I’m speaking primarily to Republicans because the Democrats are not going to pay attention or care, or, if they do, buck their party leadership – just a quick reminder that back in November 2024, your voters didn’t go into the polls screaming, “We have too many school districts!” They weren’t calling on you to close their rural schools or eliminate the local school boards that they elected. They weren’t begging you to take away their school choice or their independent school choices. Your voters voted for you to reduce their unaffordable, unsustainable property tax burden. That’s it.
All those other things? They suck. Nobody wants them. Your voters might accept some ore even all of those sacrifices if, and only if, they serve to meet the mandate reflected in the recent resounding electoral upheaval of immediately and meaningfully reducing taxes. If the law you vote for doesn’t do this now – and at present it doesn’t – it will be seen as, well, bad. If the law you vote for contains all of the above-mentioned suck AND a property tax increase – even one of just 1.1 percent – that’s, well, really bad. Something, dare I say, you should want absolutely zero association with – the kind that comes with voting for it.
And the worst possible outcome, the political death sentence, torches and pitchforks and the whole French Revolutionesque shebang: that’s if the law you vote for results in not just all the suck but a 20 percent property tax increase landing in voters mailboxes in July 2026 (just in time for the next election) because the law you voted for did nothing to rein in spending and cut taxes, and you’ve got no money available to buy down the property tax and hide the failure two years in a row. “Bad” does not begin to describe what happens to you in this scenario. So, IMHO, don’t vote for that!
I hear the arguments, “We need to do something!” And, “Something is better than nothing.” No you don’t and no it isn’t. Not if the something you do doesn’t solve the problem of rising taxes, and not if the something actually makes it more difficult to lower taxes in the near future than would doing nothing.
While moving to a foundation formula for funding education makes sense, the one created in H.454 bakes recent spending increases – and therefore the tax increases necessary to fund that spending – into this Marie Antoinette’s cake. What we need is for that spending to be removed from said cake, and there is no reason why it shouldn’t be. There is no reason why, with fewer students and no more Covid emergency, we shouldn’t be returning to pre pandemic spending levels with tax cuts resulting.
Spending on our public education system is now $2.4 billion for a student population of around 80,000 prek-12 kids and declining steadily. We spend more per pupil than any other state in the union. It’s nuts! The property taxes required to pay for this insatiable spending are up 33 percent over the past three years, and 14 percent last year alone. This year they would be going up another 6 percent if it weren’t for $44 million in education fund surplus and $77 million in general fund transfer to hide the ever-increasing spending by “buying down” the property tax rate with one-time money. But ALL that money comes out of our pockets one way or another. This is what has to stop. H.454 in its present (albiet highly fluid) state does nothing to stop it. Best case scenario, rose colored glasses firmly affixed, it might if we’re lucky “bend the cost curve” somewhere half a decade or so down the road. Respectfully, dear legislators, this was not the mission. Vote no.
Republicans were able to pick up six senate seat and 18 in the House last election because a bright line was drawn between Democrats who wanted to raise taxes/fees/etc. – and did — and Republicans who demonstrated with “no” vote after “no” vote that they opposed these policies. The voters’ expectation was that Republicans would carry through with that record this session. Good politics as well as good policy would dictate that y’ do.
Democrats, on the other hand, have embarked on a strategy of delay and dissemble in order to keep the money train flowing to their most powerful special interest groups. Step one, they succeeded in shifting the debate under the Dome from one of property tax relief to one of education delivery restructuring, and they put those special interests in charge of designing the new plan. Step two is to get Republicans – or at least enough of them – to go along with this scheme so as to share the blame when the bill lands at the taxpayers feet. They are now using Governor Scott’s threat not to let you all leave until something passes to get YOU to join them in passing something – something they and their Blob buddies like. Don’t fall for it. If what ultimately lands in front of you doesn’t lower taxes, vote no.
Voters will not give you any kudos for “working together.” They will not consider the nuances of deals cut in the back corners of the cafeteria that made a bad bill better. They will not care that you “did something.” They will only judge you based on what their property tax bill is in July 2026 – and what part you played in creating (or working to stop) that number with your vote. So, unless the final version of H.454 miraculously turns into a sweet tax-cut package, vote no.
Authors’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers.
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