“Another Reason to Move to Florida”

The Wall Street Journal phrased its headline as a question, but it fits as a statement, also. James Freeman’s op-ed was centered on Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ move toward reducing/eliminating Florida’s property tax, but there’s a much broader item in play here.

Florida’s regular legislative session starts next week and state Senator Jonathan Martin (R, Fort Myers) recently filed a bill to study “a framework to eliminate property taxes…and to replace property tax revenues through budget reductions, sales-based consumption taxes, and locally determined consumption taxes authorized by the Legislature.

Consumption taxes are even more regressive than our existing national income tax structure is progressive. Replacing reduced taxes with budget reductions, though—that would be a strong move toward leaving Florida’s citizens’ money in the hands of those citizens.

If Florida can pull that off, it would be a strong reason to move there, and it would be a powerful empirically demonstrated example of how such a move would increase the prosperity of the citizens of the other 49 States, and of the United States.

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