steppingonants

rambling bio-nerd. Playing with corals for a while.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Katz: The way we talk about what scandals are on television is fundamentally disconnected from the lives mainers are living. How is it not a scandal that Susan Collins is married to a lobbyist who while she was on the committee deciding what firms get money, gave $76 million to her husband, that she has voted to fund wars that have enriched her own stock portfolio. Susan Collins and her lobbyist husband seem like a scandal.

[Jesse Eisinger @eisingerj]

Obviously I'm a little biased since I edited this thing but that a story about a killed criminal investigation into a sitting senator wasn't picked up, followed & pushed forward by major outlets is an excellent & sorry illustration of our broken information environment.

[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.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@naftalibennett Honestly, y’all are making most of the world sympathetic to Hezbollah. You are the bad guys in this conflict

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@eddyportnoy Which is why it is important to emphasize the distinction between them. There is no route to less antisemitism via opposing criticism of israel or aipac,

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@marklevinshow They invaded Lebanon, it’s on them. Want to honor the fallen? Get the f out of their country

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

She’s right and you are wrong for conflating critiques of Israel with Jews. Shane on you.

[Heidi Bachram @HeidiBachram]

Irish author Sally Rooney gave a speech last night blaming Israel for the rise of fascism and the far right in Europe and concluding that the “liberation of Palestine represents the liberation of the world”. How very 1930s Europe of her to blame the Jews for everything.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@glenn_tunes @paladine Because it is

[Matt Duss @mattduss]

Begging Democrats to resist the urge to bash Trump from the hawkish right, which only reinforces the very stupid discourse that enabled this very stupid war in the first place.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@AmbassadorRice It is wild to me that y’all are bound and determined to give trump the moral high ground and repeatedly fail the most salient and easy moral test of our lifetime over and over again. Stop, please stop.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@RussOnPolitics @atrupar You very easily can. Most people do

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@SenAdamSchiff Anything that ends this (and israel’s genocidal invasions) is a net positive. And let’s be for real, normalizing relations with Iran and helping them rebuild would do more to help opposition to their current leadership grow.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@mistergeezy Wtf? He’s one of the best commentators on our time. And he’s deeply right here

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

💯

[Neera Tanden🌻 @neeratanden]

The job in the primary is to find a candidate to win the general election to avoid giving Trump control over Wisconsin electors. Does this help accomplish this task?

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@JebFain This is so dumb.

[Seth @fiercepatricks]

straight people often say LGBT education isn't age appropriate but will ask toddlers who their crush is

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@MarcusBertrand5 @Midwesthomo77 Are you 12? An adult can’t be this ignorant.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@kilday_morgan Y’all just really want to give every voter away to the republicans. Mandami is the most popular (and effective) elected leader in the entire country. He’s actually doing all the things establishment dems have promised and refused to deliver. Be for real

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@neeratanden @BrendanMyers00 You have been doing everything in your power to avoid building a big majority it seems.

[steppingonants @steppingonants]

@dicapito She was right. biden and Harris wrong. The genocide he supported killed Harris’s chances and taint his legacy.