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Hernando Today

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 29, 2008

Updated: 01/28/2008 07:33 pm

Vote 'Yes' On Amendment 1
It is important to Vote "Yes" on Amendment 1 today. This is our first step as taxpayers towards tax reform. This is the tax relief we taxpayers need while working towards real reform. I hear opponents say that this amendment is not enough. Then I hear opponents say it's too much and government will be unable to provide services. Which is it? Don't ask the opponents of Amendment 1 because they don't know. I can tell you that this is the first step and we must vote "Yes' on 1!"

Benefits of Amendment 1 include: portability; it all but eliminates tangible property tax; almost doubles the homestead exemption; and caps increases on nonhomesteaded property.

Portability eliminates the "lock-in effect," which has prevented homeowners from moving into smaller homes or larger homes as their needs or lifestyles change.

The orphan of the amendment, which does not get much attention, is the elimination of the tangible property tax. The proposed amendment creates a new exemption from taxes on tangible property of $25,000 and eliminates the need for businesses and owners of manufactured homes to file a return if they have less than $25,000 in tangible property. This change could exempt more than 1 million Floridians from this tax. That's out of a total of 1.2 million who currently pay it. Note that most Floridians pay more to create and file the tangible property tax return than they pay in taxes. A hidden savings.

The amendment also doubles the homestead exemption, providing an additional $25,000 exemption for the value of homestead property above $50,000 (excluding school taxes). This will allow the tax benefit to keep pace with the increased price of housing; more than 94 percent of Florida homeowners will enjoy tax relief under the increased exemption.

The fourth component of the amendment is the 10 percent cap on assessments of nonhomesteaded properties. Small-business owners, second-home owners, renters and others will benefit. This cap provides predictability for all properties in Florida; no longer will property owners have to fear unexpected tax increases and large assessment spikes.

Let's vote "Yes" for relief and work together for reform.

Gary E. Schraut

Licensed real estate broker

Brooksville

More Ludicrous Spending

Concerning the consolidation of the major fire departments throughout Hernando County, almost any reasonable person of average intelligence could attest that it would be more cost effective and efficient to do so.

However, true to form, our current board of illustrious commissioners refused to render a rational decision to another controversial solution, as to not offend a particular constituency and/or special interest group that may hinder their re-election. Again at the expense of the constituency at-large throughout Hernando County, they proceeded to hire an outside consultant agency at a cost of $128,000 so as to avoid any complicity in mandating a final decision.

I'm certain it was quite apparent to anyone of average intelligence that it was a foregone conclusion that the consulting agency would advise that consolidation would be the best solution to save the taxpayers in excess of $500,000, improve efficiency and enhance response times to incidents.

But once again our inept board of commissioners refused to render a final decision and instead decidedly made another motion to now select a "committee" of so called local experts to further explore the consolidation dilemma. They also elected to extend any decision until the November 2008 elections throughout the Spring Hill community to determine if the voters there desired to grant the Spring Hill Fire and Rescue complete independence and autonomy from county control.

As overwhelmed taxpayers we have to inquire why was it necessary to hire a consultant for $128,000 of taxpayer money, when our illustrious board of commissioners again failed to demonstrate any degree of leadership, decisiveness and responsibility to the entire constituency throughout Hernando County who they were elected to represent.

Remember these commissioners: Diane Rowden, Chris Kingsley and Jeff Stabins; they will be seeking re-election this fall in November. We cannot afford to have these individuals represent us for another four years. Let's send them packing!

Ron Dixon

Weeki Wachee

Road Rage Writing

Re: Interstate 4 tragedy.

The problem was partly because of not enough patrolling out there because of budget cuts. But there is a goldmine out there by writing more tickets and bigger fines for the speeders. All the money taken in could be put into highway patrolman fund. Then they could hire all the patrolmen they need - all paid for by the lawbreakers who are creating the problems.

When they spent big bucks to make I-4 safer, the first thing they did was to raise the speed limit 10 mph. Duh.

Then they started night court so the speeders wouldn't have to miss work. Then they decided to give tickets to sensible drivers even if they are driving the speed limit for holding up the speeders, but that won't work because they won't all fit in the left lane. Sensible drivers are an endangered species.

After 64 years of driving, I have no speeding tickets or citations.

This is my way of venting frustration instead of road rage.

Clifford Crowell

Masaryktown

Learn From The Romans

In his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln said, "We are a government of the people..."

Let's stop complaining about the price of gas - cut back on your mileage. Quit buying those gas guzzlers; then we wouldn't have to drill for more fuel. Spend that money for education before we become a third-world country.

Let us learn from the fall of the Roman Empire. Stand up, America, for your rights.

Eleanor and

George Marholin

Brooksville

No Reason To Panic

In his Jan. 28 column about the national media hyping a recession, Col. Myers had a point. What he missed is how the media went wrong.

Start with the drop in energy prices in May, June and July, coming off record highs. Even though the core rate of inflation was humming along at about 2.5 percent, the lower fuel prices brought the third quarter "headline" rate of inflation down to eight-tenths of a percent. When the Bureau of Economic Analysis adjusted third quarter (July, August, September) GDP for inflation, they used the .8 percent figure. That made for a real GDP growth of 4.9 percent in the third quarter.

But, if you discount the three month drop in energy prices, you get a real (adjusted for inflation) GDP growth rate of 2.4 percent, close to the anemic growth rates of the preceding quarters.

In August 2007, the unemployment rate was "virtually unchanged" at 4.7 percent. But, if the pundits had scrolled down the page of the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release, they would have seen that 500,000 workers had left the labor force. (These were classified as "labor force nonparticipants." The BLS has a rather pinched definition of "unemployed.")

So, the national media, incuriously rewriting the government press releases, presented the third quarter of 2007 as a time of record low inflation, very low unemployment and well above average economic growth.

In fact, a simple analysis of the statistics reveals a weak economy that was hemorrhaging jobs.

Along comes October 2007. The BLS announced that 166,000 new jobs were created, well above economists' expectations. Business writers rhapsodized about the tens of thousands of jobs in industries like banking, construction ... wait a minute! What happened to that housing slowdown?

It took me about seven minutes to discover that 103,000 of those "new jobs" resulted from something called the birth-death model, which the BLS uses to estimate the number of jobs created by new, not yet reporting, businesses. The model is updated infrequently so it's slow to reflect a change in trend. Those 103,000 new jobs were assumed. There is no evidence that they ever existed.

Remember the 500,000 new workforce nonparticipants from August? Well, in the fourth quarter the labor force grew by 500,000 people, just in time for Christmas. But, at the end of December, these 500,000 were unemployed. That pushed the unemployment rate up to 5 percent.

Because the media pundits thought that the economy was in great shape through October, they thought that the increase in unemployment heralded a sudden downturn. That's when the recession hype really took off.

Will there be a recession? Most economists think that it's slightly more likely than not. The economy has been weak for years. But there haven't been major alarms in the recent numbers. There is certainly no reason to panic over media hype.

Dallas Dunlap

Brooksville

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