The Socialist Republic of Florida, Chapter One

Matthew Falconer
September 19, 2008
Chapter One Save Our Homes-The beginning of the end.

In 1992, Ken Wilkinson, a County Property Appraiser from Lee County, Florida, was successful in promoting and getting into law a bill known as "Save Our Homes." The law limited the increase in property taxes on "homestead property" to CPI (the Consumer Price Index) or 3% annually. A homestead property is a permanent residence, not a second home, rental apartment, or commercial building. Wilkinson said, "Government should not be in the business of taxing people off their primary residence." This sounds nice, but as is often the case with government regulations, there were unintended consequences.

Save Our Homes was sold to the people of Florida as a tax limit. This couldn´t be farther from the truth. In essence, Save Our Homes is flawed because it is not a tax limit, but a tax shift. The "savings" of homestead property owners was/is made up by additional taxation of non-homestead property owners. This tax shift is estimated at $7 billion a year and counting (2). The biggest effect of this law was that most Florida taxpayers were shielded from sharp increases in property taxes. Most residents did not have to share in the increasing costs and economic burden of a growth in government spending, and thus government was "politically sheltered" to spend revenues more freely. [READ MORE]