Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute conducted a poll asking Floridians about the ongoing discussion of lowering property taxes. Basically, they wanted to know if you want a tax cut, and if so, which of a handful of services should be cut in order to facilitate that. The result? Forgive my paraphrasing here, but according to Steve Bousquet at the St. Pete Times, “you people are idiots.”

But Steve is not alone. Reporters all over the state are saying you are clueless of how taxes work:

• The Miami Herald
• Paul Flemming writing for Tallahassee.com and the Pensacola Journal
• Orlando Sentinel
• The Daytona Beach News-Journal

And the examples could go on and on (The Tampa Tribune didn’t cover it). The main point in all the above stories is that you want your taxes cut, but are unwilling to cut services. The only outlet that I found that does not call you stupid is Panama City’s WJHG TV. They simply report the findings, and almost make a point:

Brown says, “They don’t like the way government is spending their dollars. If you ask them simply: do you like the way, do you trust local government? They get a negative reaction. But when you compare it to state government, it gets, state government gets a worse reaction.”

Here’s the problem: Of course everyone wants taxes cut - I don’t need a poll to tell me that. But if your only choice is to cut specific (some say necessary) programs, of course you won’t find any consensus. Here are the choices of programs to cut given by the Quinnipiac poll:

• Police and fire services
• Parks and recreation programs
• Libraries
• Public health clinics
• School crossing guards
• Local government workers
• Programs for senior citizens

The choices were given in that order via phone, so you couldn’t even pick the “lesser of seven evils.” You can only “Cut It” or “Don’t Cut It.” Of course, no one wants to cut out any of the above services (with the possible exception of the “local government workers,” which 47% of you said to cut ‘em).

But that dearth of options is simply ridiculous. Are there really only seven ways to cut government expense? No.

How about “cut waste” as an answer? How about “repeal some business incentives?” What about “kill expensive loopholes,” “cut commissioners salaries,” or “let council figure it out, and if they screw up we’ll vote them out.” But the poll doesn’t allow for those answers. That would give local leaders the real answers, and our local leaders are not interested in solving problems, they are interested in keeping cushy jobs for as long as possible.

And newspapers statewide help them with this by lazily reporting on the obvious, and not asking any questions of the pollsters. Instead they go get a quote from them:

“They [Florida residents] want their cake and eat it too. Is that so unusual?” said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac University’s Polling Institute…

Screw you Peter Brown. And you can quote me:

They [pollsters, reporters, politicians] want to make lots of money accomplishing nothing. Is that so unusual?

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• what would you cut? (6)
• not much relief from property tax breaks (3)
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