FATS LIMBAUGH'S FLORIDA

You may recall that Fats was so incensed that NY state was going to raise his taxes that he said he was going to move out and stay in wonderful Florida. It turns out that Florida is not the tax paradise Limbaugh made it out to be, at least not for the middle class.

Behind Florida's Exodus: Rising Taxes, Political Ineptitude
By Tim Padgett / Miami Wednesday, Sep. 02, 2009
TIME

The region — Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — lost 27,400 residents between 2008 and 2009, while Florida as a whole lost 58,000. That's not exactly a mass exodus for a state of 18 million; but it's the first net outflow in 63 years for a state that considers itself the new California. "It's difficult for the working middle class to justify living here," Mike Jones, president of the Palm Beach County Economic Council, conceded to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

...Florida's relentless and miserably planned growth spawned problems that the peninsula is struggling to handle, including skyrocketing property taxes and hurricane-insurance premiums. Governor Charlie Crist has tried in recent years to rein in those twin vampires, but together they can still exceed what folks in many other states pay for state income tax, local property tax and homeowner's insurance combined.