No kidding. Have you been charged with class warfare yet? I often wonder how can they call it a war when they're the only ones shooting. To me, that's a massacre.
Yes, there was debate, sort of. Consisted of sweet old ladies complaining they were paying, sacré bleu! $980 a year when all they had to their names was their cat fluffy, their condo in Boca, and a million in the market.
Jeb Bush's inaugural rhetoric is at: http://www.state.fl.us/eog/press_releases/1999/January/1_27_taxes.html
In Florida the tax affects about 4% of individuals since IRAs and other retirement accounts are exempt, as are CDs, annuities, Fla bonds, cash value life ins... You have to have 80K in stocks, bonds, notes to pay the damn thing; the first 20K is exempt, so for $80,000 it's $60 a year (deductible on your federal taxes, of course.)
They cut it in '99 and '00 and then were going to cut it again in '01 but since Jeb's beloved brother, GW, eliminated the estate tax (evaporating $174 million in Fla. revenue for '03) and planes weren't flying so many tourists down here after 9-11, they put it off to June '03.
Here's Jeb (from the campaign): "At Naples Aston Gardens Retirement Community late in the day, Bush accused McBride of wanting to raise taxes -- including the intangibles tax on stocks and bonds -- to pay for lower class size and education improvements.
"Your taxes will go up if Mr. McBride's promises are kept," Bush told the crowd of seniors. "We cut the intangibles tax because it was an insidious tax. You work all your life to retire in paradise and then we tax your savings. Bill McBride wants to restore the intangibles tax."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-fgovrace04nov04,0,179683.st
ory?coll=sfla-news-florida
Trouble is, McBride never said such a thing. (Wish he had--the 4% it affects are probably either Republican or wouldn't vote for Jeb if he promised them a million each.) Instead McBride said he'd fund his education improvements with more cig. taxes--the anti-worker shit.
Here's the Fla Dems on the subject: http://www.floridademocraticcaucus.com/Intangiblestax/sld001.htm
Hope this helps.
Jenny Brown