

    Another egregious failure is that local government's comprehensive growth plans are supposed to address affordable housing but don't.
    "Housing crisis".

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