Marley Benson

🌊🌊🌊 Democrat. Republicans are a bunch of ghouls. I don’t get the allure.

[CathyNotToday2 🌿 @Cathy2NotToday]

For everyone in Florida cheering for the end of property taxes, Jeff Brandes asks 10 REALLY good questions:

1. If this is real tax reform, what replaces it?
Florida built local government around property taxes because Florida has no state income tax.
You can dislike the system, but you cannot remove the load-bearing wall without explaining what keeps the roof from collapsing afterward.

2. Is this a tax cut… or just a tax costume change?
Homesteaded homeowners may save money upfront.
But governments still need revenue.
So does the bill simply reappear through rent, insurance, utility bills, assessments, fees, and higher costs on businesses and apartments?
Taxes rarely disappear.
They usually come back wearing a different name tag.

3. Who pays the debt already backed by property taxes?
Florida communities have borrowed billions for roads, drainage, water systems, police stations, fire stations, and hurricane infrastructure.
Bond payments do not disappear because politicians change the math.

4. What exactly counts as a “core service”?
Police and fire are easy answers. After that, the politics begin.
Is drainage a core service in a hurricane state? Stormwater? Road maintenance? Permitting? Parks? Libraries? Transit? Homeless services? Constitutional officers?
The real fight will not be over taxes. It will be over who gets to decide what government is allowed to do.

5. Who actually controls your city budget after this?
If Tallahassee defines “core services,” spending limits, reimbursement formulas, allowable millage growth, and allowable revenue… then local government becomes government by permission slip.
Your city council may still hold meetings, but the real budget power moves to the Capitol.

6. What happens during the first recession?
Property taxes are stable.
Sales taxes and tourism revenues are not.
So what happens when the economy slows, tourism drops, state revenues fall, and demand for local services spikes at the same time?
A system designed only for boom years is not reform.
It is a fair-weather theory.

7. What funds the trust fund when Florida itself is projecting multi-billion-dollar deficits?
Sales taxes? Documentary stamps? Debt? New fees? “Future growth”?
Florida’s own long-range forecasts already project structural deficits beginning in fiscal year 2027-28.
So what is the durable funding source?
A trust fund without recurring revenue is not reform. It is delayed instability with a press release.

8. What happens to Florida’s special districts?
Florida already relies heavily on CDDs, special districts, MSTUs, infrastructure authorities, and assessment-based financing.
If cities and counties lose flexibility, does growth simply shift into more off-book financing structures and special assessments?
Taxpayers do not care which government entity sends the invoice. They care that the invoice still arrives.

9. Are we trying to solve a housing crisis entirely through the tax code?
Florida’s affordability crisis is not just taxes. It is missing starter homes, restrictive zoning, rising insurance, infrastructure costs, and years of making housing harder to build.
You cannot tax-cut your way out of a starter home shortage.

10. Does this proposal reduce the cost of government or simply change the collection mechanism?
Nothing in the proposal prevents governments from relying more heavily on utility fees, stormwater charges, mobility fees, special assessments, franchise fees, or special districts.

If the total cost to taxpayers remains roughly the same, this is not necessarily smaller government. It is simply a different billing system.
Bonus question: Where is the sunset clause?

This proposal would fundamentally restructure local government finance in the third-largest state in America.

So where is the mandatory five-year review?
Measure homeowner savings, renter impacts, debt stress, infrastructure quality, public safety, and unintended consequences.

✅Big reforms need an exit ramp if the theory fails.

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

I saw a comment saying the U.S. is the only country in the World Cup without universal healthcare. And I was like nahhh no way that's accurate.
20 seconds on the world wide web later, THE UNITES STATES IS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD CUP WITHOUT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE.

[The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost]

BREAKING: Pastors from many of the nation's biggest Evangelical churches say Donald Trump has not returned any of their phone calls since November 5th of 2024, and say they now suspect Trump was faking his Christian faith for political gain.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

The Strait of Hormuz has been opened and closed more times than a Grindr app at a Republican convention.

[Cuckturd @CattardSlim]

This level of comedy would have hit so hard in 1st grade.

Yet it still hits hard for 78 million grown adults.

Let that sink in. They destroyed our country so a 65 IQ Moron would feed them a steady diet of this. 👇

[Glenn Tunes @glenn_tunes]

I still feel that it should have been a bigger story that the Trump administration used the situation room to cover up the presidents involvement in a sex trafficking pedophile ring 🤷

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

The Foreign Emoluments Clause (art. I, § 9, cl. 8): No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under the United States, shall, without the Consent of the
Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind.

[Covie @covie_93]

Not a good look for the trump administration to be out here losing the war to a single cell organism.

[Brett Meiselas @BMeiselas]

It’s going to be incredibly funny when he drains and refills the reflecting pool and it turns green again

[MAGAts_Exposed @MAGAts_Exposed]

Meet alcoholic MAGAt Sheriff Randy Smith who is a staunch Republican and a Donald Trump supporter and aligns himself with conservative, pro-Trump political values. After consuming 18 beers he assaulted a local resident. As a result of the assualt, Sheriff Smith faces Felony Battery charges but has refused to resign from office. He still carries his badge and gun.

Investigators allege that an intoxicated Sheriff Smith approached local resident and podcaster Bobby Couvillion from behind, placed him in a chokehold, and threw him to the floor. Bystanders intervened to pull Smith away. Couvillion suffered a concussion and displaced teeth, requiring hospitalization.

He operates within a deeply conservative region and maintains strong ties to mainstream Republican platforms. Smith is a registered Republican who won his third term in 2023 with more than 60% of the vote in highly conservative St. Tammany Parish.

[Maggie 🇺🇸⚾️ @LACentrist]

The Reflecting Pool was not vandalized.

It was gross incompetence by the no-bid contractor; a contract awarded by Trump.

There is no conspiracy theory. No vandals.

Just incompetence.

On our dime.

Truth matters.

[iWard @ideasareweapons]

@TheRickWilson

[Blue Crew 💙🌊 @VotesBlue2]

@TheRickWilson

[@thescoop.bsky.social @DemocratScoop]

@TheRickWilson @ThreeDawgLadyDe

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

Iran won and Trump surrendered.
Moscow is burning and Ukraine will win.
Treasonous Tulsi is out.
Trumps name is off the Kennedy Center.
The Reflecting Pool is green.
Donald Trump is riddled with dementia and is rotting before our eyes.
MAGA is in a civil war.

Happy Friday!

[Dem Saints @LDS_Dems]

He is lying about vandalism in the reflecting pool

He is lying about the Italian PM wanting a selfie

He is the President of the United States and he lies about the dumbest possible things.

How are you Trump supporters not exhausted by this all the time?

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

Think about what Warren Buffet just said. I am going to run for president just to make the wealthy pay their fare share of taxes and lock the trump family up

[GOP Ls @GOP__Ls]

🚨 Republican Senate candidate Aaron Brutger strangled his fiancée and told her he was going to kill her.

He slammed a car door on her legs during the same attack.

[Rogue POTUS Staff @RoguePOTUSStaff]

The Reflecting Pool arrests by Park Police should terrify everyone. The federal government is fabricating accusations out of thin air simply to protect one man from his own embarrassing failure.

There is no sabotage. This is insane.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

BREAKING: The FBI has recovered several boxes of algae starter kits from Antifa headquarters.