Populism without pragmatism is like a blind man firing a machine gun

This week, the Florida House passed its version of legislation that would put a referendum to eliminate all non-school property taxes on the 2026 ballot. This short-sighted obsession of Governor Ron DeSantis and many Florida Republicans would have disastrous consequences for our state. To push such an irresponsible idea represents an abject failure of leadership.

I’ve covered government policy for more years than I care to recall, and a phenomenon I’ve encountered many times from local to state to federal levels is the supposed reform candidate who was going to cut all sorts of government waste until they actually got elected and found out how little fat there usually is to trim.

CFO Blaise Ingoglia’s Florida DOGE/FAFO tour has added to public skepticism about bloated governments grown fat on funds they have, in his opinion, overcharged Floridians. Ingoglia, who came to prominence among the MAGA crowd for his "Government Gone Wild" YouTube series, was appointed Florida’s Chief Financial Officer after Jimmy Patronis resigned to run for Congress. Almost immediately, he announced he would run for the cabinet-level position in 2026, and his long on theatrics, short on specifics, FAFO press conferences always sounded more like campaign events than a serious government undertaking.

Public officials say and do all sorts of things to get or stay in office. However, Ingolia’s back-of-the-matchbook math and the condescending lectures that followed have further convinced eager-to-be-duped economic libertarian types that life would be just fine without much in the way of taxes to fund the services that act as the glue to keep civilized societies together.

Who doesn’t think, Wow, this seems like a lot, when they write that check each year, or see it paid through the escrow account of their mortgage? However, for the average Floridian, eliminating non-school property taxes would not create the dream-world scenario being peddled. Florida’s tax policies are already ranked as the most regressive in the nation. Because we do not have a personal income tax and there are already a number of exemptions to property taxes, none of which are means-tested, our state is a haven for ultra-wealthy Americans who want to pay as little in taxes as possible. And that is exactly who would benefit most directly from such a policy.

If this were really about property tax relief for struggling Floridians or making homeownership more affordable for first-time buyers, there are other methods that would be far more effective, such as a higher just-value exemption. For example, a $100,000 just-value exemption would represent a 50% reduction on a $200k home, but only a 10% reduction on a million-dollar home. 

Are we trying to help struggling work-class Floridians, or are we trying to help someone in the wealthiest .01 percent shave a little off their Billionaire Row mansion to invest in Crypto? Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin alone would save more than $1 million a year in property taxes he pays on his sprawling $350 million Palm Beach estate (one of several homes he owns).

In terms of making home ownership more affordable, property taxes are baked into home values. Therefore, eliminating them would raise the values, not lower them, in the same way lower interest rates tend to increase home prices. If we were concerned about young Americans' ability to purchase homes, there are myriad ways we could implement means-tested subsidies that would cost far less than not taxing billionaire homeowners.

It should be noted that we already have a non-means tested $50,000 homestead exemption with a Save Our Homes cap limiting annual increases to no more than 3 percent. Disabled veterans, people with disabilities, widows/widowers, and active duty military all receive specific additional relief. Surviving spouses of first responders killed in the line of duty are eligible for 100% property tax exemption on a homesteaded property, again with no means testing. 

Property taxes are how local governments pay for the bulk of the services they are expected to provide, including law enforcement, animal services, the Handi Bus, senior services, MCAT, pickleball courts, youth sports, and critical infrastructure. If they are eliminated, those services will be severely degraded, go away, or the tax burden will just be shifted elsewhere, making our tax system even more regressive. Consumption taxes, such as the sales tax, are always favored by the ultra wealthy because, again, they represent a much smaller percentage of their wealth than a progressive system. However, just as when we study endless proposals for a national sales tax to replace the federal income tax, the math just doesn’t work, unless the rate is prohibitively high for low-income earners.

Aside from the practical economic effects, such a change would be but one more way to weaken local governments and make them more reliant on Tallahassee and whatever political whims it seeks to impose. The growing tendency of our so-called representatives at the state level to preempt local government should make voters extremely wary of anything that would give Tallahassee politicians even more control over local matters.

Asking voters whether they want to eliminate property taxes is like asking a child if they want to eliminate vegetables from their diet. You’ll get a lot of uninformed yes votes, but at a long-term cost they are almost certain to regret. Anyone in a “leadership” position who is pushing such irresponsible ideas without fully articulating the ramifications beyond local governments will have to do more with less, and we all know there’s a lot of waste, isn’t leading us to anything beyond our collective demise.

If Floridians want lower property taxes, that should be a matter decided by electing suitable candidates to local offices and then holding them accountable for reducing spending in an efficient manner so that millage rates can be responsibly lowered after that has been achieved. If it proves too difficult to implement, there is likely a reason beyond the catch-all of government waste.

When it comes to government, we all tend to demand services that greatly outweigh our appetite for their actual cost. There’s a reason a hamburger costs less at McDonald’s than it does at Skinny’s, and it is not efficiency.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch's 2015 novel, A Long Road Home, was recently released in its third edition. His other books can be found here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.