For Those Who Don't Think Media Bias Exists...
I present the following evidence, courtesy of The Palm Beach Post:
House panel: Save Our Homes for everyone
The title is about the only thing that portrays the picture of this legislation in play: Extending the protections of Save Our Homes to all properties, residential and commercial, without the need for homesteading. [For those not in the know: SOH places a cap on the appreciation of property values for tax purposes to 3%/year. It was implemented to protect homeowners from the skyrocketing values of property for the past 15 years or so.] Now, I'm not going to get into the right or wrong of this idea. [I will say, though, that I find it lacking.] However, The Post seems to really dislike it. At least these two authors, S.V. Dáte and Michael C. Bender, certainly do. And they know the buttons to push in a Democratically-leaning society with people who want SOH to continue: make it sound like they're going to lose their protection. Observe:
"But under an amendment to the property tax proposal under consideration, the powerful House Policy and Budget Council gave the same inflation or 3 percent cap to all property owners - effectively ending the relative tax advantage homeowners have enjoyed for the last 13 years."
Ending the tax advantage? I *guess* you can say they lose the "advantage" since everyone else will get the same benefit. But the implication is that they lose their protection, which is not the case. You see an even more blatant twisting in the very first paragraph:
"TALLAHASSEE - A state House committee this morning voted to extend the Save Our Homes caps to all properties, effectively ending homestead owners' protected status in the state constitution."
In no way does it end their protection. It merely eliminates the need for a special status to get it. That they can blatantly make it appear that people are going to lose their tax protection with a twisting of verbiage just blows my mind.
It continues farther down:
"If all properties were held to 3 percent, homeowners would face the same tax bill increases as commercial and rental properties - a change many lawmakers said they wanted to avoid and the reason they cited for backing away from the June "super" homestead exemption proposal that would have phased out Save Our Homes over a number of years."
Again, technically this is true. However, in conjunction with the mentioning of the previous attempt to eliminate SOH, they make it sound like homesteaded tax rates will rise to meet commercial property, when in fact the opposite is true.
While I'm not a big fan of this proposal, I find it horribly contrived for these authors to twist the meaning of it in such a manner. And I find it horribly negligent of the Palm Beach Post to print it. Thanks guys for giving every ultra-conservative who claims leftist media bias that much more ammunition.
Next time, if you disagree with a proposal, state the real reasons why, instead of coming up with a twisted way to poke at the sore spots of your constituents. And while you're at it, save it for your editorials. At least make some effort to have your "news" stories stick to the facts.
House panel: Save Our Homes for everyone
The title is about the only thing that portrays the picture of this legislation in play: Extending the protections of Save Our Homes to all properties, residential and commercial, without the need for homesteading. [For those not in the know: SOH places a cap on the appreciation of property values for tax purposes to 3%/year. It was implemented to protect homeowners from the skyrocketing values of property for the past 15 years or so.] Now, I'm not going to get into the right or wrong of this idea. [I will say, though, that I find it lacking.] However, The Post seems to really dislike it. At least these two authors, S.V. Dáte and Michael C. Bender, certainly do. And they know the buttons to push in a Democratically-leaning society with people who want SOH to continue: make it sound like they're going to lose their protection. Observe:
"But under an amendment to the property tax proposal under consideration, the powerful House Policy and Budget Council gave the same inflation or 3 percent cap to all property owners - effectively ending the relative tax advantage homeowners have enjoyed for the last 13 years."
Ending the tax advantage? I *guess* you can say they lose the "advantage" since everyone else will get the same benefit. But the implication is that they lose their protection, which is not the case. You see an even more blatant twisting in the very first paragraph:
"TALLAHASSEE - A state House committee this morning voted to extend the Save Our Homes caps to all properties, effectively ending homestead owners' protected status in the state constitution."
In no way does it end their protection. It merely eliminates the need for a special status to get it. That they can blatantly make it appear that people are going to lose their tax protection with a twisting of verbiage just blows my mind.
It continues farther down:
"If all properties were held to 3 percent, homeowners would face the same tax bill increases as commercial and rental properties - a change many lawmakers said they wanted to avoid and the reason they cited for backing away from the June "super" homestead exemption proposal that would have phased out Save Our Homes over a number of years."
Again, technically this is true. However, in conjunction with the mentioning of the previous attempt to eliminate SOH, they make it sound like homesteaded tax rates will rise to meet commercial property, when in fact the opposite is true.
While I'm not a big fan of this proposal, I find it horribly contrived for these authors to twist the meaning of it in such a manner. And I find it horribly negligent of the Palm Beach Post to print it. Thanks guys for giving every ultra-conservative who claims leftist media bias that much more ammunition.
Next time, if you disagree with a proposal, state the real reasons why, instead of coming up with a twisted way to poke at the sore spots of your constituents. And while you're at it, save it for your editorials. At least make some effort to have your "news" stories stick to the facts.