Orlando Sentinel: "Go Halfway" on Tax Reform

The editorial board at the Orlando Sentinel sees little progress in the never-ending legislative debate over property tax cuts:

[N]egotiations between the Senate and House on two wildly different tax-cut plans have gotten nowhere. They do little to fix inequities in Florida's property-tax system, which gives longtime homeowners a big break while their new neighbors pay much more for the same services. Nor are they closer to preventing local governments from enjoying huge spikes in their budgets simply because of a run-up in property values, as Florida has seen in the past four years.

But the Sentinel takes the defensible-but-odd position that anything is better than nothing, so the Senate's package should be adopted by virtue of being the least costly approach:

It's better to slow down, adopt the Senate's more reasonable approach to tax relief and then rely on a special commission to take its time and thoughtfully study tax reform.

It's understandable that any long-term observer of state tax politics would laugh ruefully at the "let's have a tax reform commission" solution. But this might be exactly the time for such an approach. If (as currently seems to be true) both houses have dug in their feet in support of suboptimal tax-cut plans, maybe the best thing for lawmakers to do would be to go home, cool off and come back-- either after the commission has started meeting or else early this summer-- to try and cobble together something sensible. It's transparently true to this outsider's eyes that when the most obvious reform option-- a personal income tax-- is simply not on the table, everyone needs to take a deep breath, check their ideological luggage at the door and start asking questions about what it will take to make the Florida tax system sustainable.