The Sound of Silence

Marco Rubio finally has enough sense to keep his mouth shut. Rubio should have learned this lesson before he made the sales tax pitch on the Jim Defede Show. Rubio gave a speech to Florida TaxWatch and failed to mention property taxes.

“This group is not the kind of group you need to convince on property taxes,” Rubio said afterward of his uncharacteristic silence on property taxes.

Actually it is. FloridaTaxwatch is extremely critical of the property tax amendment.

Florida TaxWatch finds that that the plan really amounts to tax cuts – not true tax reform.

Savings are targeted almost exclusively to homestead property owners, leaving non-homesteaders and businesses with little protection from property taxes that have spiraled out of control.

Another issue is that providing more benefits to homesteaders and attempting to fix problems Save Our Homes created for them makes it much more difficult to create a future constitutional amendment to help non-homestead property that would garner enough voter support to pass. Still another problem is that heaping savings on homesteaders may naturally disincentive them from participating to try to keep local government spending under control.

The report by economist Hank Fishkind points out that counties aren't receiving a windfall of money. The counties will not receive state sales tax revenue if they don't tax property. The Jeb Bush tax cuts created a need for counties to increase property taxes to fund schools.

A November Orlanda Sentinel poll shows the property tax amendment falling four points short of passage. The 60 percent aproval of amendments was design by conservatives and interest groups to ensure that citizens have no say. The amendment faces huge challenges. The anti-tax Rubio should be stumping for it; instead acts as if he is bracing for defeat.