Vote DEM 1

Reasons to vote DEM

1   Affordability

Florida has a POWERFUL ECONOMY but a DEPRESSED PUBLIC SECTOR and AFFORDABILITY PROBLEMS because of its foundational financial structure.

After 30+ years of REP party supermajority in Florida’s government, the Top 3 Reasons for the Economic Disconnect are:

1. The “Low Tax, Low Spend” Minimalist Fiscal Model

Florida’s economic success is legally and culturally built on minimizing state government size. Because the state constitution bans a personal income tax, Florida has a highly constrained tax collection pool relative to its population size. According to data tracked by fiscal analysts, Florida routinely ranks last or near-last in state spending per capita. The state simply does not generate the per-resident tax revenue required to heavily fund expansive public services like competitive teacher salaries.

2. Excessive Structural Reliance on Low-Wage Service Industries

While Florida’s GDP volume is massive, its economy is heavily weighted toward tourism, hospitality, agriculture, and retail. These sectors generate massive aggregate transaction volume (driving up GDP), but they natively rely on lower-tier hourly wages. When high-earning remote workers and retirees migrate to the state, they drive up real estate prices, but the local economy does not inherently generate enough high-wage corporate jobs to scale average local incomes alongside the cost of living.

3. Hyper-Centralized State Funding Restraints on Cities

Under Florida’s legal structure, local municipalities and school districts are heavily “preempted” (restricted) by the state government from creating their own independent solutions. For example, Florida cities are legally blocked from enacting rent control, mandating affordable housing ratios on developers, or easily implementing localized income-based taxes to subsidize their specific school districts. Localities must rely entirely on local property taxes, the structure of which is tightly bound by state-mandated formulas like the Required Local Effort (RLE).

The DEM party will fix this broken system to make sure our Florida citizens can afford living and prospering in the best State in the USA.