Florida officials fear new property tax chop – As always, any time a tax reduction is proposed – even one as measly as this increased property tax exemption – the bureaucrats start screaming that the world will stop spinning and all life sustaining services will be shut down so that everyone will die a terrible and excruciating death. This chicken Little gloom and doom approach is all too familiar. It happened in 1978 in California when Proposition 13 was up for a vote, and it’s happened here in Arkansas the past few years, as we’ve tried to rein in skyrocketing property and sales taxes. How dare the common people fight to hold onto $500 that rightfully belongs to the royal bureaucrats. Also, how dare the citizens try to tackle this problem on their own via an initiative rather than allow their rulers in Tallahassee to do what’s best for them. The class warfare angle, claiming it to be a tax on renters to benefit homeowners, is another classic technique of tax loving officials. Of course, this is Florida we’re talking about here, the land of voters too stupid to punch the right chad on their ballots; so it may be more effective than in parts of the country that are blessed with more common sense. Thanks to Ben Cunningham for passing this along.

Even the most skilled financial planners have one huge problem when trying to decide how much a person needs to save for retirement; a crucial variable that is unknown for almost everyone; life expectancy.

Democrats pass flurry of bills targeting businesses – The Left are still firmly in control of the PRC. Let’s see if Governor Arnold can fulfill his promise to make things more attractive to businesses and veto these latest attempts to handcuff capitalism.

Retirement prosperity or dependency in the balance – A good update from Jack Kemp on the Social Security mess that few of our rulers want to address and his new organization, Alliance for Retirement Prosperity, to balance out the Big Government welfare agenda of the AARP.