Florida in crisis
Was there a game today?
It’s almost time to see if the New York Giants can muddy the New England Patriots’ perfect season in Super Bowl XLII. Supermarkets are stocking snacks and offering sugary cupcakes with football decorations. There’s endless speculation about the game, the commercials and the halftime show.
The game is on, but I’m only half-listening. I’m using a computer program to do our 2007 income taxes and thinking about next year’s return. It turns out that we’re paying more in taxes this year because my being unemployed skewed our usual rate of income-to-taxes-paid. Our reduced income meant that the $275 a week I received to help keep us afloat after I lost my job and the retirement account I had to liquidate in order to pay bills all counted against us. I didn’t have a 401(k) to roll part of my retirement funds into and I’m younger than 59 1/2, and both counted against us.
It’s interesting to live uninsured with two 12-year-olds in the house and no retirement funds or life insurance to provide a safety net. We are truly living on Divine Providence to take care of us these days because the trappings of middle-class America’s security systems have failed us.
Poor people pay more in taxes–it’s as simple as that. The computer program is good about suggesting deductions and tips on reducing tax penalties, but few of the tax shelters apply to us. We’re a family of four with one working parent who was unemployed for part of 2007. A rich corporation pays compatively less than we will.
Taxes are the biggest issue in our home state of Florida. New homeowners are complaining about their higher tax bills compared to the longtime homeowners on their block. Businesses and owners of rental properties are paying exorbitant amounts in many cases.
In Florida, voters passed Amendment 1, a risky, immediate fix to the call for reduced property taxes. We’re getting double the usual $25,000 homestead exemption next year, but the effects on government services, schools and infrastructure are unknown. While the average Floridian will get a tax break of about $240 on his or her property tax bill, there’s are real possibility that we could be mortgaging our future. No one who voted for the amendment seemed to want to look too far ahead.
The call for property tax reform in our state overshadowed all good sense. A new Governor named Charlie Crist, whom I usually call “the show pony,” made a big deal about taxes “dropping like a rock” and a majority of voters in our state got snookered into supporting his tax reform plan. With his snowy white hair, perpetual tan and showman’s smile, our Governor made persistent pleas via ads and nonstop telephone calls to voters as election day on January 29 edged closer.
Meanwhile, the homeowning expense that is in a real crisis in our state is insurance and Governor Show Pony hasn’t been willing to tackle that issue. Our home insurance has risen every year since the nightmare 2004 season that brought us Hurricane Charley, Ivan, Frances and Jeanne. Our county was relatively untouched by the four, but other parts of the state had catastrophic losses. In Florida, we’re paying for everyone’s losses as insurance companies are cancelling longtime policyholders in the state because they don’t want to assume the risk.
Florida has no income tax, which has always been attractive to retirees and corporations. We also have comparatively low wages (the axiom is that we are “paid in sunshine”) and a wealth of low-paying service positions in the tourism industry. Unless you can want to earn call center or hotel bedmaking wages, there’s not much outside of health care to choose from. (I joked to one of my fellow employment network friends that no one ever joins our group claiming to be an unemployed nurse. Hospitals in Florida are importing nurses from overseas and competing fiercely with each other for RNs.) The notion that Florida offers low-cost living is gone and fewer transplants are coming to our state to live now. The old Florida that promised cheap land, low taxes and workers who accepted wages in sunshine is quickly disappearing.
As insurance rates rise, wages stagnate and property-tax reform introduces risky programs that may hamper future growth, we Floridians are trying to ride the wave of rising prices and falling incomes.
Now, more than ever, I’m praying for my family and my neighbors. As social programs and safety nets crumble, trusting in God is all we’ll have left.
