Daniel TilsonIf you were among the most wealthy, privileged and politically powerful business people in Florida, and you prioritized limitless monetary gain over and above social responsibility to the state you called home; what would be the most troublesome obstacles in your path?
Taxation would have to be “Private Enemy No. 1.”
Paying personal income or estate taxes that shared even a sliver of your wealth with the rest of the state, or paying your full fair share of corporate income taxes, those would be impediments to unrestrained growth and protection of your fortune.
Regulations, all those doggone financial, zoning, environmental and other rules and regulations, they could also cause bumps on the road to unfettered wealth accumulation.
If pressed, you’d have to admit that even if Florida instituted modest new income and estate taxes on millionaires, cracked down on corporate tax evasion, and rigidly enforced regulations, your business and family would still remain super-rich.
And since you’re smart enough to have become so successful, you must know Florida would then be a much safer, more socially and economically stable place to live, work and do business, for all residents, at all income levels.
But forget about all that. If you didn’t believe the “rising tide lifts all boats” theory in the first place, or just didn’t want your money making the waves, why admit to anything?
The truth would be another very big obstacle.
But you could devote plenty of dough to casting deep public doubt about what the truth is.
You could pay pundits and politicians to convince millions of middle-class folks that taxes and regulations are somehow obstacles for all of us, rather than the great socioeconomic equalizers they have historically been in America, back when the middle class was thriving, and growing.
That’s when the idea of a fair price tag on great wealth was widely accepted; an understanding that because working poor and middle-class people were so central in creating and maintaining the kinds of societal infrastructure that allowed the wealthy to get that way, the only socially responsible thing for the richest folks and businesses to do was to give more back in taxes, helping offset the costs of public education, public health, and so much more.
But no worries, for in today’s Florida, you’d have an easy time getting common-sense historical fact like that trash-talked down as “redistribution of wealth” and of course, “socialism.”
If anybody raises a question about redistribution of taxpayers’ billions into corporate welfare, you can have your seconds in media and government call it a liberal attack on “job creators”… even though the jobs being created in Florida these days mostly stink.
Or hell … you might just want to take a break from the private sector and run for elected office yourself, get a grip on the wheel of government, navigate around or run right over any obstacles or objections.
Why, with the millions you’ve saved by being so rich and living in a state like Florida, you could even spend a ton to run for governor.
And then, imagine all the obstacles you could overcome … for folks like you, from such humble beginnings … for Floridians who want to get rich without helping create social and economic stability in the state and society in which they live.
Welcome to The Tale Of Two Sunshine States: one a patrician’s paradise where the rich and powerful have their cake and eat it too, the other a middle-class paradise lost, where working families too often and increasingly are left scrambling and competing for crumbs.
Daniel Tilson has a Boca Raton-based communications firm called Full Cup Media, specializing in online video and written content for non-profits, political candidates and organizations, and small businesses. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
