00:00There's a protest in St. Pete about Doge today. What's your thought about the protest?
00:04What are they protesting?
00:06I guess they don't like Doge.
00:11Well, look, Floridians have seen their property tax bills go up. That's not the state.
00:18You know, we're like, I was announcing all these tax breaks.
00:21Like, well, why didn't, you know, I just got my property tax.
00:23But, well, that's not coming from the state.
00:25I'm like, we just, we have record surplus. We have record rainy day.
00:29They're like, well, give, you know, don't take as much part.
00:31We're not taking property tax at the state. That's local.
00:34And what happens is people's property values have gone up and they've had to pay more and more.
00:37Even with homestead, it still goes up.
00:40And heaven forbid, you've got to buy a new home because some people's jobs change.
00:43They've got to move to a different part of town, different part of the state.
00:46Then their tax basis is way higher.
00:48So the question is, is you've seen a lot of bloat in budgets.
00:52Where's that money going to?
00:54And they'll say it's for things that we all agree on, education, public safety, first responders.
01:01But I can tell you there's a lot of stuff beyond that that some of these governments are spending this tax dollars on.
01:07And so you absolutely can do property tax relief.
01:10And, you know, people are saying that, like, well, you know, why, you know, someone has, like, some investor is buying.
01:17Why should they get a property tax?
01:18They don't need to.
01:19I mean, I think it should apply to Florida residents and their primary resident.
01:23Fine.
01:24If they want to tax the investors and use that, that's totally fine.
01:28But you either own your home or you don't.
01:31So I think this is all part of a process to show taxpayers there is relief available.
01:36Now, you're going to have to vote for it when it's on the ballot and it's going to need 60 percent.
01:41It's not something that we can, you know, that Jim Boyd can pass through the legislature and I sign and then that's just how it is.
01:47That's not the way Florida's constitution is structured.
01:50So just know we're working hard on this.
01:53There's going to be a good proposal.
01:55I know Ben Albritton and Jim and the other leadership team in the Senate are very, very interested in getting something in front of the voters.
02:03And so that will happen.
02:05But what they're going to say when that happens is you can't reduce people's property taxes because we're not going to have schools or we're not going to public.
02:14And that's not true.
02:14And what Doge is doing is it's showing some of the things that have been done, you know, on local level.
02:21And look, not every local government, you know, has done poor.
02:25There's some that have done good and there's it's a variety.
02:28But I can tell you if you look at the growth of these budgets over the last three or four years, it is not just because of public safety or education.
02:38It's just not.
02:39I mean, there's there's more to it than that.
02:41And so, you know, do you need to be spending three million dollars on DEI consultants?
02:47Would you rather them spend it on that or would you rather a property tax cut?
02:51Do you want them spending on some of the things that there?
02:53And so we've been able I think the blaze leading it has been able to show, you know, that there's a lot of different things.
02:59And and I think there's going to be more and more to come.
03:02Now, we've also done through the state, even before these teams are going to local governments, we're doing the universities, we're doing state agencies, we're doing different things.
03:11And we're going to continue to do it because I think it's important.
03:15And we have found grants that states have pulled down federally that we sent back to feds.
03:21There have been other things that are going to need to be cleaned up as well.
03:24So this is not just unique to like a city government.
03:27I mean, the education bureaucracies are big.
03:31The universities even we've held the line on tuition admirably.
03:35But the reality is, you know, these things go.
03:37Now, we eliminated the I were the first to do that a few years ago.
03:40And and I think like on the surface, they comply.
03:43But then some of them do it and they rename and they put it down.
03:46They do all this stuff. So it's constantly going through all this.
03:49So I think it's good. I think what blaze is leading is good for taxpayers.
03:52And I think it's going to be able to produce an ability for us to be able to say, you know, you can own your own home.
04:00We can do it in Florida. We can make all this work while meeting the priorities that we all agree on.
04:06But for some of the stuff that is not necessary, I'd rather that go to tax cuts.
04:10I'd rather that go to relief for property.
04:13And the thing is, is when you have home values rise like and it's not just in Florida.
04:18Like we may have had more because we had more authentic demand.
04:22People were fleeing these places coming here, but they went up everywhere.
04:26And I don't think we've ever had a higher home value average compared to average income or median income.
04:32I mean, it is out of whack. It's hard to afford.
04:34And then you have the cost of these other things. Insurance. You have the cost of property tax.
04:38Well, the one thing we can't control the price of homes, but the one thing that government through the people can control is the taxation.
04:47That's purely a government function that is not subject to market forces that is within the control of the government.
04:53And what happens is your property gets assessed higher and higher.
04:57It's an unrealized gain. You haven't sold it for that much.
05:01They're just telling you it's worth that much.
05:04And guess what happens when the market corrects, which it inevitably does.
05:09Do they rush in to assess your property at a lower level?
05:13I don't think so. I don't think that. Not that I'm aware of.
05:16So it's a one way ratchet. And so you're basically get stuck paying higher taxes.
05:21I think someone's personal residence, if it's homesteaded property,
05:26I think you've got to be able to own it free and clear of the government.
05:30I think that that is what living in a free state ultimately means.
05:34No income tax. And you can own your home free and clear without having to pay rent to the government.
05:39And I think it's totally doable.
05:41And also, you know, because I have people will say, you know, there's some of these people,
05:44they're buying all these homes and they're renting them out, all this stuff.
05:48Fine. Well, guess what?
05:49If the personal residence is tax free and those can still be taxed,
05:53then it's a way to say we're putting a premium on individual family home ownership.
05:58It'll make it more attractive. It'll make the other stuff less attractive relative.
06:02So I think it would solve a lot of problems 100%.
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