Legislature Raises Taxes, Accepts Stimulus Funds

Going against expectations and contradicting their stated intentions, the Legislature raised taxes by up to $3 million per year and accepted $30 million in stimulus funds.

The tax (called a “fee” of course) is contained in HB 981, which has three parts. The part we read about in the news and wrote about in this blog related to property tax exemptions on agricultural lands. The second part allows application of pesticides to state waters, and the third part is the fee increase.

According to the staff analysis, “If the rate is
set at the maximum of three cents per box, approximately $3,000,000 annually would be deposited into the appropriate trust fund, assuming a full year application of the law.”  The “fee” is 1 cent a box now, but we don’t know how much is collected.  Up to $3 million will be collected now. 

The stimulus funds were accepted by the Legislature to pay for energy efficiency rebates for things like solar panels.  FCAN is all in favor of that.  But the conservatives in the Legislature are not.  According to Rep.  Rick Kriseman of St. Petersburg, “

"It's striking to me that the first act of this newly elected Legislature is a vote to accept stimulus dollars," Kriseman said.

"The argument we heard this entire campaign season from the Republicans was critical of the Obama administration and stimulus dollars and how we needed to avoid doing anything that increases the debt."

This won’t be the last contradiction coming out of Tallassee.  Gov-elect Rick Scott said he would create 700,000 jobs, but one of his first acts, he says, will be to fire 8.000 state workers.

Controversial Veto Overrides

Two of the bills being considered for override in the upcoming special session are more controversial than Senate President Mike Haridopolous says they are.

HB 545 would repeal a law that says home sellers in coastal counties have to disclose “windstorm mitigation ratings” to home buyers.  The rationale for repeal is that it would save sellers the cost of the inspection.  And legislators suggested that a faulty inspection could put buyers more at risk because they might feel safer than they really were.

These arguments are bunk.  How much would buyers save by knowing whether their potential home is hurricane safe or not?  Probably a lot more than the $150 cost of an inspection. Repealing HB 545 means homebuyers could walk right into a hazardous home.  Shouldn’t homebuyers know whether basic mitigation, like roof tie-downs, has been done?  Homebuyers would be stuck with repair bills and higher insurance costs thanks to this repeal.

HB 981 says that speculators can have an “agriculture” tax rate on their land even though the county appraiser knows the land has a much higher value.  Typically, this loophole is used by developers who run a couple cows on the land while working on the sale.  They may have bought the land for a higher price and plan to sell it for a much higher price, but they don’t want to pay tax on the true value of the land. They are tax cheats and the Legislature wants you the pay their taxes for them.

Gov. Crist was wise to veto both of these bills.  This action by the Legislature is a harbinger of what is to come in the session ahead.  Shouldn’t there at least be a discussion of the impact on homeowners and taxpayers?

The votes are counted. Now, back to work.

The polls have closed and the votes have been counted. But now it is time for another vote to be taken – for the sake of millions of Americans, for our economy and for our country.

Members of Congress will return to work in mid-November. They will immediately face a crucial decision: whether to extend unemployment benefits. If they fail to act, it will indeed be a grim holiday season for too many.

The nonpartisan National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimates that two million Americans – including more than 107,000 people in Florida – will lose unemployment benefits by early December if no extension is forthcoming.

Some may look at the recent election results and argue, “Didn’t the American people just vote against government spending?” No, there were a variety of reasons people voted the way they did this year. And if you look at the polls, Americans favor helping the unemployed, just as they favor ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and just as they favor preserving the safety net for seniors and others in peril during this economic crisis.

Actually, the number one issue of concern to Americans is not government spending. It’s jobs and the economy. For the sake of the country members of Congress should make restoring the economy their number one priority when they return to Washington, D.C. Democrats should realize that they were elected to do a job – and they should do it. Republicans should realize that with leadership comes responsibility -- and Tuesday’s election was not a referendum on how we should treat people who are unemployed through no fault of their own.

One could debate the various ways of doing this – but the quickest, most effective way to achieve at least some success would be to extend unemployment benefits immediately, in time to save what otherwise will be another dismal holiday season for retailers.

Economists argue, and the National Employment Law Project notes, that unemployment benefits stimulate growth. Why? Because unemployed people spend their benefits on necessities – mortgage payments, utilities, food, items at the discount store. NELP says this spending may have created 1.15 million jobs in 2010 alone.

None of us know when the economy will improve. But government can speed up the process – especially as we enter the holiday season. The U.S. economy depends on the holidays. The retail industry accounts for 13.4 percent of the nation’s private sector workforce. Department stores, electronics chains and discounters count on holiday sales for more than one-fifth of their total annual revenues.

We’ve seen what happens when unemployed people don’t shop. In 2008, before Congress approved benefits for the newly unemployed, holiday sales dropped nearly four percent from the previous year. It was the first decline in sales we witnessed since the Department of Commerce began tracking retail sales in 1992.

During the disastrous 2008 holiday season, retailers hired only 231,000 workers – well under half of the 618,000 hired one year earlier. Fewer sales mean fewer jobs. Fewer jobs mean a sluggish economy and more extended unemployment. And the cruel and vicious cycle of the Great Recession continues. We can stop it.

Bill Newton is executive director of FCAN