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Dee's avatar

I’m in Florida. I voted NO on constitutional amendment # 3 that would give an additional homestead exemption of $50,000 because it included teachers. I know several teachers and they’re all women married to men who make good incomes.

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Steelhands's avatar

I'm voting later today and I too am going to vote no. I don't want more "special" classes of citizens. People should not be taxed or untaxed because of their job.

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Sunnydaze's avatar

Excellent point

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Politico Phil's avatar

Ditto in PC FL. In principle, it is always wrong to treat different segments of the population with different tax policies. Always think first, "Is this right or wrong based on principle?" There are other ways to show appreciation for first responders than a discriminatory tax policy. All taxpayers should be treated the same. If the state can afford a tax break, give everyone some more tax exemption. Now, if we need more first responders, offer more in salary and pay them what they are worth. Tax law should treat all the same.

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Sunnydaze's avatar

That is spot on too! Thank you. I kept thinking I want to support the first responders, but how is that fair to other careers that are just as difficult and do not pay much? Why is one preferred over the other. So should we give an exemption to all plumbers? I’m sure they would love it. But then what about the electricians and garbage collectors? Preferential treatment is not what we should be aiming for. They knew how much they got paid when they chose that career, as in every line of work. Thanks for helping to clarify that thought process!

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Credenda's avatar

A dedicated compassionate nursing home aide is just as important as a “first responder”. We need to scrap this idea that we should “reward” people with extra public money or benefits. It only creates more divisions among us, and eventually, a sense of entitlement takes hold. There are other ways to show our appreciation.

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Sunnydaze's avatar

Yes! Plus, someone else brought up a good point too. How do you monitor the employees that they are still working in that job? So if a firefighter quits, or a social worker or teacher quits, who’s going to monitor that so they don’t keep getting the exemption? Oh ya. More government officials I guess. Bigger govt right?

So glad I voted no on that.

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daverkb's avatar

Exactly! And an attack on Property (and really not constitutionally sanctioned). Steal from some to give what is not 'theirs' to give to others.

If asked by what criterion, it ends up being government by sovereign whim. Like,

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daverkb's avatar

Yes, and it has been pointed by others many, many times that tax exemptions are a huge tell that taxes are way too high and beyond a constitutionally necessary rate of exaction. Also, offering exemption is really in some sense vote buying. And vote buying is a form of larceny and a breech of the trustee responsibility of legislative representatives.

And when one begins to confront elected officials of legislative bodies with this line of argument, they suddenly are at a loss as to what to say. And such officials are reluctant to admit the constitutions are suspended (even if they knew it) because then there would be even a lot more s'plaining to do.

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daverkb's avatar

The American constitutions (all suspended) were designed to uphold the God-conferred Liberties, among them property held under equal protection of the Law. Distributing wealth through the ballot box by legislative fiat is looting. That is, looting by stealing from Paul in order to give a benefit to Peter. Or simply put ... Paul's pocket is looted, but Peter gets a nice golden goose egg.

Voting for special exemptions by stealing language wrapping up in nice pretty fraud words is lying. And such votes are votes against the constitutions by the stated purposes of the same ... and also are votes against the maintenance of a non-stealing moral order.

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Politico Phil's avatar

Soundly reasoned. You said it much better than I did.

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daverkb's avatar

But you said it and good for you. It's a big deal. And bigger than most people think. Theft of any kind is a massive violation of our lower case sovereign selves.

(Capital S is God, the Sovereign King of all. In the old American System we were sovereigns, the people the owners of government. Kind of gives the Colonial battle cry of 'No King but King Jesus' a little more significance.)

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Politico Phil's avatar

Yeah, our forefathers understood the governmental and legal implications of the term "King" which informed the founding documents they wrote. Today people only under the term King in some kind of romanticized idea with no connection to law or government. Our pastors have failed in their job.

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daverkb's avatar

I agree. Public (and mostly private too) education has turned education into glorified job training. The difference between a trade school and university is that the university training is more upscale as to vocations. Teaching how to think, a rigorous traditional survey of history, how to weigh things out, this has mostly been thrown out the window. And then there is history erasure! Whole histories either rewritten or omitted. The seminaries too have truncated their teaching. We were totally amazed to find out how dumbed down even allegedly Reformed Christian seminaries are these days.

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Politico Phil's avatar

I was not aware of the state of the Reformed seminaries. That's pretty sad.

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daverkb's avatar

Yeah ... that was a big letdown when me and the De Wife found out about this. And yet, overall the deterioration in the Reformed faith circles has been going on for decades. It is just the a mirror image of a failing culture. The Calvinist/Protestant Reformation presuppositional faith was thrown out the window. What is left is the secular sewer of 'anything goes.' There is nothing left in the way of scaffolding on which to build anything like a credible Law Order. If everything, and I mean everything collapses, I would not be surprises. The corruption is too massive and invades every nook and cranny of the civilization.

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Glenn Anstead's avatar

I agree on FL constitutional amendment #3 for homestead exemption. It only covers county / state employees, teachers, etc. How about teachers or support staff in private or charter schools...

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Sunnydaze's avatar

That’s an interesting point as well. Thank you for that input.

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Sunnydaze's avatar

That was exactly my problem with it. And social workers.

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Sunnydaze's avatar

So I have a question about #2. I originally thought why would we abolish the Constitution Revision Commission? It sounds good at face value which they bank on voters doing (no research). Then I looked up what it was! And then it made sense. If I read this right, this is the same group responsible for adding teachers and social workers to the Homestead for first responders proposal. A group of partisan hacks disguised as constitutional authority to help the people add amendments to the state constitution! They sneak in the pork! Republicans were not for this group. Most of them voted against its formation. So now I am voting YES to abolish them rather than the NO I was going to vote before doing the research.

Might I ask (since we are new to Florida) if you know am I missing anything here?

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Dee's avatar

No, you’re not missing anything. Vote YES to abolish!

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Sunnydaze's avatar

Ok. Now can you help me understand the first one? Limitation on the assessment of real property? I’m going later today to vote with my husband and this is the last one I can’t figure out.

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Steelhands's avatar

I'm voting yes to number one. As I understand it, a yes means that if you improve your properties resistance to flooding, you won't have to pay an increase in ad valorem taxes due to the "theoretical" increase in value of your property.

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Dee's avatar

I also voted Yes to that.

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Sunnydaze's avatar

Thank you. I was going to say Yes but I was having a hard time understanding this one.

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