Florida's Economic Future

from the Coalition for Property Rights

2009 will be a defining year for the State of Florida. Citizens will either reclaim Florida as a state of hope, growth and opportunity - or bear witness as the nail is driven into Florida's economic coffin.
For almost two decades, Florida's property and business owners have stood relatively silent while political and social elites have promoted tax and land use policies aimed specifically at discouraging individual industry and stifling growth.
The day the first "visioning" session was held in Florida, our state slide toward socialism began.
Property rights represent the most fundamental economic freedom we hold.
When government controls the use of real property through land use policies which give government agents full authority to determine how and when land is used, it has the ability to control the value and potential economic benefit of this property asset. The primary economic benefit of property ownership lies in its use and the ability to use property for financial benefit. Economically burdensome, land use controls are no different than government controlling the funds in your bank account.
Floridians would never tolerate government agents or committees of citizens restricting the use of our cash earnings and telling us where and when our money could be spent or invested - and yet many have stood by silently while government has slowly seized almost complete control of our largest financial assets - our land and buildings.
Floridians have only to look at the economic result of states such as California and New Hampshire where social and political elites have been successful in convincing policymakers to enact draconian land use policies and have driven the cost of land and construction beyond affordability. The State of California has teetered on the brink of bankruptcy for most of the past decade, because state and local lawmakers remain convinced regulation is the solution.
Floridians have only to look to these states, to history and to Florida's neighbor - the nation-state of Cuba - to see the economic result of centralized planning and government control over private property. Many of California's largest cities are becoming crime-ridden ghettos, because the poor have lost all hope of individual economic achievement. Most of the buildings in Cuba are barely standing, its transportation infrastructure in shambles and basic medical supplies such as aspirin and children's vitamins are luxury items.
Unless Florida citizens and policymakers act to reform Florida's land use and taxation policies, our state economy will not recover anytime soon.
It is an economic truth that both labor and capital flow toward the greatest prospect for reward. It is simply common sense.
If individuals and companies cannot derive profit from working, saving, and investing in Florida, they will not engage in these activities here. Florida's lack of an income tax and temperate climate will not sustain economic growth when we have other regulatory and tax policies actively discouraging private investment in our state.
Nationally, there are other attractive states for property investment. Internationally, there are now a number of countries which have adopted national flat taxes to stimulate their economies.
Florida can no longer compete. Our regulatory environment discourages investment and industry. Florida's six-month to six-year land use permitting process is fraught with risk for investors and carries six and seven-figure regulatory costs, which are heavy burdens attached to land use in our state. When individuals and businesses cannot easily and affordably use land, they have no incentive to build or expand businesses here.
We must also be mindful that Florida's land use policies and the promotion of centralized planning are part of a larger ideological war. Government's growth and control are most often promoted by individuals with an aetheist viewpoint and who view the control of political and social elites as a perfectly acceptable substitute for our God-given, natural right of economic self-determination.
Throughout history, utopian visioning and land controls have always resulted in shifting power to certain elites and have generally been disasterous for the common man.
Citizens who are not free to choose the use of their private property and to build basic wealth through the use of property are not a free people - their individual economic potential is constrained.
In addition to the regulatory burden impacting Florida's economy, three additional threats loom large in 2009:

* The Hometown Democracy Amendment is poised to appear on the 2010 General Election ballot and would represent a constitutional substitute of a land owners right to self-determine the use of his/her land. If passed, this measure would discourage future capital investment in our state. If Florida property and business owners do not use the opportunity in 2009 to educate the mass electorate on the economic consequences of the Hometown Democracy Amendment, the first nine months of 2010 may not provide sufficient time to do so.
* Looming LEED Mandates. While this new form of environmental regulations is currently being promoted as a "voluntary certification" , Florida property owners and businesses should not be fooled. Cities and counties across Florida are now training employees to enforce LEED mandates. If citizens do not act today and demand LEED remain voluntary, costly mandatory LEED regulations will be adopted across Florida. Once government regulation crosses into the interiors of private residences and commercial buildings - when government agents control what fixtures, furniture and interior systems private citizens can install in their homes and business, these regulations and costs will never be removed. The adoption of LEED mandates will trigger create inflation in the cost of living and cost of operating a business in Florida and further discourage private investment in our state.
* America's environmental movement is reaching its zenith. It is likely our new national chief executive and a Democratically- controlled Congress will fail to recognize property rights and the health of our national economy are inextricably linked. These leaders will be aggressively lobbied by a well-financed international political machine to adopt a new "Green Wave" of land use regulations whose economic impact may be unprecedented in world history. Americans may also see mammoth areas of private land taken off the public tax rolls, which creates an increased tax burden for all private land holders.

With these extraordinary set of challenges facing property owners in Florida and across America, citizens certainly have good reason to be pessimistic about our economic future.
Our nation's full slide toward socialism seems almost certain. With government now exerting so much control over private property assets it is no longer inconceivable the next generation of American's may be effectually "Born in the U.S.S.A."
However, there is also reason for extraordinary optimism.
America remains a democracy. As Americans, we have the government we demand.
It is time for Florida property and business owners, and those across the country, to make time in their schedules for political activism and to stand up individually and collectively in a united call to action.
Citizens who believe in economic liberty must end their silent watch, must get off the sidelines and into the game. Land owners who lobby their officials actively and aggressively can affect policy change.
For too many years, too many hard-working Americans have allowed the intelligencia and environmental activists out lobby us.
The stakes are simply too high for inaction. We must each personally enlist in the fight to save our nation from implosion.
Policy makers must be asked to review the massive weight of regulation sapping our state and national economic potential and evoke a simple test for all current and future land use regulation: Does this public policy promote individual freedom and incentivize individual industry?

In 2009, the Coalition for Property Rights is going to be working even more aggressively to call property owners to action. Our state's sleeping political giant must be shaken and awakened to the reality that political inactivity carries a very steep price.
The thought of a losing our national heritage of individual economic opportunity in our generation should create a slow-burning pit of anger in the heart of every American citizen.
Living on American soil will be absolutely meaningless if government controls our ability to use our land and limits our individual economic potential.