April 16, 2025 • 25 mins
Sal Nuzzo, of Consumers Defense, gave us a breakdown of current controversy surrounding HOPE Florida, plus what is moving in the Sunshine State legislative session.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right, it's third hour of the Morning Show with
Preston Scott. It's Monday, April fourteenth. Great to be with
you this morning. I am Preston. He is Jose and
this is sal Nuzo from Consumer's Defense. And I mentioned
earlier taking the vows this week. Congratulations, Yes, indeed he did,
Thank you very much. So this is our final blow
(00:23):
at the legislative session until it's done and we do
the recap in the second week of May. So let's
just start out here with the governor. And really there's
drama swirling and it seems to be coming strictly from
the House of Reps.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah. In the midst of all that the governor is
trying to do navigating the session, he's also now dealing
with some drama related to one of his signature initiatives,
in the first lady signature initiative, Hope Florida. And so
it's kind of, I would suggest, casting a little bit
of a cloud over his ability to kind of try
(01:03):
to get his priorities through. Sure, but first let's kind
of table set on what Hope Florida is launched in
twenty twenty one. It was an initiative kind of set
up by the First Lady to help get Floridians connected
to non government programs that are designed to move people
out of poverty. So kind of a one stop shop
(01:27):
to say, yes, you can go to get unemployment benefits
and all of these other things that are government related,
but we also want to connect you with nonprofits and
church communities and things like that, and we want to
be able to do it in a way that's easily navigable.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's a brilliant idea. I recognized it as a brilliant
idea when I first learned of it, because that's the
biggest obstacle that people have is where do I go
to get help?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And not only that, it's one of the few items
designed by a government or a government instrument to actually
move people off of government assistance. It's it's you don't
see this normally, especially not at the federal level. So
and to their credit, they've helped tens of thousands of
Floridians to date, just in the first three four years
(02:17):
of operation. It does not have any statutory consistency to it,
So if Florida's next governor, whoever that might be, didn't
want to continue it, it would just go away. It's
got no statutory authority to it, no lasting power in law.
If it wants to be ongoing, then it needs to
be codified in statute and then they can go through
(02:38):
the traditional appropriations, regulatory mechanisms and such, and it could
be spun off as a traditional nonprofit that doesn't deal
with a government, if that's a direction that they wanted
to do, and so the governor is pursuing having it codified.
You've got HB thirteen twenty seven, SB eleven forty four.
(02:59):
They are moving, but very very slowly. Now you've got
the background of all of the drama between mainly right
now the House and the Governor's office. Reporters from a
couple of different out outlets reported the program received potentially
an infusion of money that may have been the result
(03:20):
of a settlement payment that was between a company that
did business with a state agency and they had to
pay a penalty or something like that, and there may
have been a portion of that was that was line
item for Hope, Florida. The House has taken an interest
in that and run with it. There's now been some
(03:41):
national stories. You even had Matt Gates in his One
America news program talking about it, and so it's kind
of going back and forth. But then a really interesting
exchange on X Rep. Michelle Saltzman said something about this
and I can't remember what. And then Joel Rudman, who
(04:03):
had been a state Rep but then resigned to run
for the CD one race, he replied to the post saying,
you and I were in that private meeting on November
nineteenth with leadership when they talked about they were going
to attack the governor, and so all of this posturing
a lot of fireworks. You even had the House Speaker
(04:27):
talk about the potential for subpoenas over the weekend or
on Friday, and it's really just casting a cloud over
this entire legislative session. And you know, the thing that
I keep coming to in this is how much good
work is not getting done because of all of this
(04:48):
back and forth. And as we've mentioned in prior weeks,
this is how you lose majorities, this is how you
really sour voters on what you're accomplishments are. And it's
just sad at this point.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Mackrosalnuzzo of Consumers Defense, the legislative session week six, we're
three quarters of the way through and really anything that's
going to be done is on the radar at this point, right.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, we really won't seem much in the way of
surprises where we didn't even know something was an issue.
Now there certainly can be some surprises in the sense
of we thought this bill was dead and all of
a sudden it's resurrected. But that's a separate topic.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Let's get to the tax proposals because they are generating
a lion's share of the interest from the general public,
because they touch the general public. Everybody in the state
is going to be touched by this in one way,
shape or form, you got it.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And there are very different proposals. And again I want
to point to the gold nugget in all of this,
which is we are arguing and debating who whose tax
cut is better. And that's something. Yeah, that's great. But
so you've got the House of Representatives, which their proposal
is to lower the base rate on sales tax from
(06:12):
six percent to five point two five percent, roughly a
five billion dollar if you know, using their math and
physical analysis, cut to the sales tax revenue. And then
you've got which actually came before the Governor's proposal which
started early in the year, which was to completely eliminate
(06:32):
property taxes. Now that is a much bigger lift because
it requires a constitutional amendment. It also impacts local governments
in a way that the sales tax rate does not,
and there's just a whole lot of more moving parts
to that.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I want to add something though, if they go ahead
with the sales tax reduction, that all but eliminates any
chance of ever doing the property tax elimination.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I'm trying to never say never, but it would be
a monumental lift to try and do property tax reform
on top of that, on top of that at the
level at least which the governor is requesting.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And the property tax thing has been an issue for
me since I started this program twenty three years ago,
because I've been advocating that you never own your own home.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Which is exactly what the governor has been saying as
he has marketed this proposal. And he's also as a
last when he was in his twenties apparently, so yeah,
he's a young guy, right, That's sad. He was in
his twenties when I was saying this.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Ouch.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, hitting fifty now hits harder, Yes, it does, so
you've also got now the other chamber, which has got
a way in and they've waited until recently, and just
this past week the Senate President finally weighed in. And
their proposal is he's trying to be Solomon and slice them,
not slice the half, but you never know. So they
(08:01):
want to completely eliminate im perpetuity the sales tax for clothing,
which is a big hit, and so that would be
something rather than a base rate reduction across the board,
just make it such that any clothing you buy in
the state is not subject to the sales tax, and then.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
If it's valued, it's seventy five dollars or less.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, something like that. So it's silly they're trying to
figure out the window within the fiscal to make it work.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Shoes and clothing seventy five or less, So it's a
sales tax holiday for two items.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, or you just keep going back in and I
don't like it. I digress. Then you've got another part
where he is suggesting that he wants to do a
big property tax cut. But in order to do that,
we really got to get our arms around how the
constitutional amendment I completely agree with logistically, look and so
(08:57):
he's trying to put into the proposal. All Right, the
auditor General or a pago or somebody is gonna do
a study. We'll figure it out and then put that
in the twenty twenty six legislative session priorities to get
on the ballot on the twenty twenty six election.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I like that plan the best because I as much
as I love the tax proposal for removing property tax,
I do think it needs more time to work through
all of the different issues.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I'm probably there with you. I've also got some concerns
about the base rate reduction with respect to tourism subsidiz
an let them let them pay.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
They use our roads, they use.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Our infrastructure, which is exactly what the governor and others
are saying to absolute with that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Twenty one, twenty two minutes past, Salnuzo with me from
j Am I no more he is. He's with Consumer's
Defense and we're talking about the legislative session, and we
were just the budget. It's what they have to get done.
Everyone's submitted their budgets, so now we wait and see.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Right, yeah, and we're kind of in the middle of
this process and there's more to unfold at the front
part of this week. So a couple of things I
thought to highlight that would be helpful. One is in
the healthcare arena. So you've got some reports that have
come out about some of the cutting. And to bring
it back to the macro, the House budget is coming
(10:25):
in at about one hundred and thirteen billion, the Senate
at about one hundred and seventeen or thereabouts, which are
actual cuts in the size of state government. And so
where you cut is important, and we've talked about this
in prior segments, wanting to make sure that the pendulum
doesn't swing so far that we're doing damage we shouldn't
(10:47):
be doing right. So, the House budget proposal does implement
some changes to what's called the Ease Grant Ease, which
is it helps state students in state students pay to
win at qualified independent nonprofit colleges and universities. It's been
a very successful program. If those changes do go through
(11:11):
in the final package, you would see you know, anywhere
from you know, eighteen to twenty two thousand students at
a couple of dozen Florida universities lose access to that.
And I think the acronym is effective access to student education.
And when you have the ability to use that money
(11:34):
for tuition, and we've been targeting trying to plug shortages
in nursing and in other healthcare areas where technical and
trade schools can and vocational education could be brought to bear,
and those scholarships have an impact on that. That's one
where I'm beginning to pay attention to this, And I
(11:56):
don't want to sound like a big government lefty, but
I still come back to the fact that you know,
Florida has the leanest state operation in the United States,
and if we're gonna do damage, it's going to look
like things like this, And so it's just a it's
a cause for a little bit of concerns. Tuition will
(12:17):
go up, well, tuition will go up, or students won't
be able to they'll have to withdraw. And those are
the types of residual impacts that I wonder about. And
so it's these.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Which side of that equation is it on House or Senate?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
That's on the House proposal. On the correction side, I
took a look at their overall budget in the House proposal, which,
after sifting through every line item of one hundred sum
pages six point eight billion dollars. It's a five percent
bump over the current year, and the current year is
a nine percent bump over the prior year.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But what I'm trying to dive in more on, and
it's just going to take me a little time because
a lot of numbers is the staffing figures. Last week,
there was a post that I saw from Senator Jen
Bradley and she was referencing always protecting correctional officers and
it was in a context of something related to budgeting.
(13:16):
Now I wondered about that. I looked back, I saw
a piece from February where correction Doc Secretary Ricky Dixon,
he was presenting in a precession hearing about his budget,
and he was talking about the excessive overtime spending that's
been required because they don't have the staffing to staff
(13:38):
at the appropriate formulas.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
We had eight thousand more inmates and they've got the
same staff and that doesn't work exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So he's having to pay overtime and that costs money.
And so I think as the budget process unfold, you're
going to see a little bit more light shed on
this particular thing. And that's something that I'm paying more
attention to I expect a lot more movement, especially early
this week, is all of those committees, subcommittees begin moving
(14:04):
their silos through right now. It's it's just there's not
a whole lot more of god on that.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
George Rodanoti said, any update on schools and phones?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, the school the ban on school cell phone use,
which is House Bill nine nine from Demi Basada, it's
still moving. It is moved through all of its committees favorably.
It's ready for the House floor. The question at hand is,
and I got to investigate this maybe on one of
the breaks I can find out is does that companion
(14:34):
bill in the Senate, which is just a pilot project.
What I need to find out is has that been amended?
Are they looking to replace the Senate version with Demi's
version in the House side and.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Just move that they have been experimenting with it. They have,
there's a couple of school districts, Orange Counties one of them.
There is another one down to South Florida that also
has it and favorably. Yeah, and it's been reporting favorably
on the impacts of it. So I can look that
up and we'll find out for there. Yeah, and it's
important for me to note Orange County is a very
liberal area, and the fact that they embraced this and
(15:06):
said it's worked wonderfully to improve student performance and reduced
discipline issues is noteworthy. Salnuzo with me thirty five minutes
past the hour, final couple of segments here, and we're
talking about now some bills of notes, some things that
we've probably mentioned and talked about, just kind of an
update were things.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, over the last couple of weeks, we've gone through
deep dives, and so I wanted to kind of scale
back for a little bit and give you a rundown
of some stuff that we walk through.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Can pass.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So HB fifteen seventeen, it did pass the full House.
It allows for wrongful death lawsuits for fetus death, so
an unborn child's own mother could not be subject to
those lawsuits, nor would the medical providers giving lawful medical
care such as IVF and other reproductive treatments. The sponsor,
(15:58):
Sam Greco, said wrongful deaths must involve negligence, breach a contract,
and other factors at play for the law to apply.
The Senate companions also moving, there's only one stop left
for that. You've got Senate Bill seventy thirty the school
Choice program. It's through appropriations, it's onto the full Senate.
What they're doing is some tweaks to the programmatic elements
(16:19):
of it and kind of the back end of it
to make it easier for parents, some timelines on disbursements,
accountability on the state end for getting funds to parents,
as well as requiring and this is a good one,
requires the Auditor General to conduct an annual audit of
any organization that's involved in the money disbursement, what they
(16:40):
call the scholarship financing or funding organizations. Senate Bill one
eighty four Housing. It would allow people to put up
accessory dwelling units on their property. So if you want
to build a poolhouse that you can rent out or
something like that, a small extension of your property, this
bill would pre the local government in your area from
(17:02):
restricting that so that you couldn't do that. So what
about an HOA A good question. I would need to
find out on that. My guess is that Hoa's might
be exempt from that, but I am not certain. I
need to look at the bill language there. Senate Bill
thirteen hundred HB eleven forty three it's moving without any opposition.
Requires the Department of Environmental Production to conduct what's they're
(17:25):
calling a balancing test before graining a permit for oil
and gas activities in areas within one mile of the
coast or other bodies of water. Local Bill Corey Simon,
Allison Tant and Jason Show for all the sponsors of it.
And it relates to that what color springs.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I was just going to say that that's got what
colors springs all over it.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
HB five forty one minimum wage exemptions. It's ready for
the House floor after favorable Commerce Committee hearing. The Senate
version is moving into the Rules Committee for its final stop.
The employer and the employee have to agree to the
reduced wage and it's likened to an in internship or
training wage. HB nine fifty five one you're paying attention
(18:05):
to from Rep. Jakas closes one of the everify loopholes. However,
I got to point out three bills in the Senate.
None have been placed on any agenda. It's just one
of those ones where when we go through what's what
they should have done but didn't, this will be on there.
Six seventy nine term limits for county elected officials. It's
(18:26):
on the House floor. The Senate companion has cleared one committee,
so they can take up the House version they're identical,
and move that through four thirty eight. On the Senate side,
regulation of the hemp industry at pass the full Senate.
This is there are companies in businesses in town where
you can buy products that are They don't claim to
(18:47):
be THHC, but they actually are. It's a derivative. It's
a bill that passed the full legislature last year. The
governor vetoed it. There were some considerations related to the
election and the amendments. This is basically the same bill,
and it would hit those businesses very very hard.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
A couple that your viewers.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Had asked about, especially my listeners listeners not viewers.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, we got those. I got a voice for radio
or I got a face for radio. HB seventy five.
The Flag Bill, the Senate version was withdrawn from consideration
a couple of weeks back, so that's dead. Senate Bill
eleven thirty two, the Consumer's Right to Repair It made
it through its final stop. But interestingly enough, my old
home JMI they testified in opposition to this bill, claiming
(19:36):
that there are market based opportunities out there for people
who own John Deere's to get them fixed, and there's
enough out there that the government doesn't need to regulated.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
May I asked the flag bill that was about flags
being made in America?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
No, No, it was the Flag bill was the display
display of YA flags, the display of other flags, gotcha
government facilities. So that's you've got the The other one is
in the transportation bill from Nick de seglely Sente Bill
four sixty two. The speed limit increases in there. It
is pardon the pun, moving ahead fast, and I am
(20:12):
excited because I have a heavy foot.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Forty two past the hour, final segment with Sal Newzo
of Consumers Defense, bring it in for a landing here.
Senate Bill eight forty six is interesting. Yeah, and one
of your listeners had pointed it out. I think it
was in the What's the Beef on Friday? So I
took a look at it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So apparently there's this trend growing where if you are
a notary public and you advertise your services in a
language other than English and think, you know, make the
connection maybe to immigrants when you translate the words notary
public into Spanish. It could very well be construed as
advertising that you are an attorney. So eight forty six
(20:55):
this bill would correct it by requiring notaries who are
advertising to either avoid using certain Spanish words in their
ads or to declare on your ad that you are
not an attorney. So interesting bill. It had not been
on my radar until I heard it, heard the individual mention.
(21:15):
It looked into it and I was like, oh, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Is it too much to ask for people that are
in this country to speak the language?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Apparently?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It is? Okay?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
All right? Now one I've been wanting to dive into
because we're in the last segment and it's my last
one before the inter session. It is in the alcohol arena,
and this is one it's been a personal passion project
of mine for many many years.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
That means he's a boozer. Yes, it does, no.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
HB. Four ninety nine. It's moving. It's a House priority.
It may come up in the Senate, but not sure.
Now I know you don't partake, but I'm going to
take a leap of educated faith and say many of
your listening audience do. Probably, So okay, it's a regulatory
we drive them to it. I know more than a
few that I do. All right, micro breweries defined as
(22:05):
under thirty gallons thirty thousand gallons per year, it would
allow them to self distribute. Now, to give you an
idea scale, proof brewing brewery on South Monroe they do
thirty thousand barrels a year, which is a little under
one million gallons. So we're talking small individual you know, garage,
(22:27):
really small. They're trying to get into the business of
building a small brewery. More than you can produce in
your garage. Trying to build something a distributor contract is
a huge hurdle to growing. So this dates back actually
to the abolition of prohibition. The federal government pushed all
(22:47):
alcohol regulation to the states. The first regulation that came
about with something called the three tier system. Florida has
it on the books, but in a very weird way.
You have manufacturers, distributors in retailer retailers. Under this system,
you can only have a license for one of those.
You can be a manufacturer, but you can't sell it.
(23:09):
You can be a distributor, but you can't make it,
and so forth. So if you are paying attention, you
would then likely say, well, you just mentioned Proof brewery.
They make beer and they sell it on their premises. Well,
there has been this thing called the tourism exemption. And
(23:29):
if you can cast your mind back decades to a
beer manufacturer that wanted to open a theme park in
maybe the Tampa area, and they wanted to sell their
own beer at their theme park, but they couldn't because
of the three tier systems. So they lobbied the legislature,
(23:50):
which is what you do when you have a lot
of money, and they got a carve out an exemption.
And so now we have Bush Gardens in Tampa, which
sells bush beer. So since then, any small brewery that
wants to sell their own beer at their brewery has
to apply for this tourism exemption. Now there are interest
(24:14):
groups in the state that would want to keep it
that way. If you are a distributor, you like the
distribution system, but it's antithetical to the free market, and
so the micro Brewery Bill four ninety nine would kind
of nip it that a little bit. It really should
get some more momentum because I would love to see
(24:34):
the three tier system go completely away. It has no
place in a free market economy. And so that's all
I have to say about that. The three tier system
actually mimics the old school and still in some areas
and in some quote industries, the protection rack it is
(24:55):
it is, and there are elements of the law where
if you want, once you sign a distributor contract with
a distributor, you can never get out of it. It's
what's called a perpetuity, which should be illegal, but it's not.
There's all kinds of little caveats to this that make it.
Once you dive into it, you get more and more
(25:15):
hypertension and so which causes you to which makes me drink.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
So there you have it, Thanks buddy, Always a pleasure
to be with you. Sound News will be back with
us in May as we wrap up the legislative session.
Between now and then, he'll get married and stuff like that.
So forty seven past the hour,
All right, it's third hour of the Morning Show with
Preston Scott. It's Monday, April fourteenth. Great to be with
you this morning. I am Preston. He is Jose and
this is sal Nuzo from Consumer's Defense. And I mentioned
earlier taking the vows this week. Congratulations, Yes, indeed he did,
Thank you very much. So this is our final blow
(00:23):
at the legislative session until it's done and we do
the recap in the second week of May. So let's
just start out here with the governor. And really there's
drama swirling and it seems to be coming strictly from
the House of Reps.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah. In the midst of all that the governor is
trying to do navigating the session, he's also now dealing
with some drama related to one of his signature initiatives,
in the first lady signature initiative, Hope Florida. And so
it's kind of, I would suggest, casting a little bit
of a cloud over his ability to kind of try
(01:03):
to get his priorities through. Sure, but first let's kind
of table set on what Hope Florida is launched in
twenty twenty one. It was an initiative kind of set
up by the First Lady to help get Floridians connected
to non government programs that are designed to move people
out of poverty. So kind of a one stop shop
(01:27):
to say, yes, you can go to get unemployment benefits
and all of these other things that are government related,
but we also want to connect you with nonprofits and
church communities and things like that, and we want to
be able to do it in a way that's easily navigable.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's a brilliant idea. I recognized it as a brilliant
idea when I first learned of it, because that's the
biggest obstacle that people have is where do I go
to get help?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And not only that, it's one of the few items
designed by a government or a government instrument to actually
move people off of government assistance. It's it's you don't
see this normally, especially not at the federal level. So
and to their credit, they've helped tens of thousands of
Floridians to date, just in the first three four years
(02:17):
of operation. It does not have any statutory consistency to it,
So if Florida's next governor, whoever that might be, didn't
want to continue it, it would just go away. It's
got no statutory authority to it, no lasting power in law.
If it wants to be ongoing, then it needs to
be codified in statute and then they can go through
(02:38):
the traditional appropriations, regulatory mechanisms and such, and it could
be spun off as a traditional nonprofit that doesn't deal
with a government, if that's a direction that they wanted
to do, and so the governor is pursuing having it codified.
You've got HB thirteen twenty seven, SB eleven forty four.
(02:59):
They are moving, but very very slowly. Now you've got
the background of all of the drama between mainly right
now the House and the Governor's office. Reporters from a
couple of different out outlets reported the program received potentially
an infusion of money that may have been the result
(03:20):
of a settlement payment that was between a company that
did business with a state agency and they had to
pay a penalty or something like that, and there may
have been a portion of that was that was line
item for Hope, Florida. The House has taken an interest
in that and run with it. There's now been some
(03:41):
national stories. You even had Matt Gates in his One
America news program talking about it, and so it's kind
of going back and forth. But then a really interesting
exchange on X Rep. Michelle Saltzman said something about this
and I can't remember what. And then Joel Rudman, who
(04:03):
had been a state Rep but then resigned to run
for the CD one race, he replied to the post saying,
you and I were in that private meeting on November
nineteenth with leadership when they talked about they were going
to attack the governor, and so all of this posturing
a lot of fireworks. You even had the House Speaker
(04:27):
talk about the potential for subpoenas over the weekend or
on Friday, and it's really just casting a cloud over
this entire legislative session. And you know, the thing that
I keep coming to in this is how much good
work is not getting done because of all of this
(04:48):
back and forth. And as we've mentioned in prior weeks,
this is how you lose majorities, this is how you
really sour voters on what you're accomplishments are. And it's
just sad at this point.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Mackrosalnuzzo of Consumers Defense, the legislative session week six, we're
three quarters of the way through and really anything that's
going to be done is on the radar at this point, right.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, we really won't seem much in the way of
surprises where we didn't even know something was an issue.
Now there certainly can be some surprises in the sense
of we thought this bill was dead and all of
a sudden it's resurrected. But that's a separate topic.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Let's get to the tax proposals because they are generating
a lion's share of the interest from the general public,
because they touch the general public. Everybody in the state
is going to be touched by this in one way,
shape or form, you got it.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And there are very different proposals. And again I want
to point to the gold nugget in all of this,
which is we are arguing and debating who whose tax
cut is better. And that's something. Yeah, that's great. But
so you've got the House of Representatives, which their proposal
is to lower the base rate on sales tax from
(06:12):
six percent to five point two five percent, roughly a
five billion dollar if you know, using their math and
physical analysis, cut to the sales tax revenue. And then
you've got which actually came before the Governor's proposal which
started early in the year, which was to completely eliminate
(06:32):
property taxes. Now that is a much bigger lift because
it requires a constitutional amendment. It also impacts local governments
in a way that the sales tax rate does not,
and there's just a whole lot of more moving parts
to that.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I want to add something though, if they go ahead
with the sales tax reduction, that all but eliminates any
chance of ever doing the property tax elimination.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I'm trying to never say never, but it would be
a monumental lift to try and do property tax reform
on top of that, on top of that at the
level at least which the governor is requesting.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And the property tax thing has been an issue for
me since I started this program twenty three years ago,
because I've been advocating that you never own your own home.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Which is exactly what the governor has been saying as
he has marketed this proposal. And he's also as a
last when he was in his twenties apparently, so yeah,
he's a young guy, right, That's sad. He was in
his twenties when I was saying this.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Ouch.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, hitting fifty now hits harder, Yes, it does, so
you've also got now the other chamber, which has got
a way in and they've waited until recently, and just
this past week the Senate President finally weighed in. And
their proposal is he's trying to be Solomon and slice them,
not slice the half, but you never know. So they
(08:01):
want to completely eliminate im perpetuity the sales tax for clothing,
which is a big hit, and so that would be
something rather than a base rate reduction across the board,
just make it such that any clothing you buy in
the state is not subject to the sales tax, and then.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
If it's valued, it's seventy five dollars or less.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, something like that. So it's silly they're trying to
figure out the window within the fiscal to make it work.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Shoes and clothing seventy five or less, So it's a
sales tax holiday for two items.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, or you just keep going back in and I
don't like it. I digress. Then you've got another part
where he is suggesting that he wants to do a
big property tax cut. But in order to do that,
we really got to get our arms around how the
constitutional amendment I completely agree with logistically, look and so
(08:57):
he's trying to put into the proposal. All Right, the
auditor General or a pago or somebody is gonna do
a study. We'll figure it out and then put that
in the twenty twenty six legislative session priorities to get
on the ballot on the twenty twenty six election.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I like that plan the best because I as much
as I love the tax proposal for removing property tax,
I do think it needs more time to work through
all of the different issues.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I'm probably there with you. I've also got some concerns
about the base rate reduction with respect to tourism subsidiz
an let them let them pay.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
They use our roads, they use.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Our infrastructure, which is exactly what the governor and others
are saying to absolute with that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Twenty one, twenty two minutes past, Salnuzo with me from
j Am I no more he is. He's with Consumer's
Defense and we're talking about the legislative session, and we
were just the budget. It's what they have to get done.
Everyone's submitted their budgets, so now we wait and see.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Right, yeah, and we're kind of in the middle of
this process and there's more to unfold at the front
part of this week. So a couple of things I
thought to highlight that would be helpful. One is in
the healthcare arena. So you've got some reports that have
come out about some of the cutting. And to bring
it back to the macro, the House budget is coming
(10:25):
in at about one hundred and thirteen billion, the Senate
at about one hundred and seventeen or thereabouts, which are
actual cuts in the size of state government. And so
where you cut is important, and we've talked about this
in prior segments, wanting to make sure that the pendulum
doesn't swing so far that we're doing damage we shouldn't
(10:47):
be doing right. So, the House budget proposal does implement
some changes to what's called the Ease Grant Ease, which
is it helps state students in state students pay to
win at qualified independent nonprofit colleges and universities. It's been
a very successful program. If those changes do go through
(11:11):
in the final package, you would see you know, anywhere
from you know, eighteen to twenty two thousand students at
a couple of dozen Florida universities lose access to that.
And I think the acronym is effective access to student education.
And when you have the ability to use that money
(11:34):
for tuition, and we've been targeting trying to plug shortages
in nursing and in other healthcare areas where technical and
trade schools can and vocational education could be brought to bear,
and those scholarships have an impact on that. That's one
where I'm beginning to pay attention to this, And I
(11:56):
don't want to sound like a big government lefty, but
I still come back to the fact that you know,
Florida has the leanest state operation in the United States,
and if we're gonna do damage, it's going to look
like things like this, And so it's just a it's
a cause for a little bit of concerns. Tuition will
(12:17):
go up, well, tuition will go up, or students won't
be able to they'll have to withdraw. And those are
the types of residual impacts that I wonder about. And
so it's these.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Which side of that equation is it on House or Senate?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
That's on the House proposal. On the correction side, I
took a look at their overall budget in the House proposal, which,
after sifting through every line item of one hundred sum
pages six point eight billion dollars. It's a five percent
bump over the current year, and the current year is
a nine percent bump over the prior year.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But what I'm trying to dive in more on, and
it's just going to take me a little time because
a lot of numbers is the staffing figures. Last week,
there was a post that I saw from Senator Jen
Bradley and she was referencing always protecting correctional officers and
it was in a context of something related to budgeting.
(13:16):
Now I wondered about that. I looked back, I saw
a piece from February where correction Doc Secretary Ricky Dixon,
he was presenting in a precession hearing about his budget,
and he was talking about the excessive overtime spending that's
been required because they don't have the staffing to staff
(13:38):
at the appropriate formulas.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
We had eight thousand more inmates and they've got the
same staff and that doesn't work exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So he's having to pay overtime and that costs money.
And so I think as the budget process unfold, you're
going to see a little bit more light shed on
this particular thing. And that's something that I'm paying more
attention to I expect a lot more movement, especially early
this week, is all of those committees, subcommittees begin moving
(14:04):
their silos through right now. It's it's just there's not
a whole lot more of god on that.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
George Rodanoti said, any update on schools and phones?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, the school the ban on school cell phone use,
which is House Bill nine nine from Demi Basada, it's
still moving. It is moved through all of its committees favorably.
It's ready for the House floor. The question at hand is,
and I got to investigate this maybe on one of
the breaks I can find out is does that companion
(14:34):
bill in the Senate, which is just a pilot project.
What I need to find out is has that been amended?
Are they looking to replace the Senate version with Demi's
version in the House side and.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Just move that they have been experimenting with it. They have,
there's a couple of school districts, Orange Counties one of them.
There is another one down to South Florida that also
has it and favorably. Yeah, and it's been reporting favorably
on the impacts of it. So I can look that
up and we'll find out for there. Yeah, and it's
important for me to note Orange County is a very
liberal area, and the fact that they embraced this and
(15:06):
said it's worked wonderfully to improve student performance and reduced
discipline issues is noteworthy. Salnuzo with me thirty five minutes
past the hour, final couple of segments here, and we're
talking about now some bills of notes, some things that
we've probably mentioned and talked about, just kind of an
update were things.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, over the last couple of weeks, we've gone through
deep dives, and so I wanted to kind of scale
back for a little bit and give you a rundown
of some stuff that we walk through.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Can pass.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So HB fifteen seventeen, it did pass the full House.
It allows for wrongful death lawsuits for fetus death, so
an unborn child's own mother could not be subject to
those lawsuits, nor would the medical providers giving lawful medical
care such as IVF and other reproductive treatments. The sponsor,
(15:58):
Sam Greco, said wrongful deaths must involve negligence, breach a contract,
and other factors at play for the law to apply.
The Senate companions also moving, there's only one stop left
for that. You've got Senate Bill seventy thirty the school
Choice program. It's through appropriations, it's onto the full Senate.
What they're doing is some tweaks to the programmatic elements
(16:19):
of it and kind of the back end of it
to make it easier for parents, some timelines on disbursements,
accountability on the state end for getting funds to parents,
as well as requiring and this is a good one,
requires the Auditor General to conduct an annual audit of
any organization that's involved in the money disbursement, what they
(16:40):
call the scholarship financing or funding organizations. Senate Bill one
eighty four Housing. It would allow people to put up
accessory dwelling units on their property. So if you want
to build a poolhouse that you can rent out or
something like that, a small extension of your property, this
bill would pre the local government in your area from
(17:02):
restricting that so that you couldn't do that. So what
about an HOA A good question. I would need to
find out on that. My guess is that Hoa's might
be exempt from that, but I am not certain. I
need to look at the bill language there. Senate Bill
thirteen hundred HB eleven forty three it's moving without any opposition.
Requires the Department of Environmental Production to conduct what's they're
(17:25):
calling a balancing test before graining a permit for oil
and gas activities in areas within one mile of the
coast or other bodies of water. Local Bill Corey Simon,
Allison Tant and Jason Show for all the sponsors of it.
And it relates to that what color springs.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I was just going to say that that's got what
colors springs all over it.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
HB five forty one minimum wage exemptions. It's ready for
the House floor after favorable Commerce Committee hearing. The Senate
version is moving into the Rules Committee for its final stop.
The employer and the employee have to agree to the
reduced wage and it's likened to an in internship or
training wage. HB nine fifty five one you're paying attention
(18:05):
to from Rep. Jakas closes one of the everify loopholes. However,
I got to point out three bills in the Senate.
None have been placed on any agenda. It's just one
of those ones where when we go through what's what
they should have done but didn't, this will be on there.
Six seventy nine term limits for county elected officials. It's
(18:26):
on the House floor. The Senate companion has cleared one committee,
so they can take up the House version they're identical,
and move that through four thirty eight. On the Senate side,
regulation of the hemp industry at pass the full Senate.
This is there are companies in businesses in town where
you can buy products that are They don't claim to
(18:47):
be THHC, but they actually are. It's a derivative. It's
a bill that passed the full legislature last year. The
governor vetoed it. There were some considerations related to the
election and the amendments. This is basically the same bill,
and it would hit those businesses very very hard.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
A couple that your viewers.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Had asked about, especially my listeners listeners not viewers.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, we got those. I got a voice for radio
or I got a face for radio. HB seventy five.
The Flag Bill, the Senate version was withdrawn from consideration
a couple of weeks back, so that's dead. Senate Bill
eleven thirty two, the Consumer's Right to Repair It made
it through its final stop. But interestingly enough, my old
home JMI they testified in opposition to this bill, claiming
(19:36):
that there are market based opportunities out there for people
who own John Deere's to get them fixed, and there's
enough out there that the government doesn't need to regulated.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
May I asked the flag bill that was about flags
being made in America?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
No, No, it was the Flag bill was the display
display of YA flags, the display of other flags, gotcha
government facilities. So that's you've got the The other one is
in the transportation bill from Nick de seglely Sente Bill
four sixty two. The speed limit increases in there. It
is pardon the pun, moving ahead fast, and I am
(20:12):
excited because I have a heavy foot.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Forty two past the hour, final segment with Sal Newzo
of Consumers Defense, bring it in for a landing here.
Senate Bill eight forty six is interesting. Yeah, and one
of your listeners had pointed it out. I think it
was in the What's the Beef on Friday? So I
took a look at it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So apparently there's this trend growing where if you are
a notary public and you advertise your services in a
language other than English and think, you know, make the
connection maybe to immigrants when you translate the words notary
public into Spanish. It could very well be construed as
advertising that you are an attorney. So eight forty six
(20:55):
this bill would correct it by requiring notaries who are
advertising to either avoid using certain Spanish words in their
ads or to declare on your ad that you are
not an attorney. So interesting bill. It had not been
on my radar until I heard it, heard the individual mention.
(21:15):
It looked into it and I was like, oh, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Is it too much to ask for people that are
in this country to speak the language?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Apparently?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It is? Okay?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
All right? Now one I've been wanting to dive into
because we're in the last segment and it's my last
one before the inter session. It is in the alcohol arena,
and this is one it's been a personal passion project
of mine for many many years.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
That means he's a boozer. Yes, it does, no.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
HB. Four ninety nine. It's moving. It's a House priority.
It may come up in the Senate, but not sure.
Now I know you don't partake, but I'm going to
take a leap of educated faith and say many of
your listening audience do. Probably, So okay, it's a regulatory
we drive them to it. I know more than a
few that I do. All right, micro breweries defined as
(22:05):
under thirty gallons thirty thousand gallons per year, it would
allow them to self distribute. Now, to give you an
idea scale, proof brewing brewery on South Monroe they do
thirty thousand barrels a year, which is a little under
one million gallons. So we're talking small individual you know, garage,
(22:27):
really small. They're trying to get into the business of
building a small brewery. More than you can produce in
your garage. Trying to build something a distributor contract is
a huge hurdle to growing. So this dates back actually
to the abolition of prohibition. The federal government pushed all
(22:47):
alcohol regulation to the states. The first regulation that came
about with something called the three tier system. Florida has
it on the books, but in a very weird way.
You have manufacturers, distributors in retailer retailers. Under this system,
you can only have a license for one of those.
You can be a manufacturer, but you can't sell it.
(23:09):
You can be a distributor, but you can't make it,
and so forth. So if you are paying attention, you
would then likely say, well, you just mentioned Proof brewery.
They make beer and they sell it on their premises. Well,
there has been this thing called the tourism exemption. And
(23:29):
if you can cast your mind back decades to a
beer manufacturer that wanted to open a theme park in
maybe the Tampa area, and they wanted to sell their
own beer at their theme park, but they couldn't because
of the three tier systems. So they lobbied the legislature,
(23:50):
which is what you do when you have a lot
of money, and they got a carve out an exemption.
And so now we have Bush Gardens in Tampa, which
sells bush beer. So since then, any small brewery that
wants to sell their own beer at their brewery has
to apply for this tourism exemption. Now there are interest
(24:14):
groups in the state that would want to keep it
that way. If you are a distributor, you like the
distribution system, but it's antithetical to the free market, and
so the micro Brewery Bill four ninety nine would kind
of nip it that a little bit. It really should
get some more momentum because I would love to see
(24:34):
the three tier system go completely away. It has no
place in a free market economy. And so that's all
I have to say about that. The three tier system
actually mimics the old school and still in some areas
and in some quote industries, the protection rack it is
(24:55):
it is, and there are elements of the law where
if you want, once you sign a distributor contract with
a distributor, you can never get out of it. It's
what's called a perpetuity, which should be illegal, but it's not.
There's all kinds of little caveats to this that make it.
Once you dive into it, you get more and more
(25:15):
hypertension and so which causes you to which makes me drink.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
So there you have it, Thanks buddy, Always a pleasure
to be with you. Sound News will be back with
us in May as we wrap up the legislative session.
Between now and then, he'll get married and stuff like that.
So forty seven past the hour,
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