The Miami Herald has an editorial criticizing the Miami-Dade county budget, which raises property taxes to pay for benefits for mostly unionized public employees: "60 percent of homesteaded property owners will see their tax bills increase...many longtime homeowners are seeing increases of $1,000 or more on their proposed tax notice. They wonder why, if their property values are down, they would pay more....The county would get $175 million more by bumping up tax rates, to cover $125 million on archaic perks such as flex, longevity, premium and merit pay for already well-paid county employees."
The Herald says "county commissioners... count on union support during campaigns" and that "too many" of the commissioners "appear to be living in a vacuum, unable to bring common sense to union contracts."
As Mitch Daniels says, sooner or later people are going to get tired of seeing their taxes increased to support public employees who get paid more than they do.