The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1919-07-17
Ruinous Taxation

and district in DeSOto county
next year will be So IL mills. To
this add 20 mills, the municipal
tax rate Of Punta Gorda, and an
other mill and a half for paving
assessments, and we have s pei
cent. as the total tax rate to be
paid by Punta Gorda property
owners next year.
we dare say that an equally
high, if not higher rate will be
paid by the property owners of
Jacksonville, Palm Beach, Miami,
Tampa and othe~ places, and in
no county of South Florida will
the total rate be less than per
cent.
We think that. one of the re-
suits will be that twenty per cent.
of the taxes levied will not be col
lected. an immence amount of
property VIII be sold for taxes
and the state will have to buy it
in.
But possibly the most serious
result will be the Encouragement
of investments in real estate. The
people abroad whom we are urg-
ing to come here, settle amongst
us and help us develope the Won
derful resources of Florida, will
be appalled, by the terrible tax
rate, and the purchase and i'm
provement Of real estate will be
stopped.
Now, who is to blame for this?
The jackasses whom we sent to
the legislature. Every one Of
them was either expressly or tacit-
" pledged to economy, tc an hon
est effort to reduce taxes, but
they seemed to do everything they
could to increase taxes. Not a
thing did they do to Tighten the
tax burden. They knew that
practically every town and city,
every county and county district
in the state, had loaded itself
down with all the bonded in
debtedness it could safely assume.
Notwithstanding this, those jack
asses went to work theoretically
to pile greater burdens on the
taxpayers, and the inevitable re-
suit will be a very serious injury
to the entire state.
We must have this thing, that
thing and the other and especial
" good roads, they argued; and
they did not pause for moment
to consider whether we could pay
for all these things or not. They
thought that we must at once put
Florida, in the matter Of public
improvements, in the same rank
with California, Ohio, New York
and other older states having ten
times the taxable wealth Of Flor
ida.
OF course we want these great
public conveniences and improve
ments, but we are in the position
of a man who, having an income
of only thousand a year and a
cash surplus ola hundred dollars
wants to buy a ffve-thousand dol
lar automobile. If he buys it,>hl
is damphool; and so, as a PEG
ple. we are lot of damphOols fol
having bought a lot of things thai
we can't pay for.
The legislature would have
shown some sense and have pre-
vented the threatened disaster Il
the state, if it had had the candol
and courage to say,"Hes, we wan
these great things, but we haven
the money to pay for them, W.
must wait ten or fifteen years un
til we pay off some of the tire
mendous debts we now owe, "
Rather than impose these terri
Bile taxes upon the people to tn
injury Of the state, it would hav
been better to quit building road
for ten years or longer. Thi
could not have hurt the state hal
as badly as the impending fearful
tax burden. Now, some one ma.
saw that this talk is too pcssimis
tic and is likely to hurt the state
but nothing that this paper ma.
say can do one-tenth the harm t.