Public Finance

For All You Political Junkies ...

DeGroot DePants DeSentinel

When Is A Correction Not Enough?

Sheriff's Atty: Sun-Sentinel Story On Jenne Was Bogus

DeGroot On The Big Pump Thump

Ellen Dalton Keeps On Ticking

Pulp O' The Mornin'

Why Americans Get Their News From Jon Stewart

Definitely in My Back Yard

When the residents of Mangonia Park heard that a girls' detention center might be built in their town, they put out the welcome mat

The People's Republic of Area A

A group of neighborhood leaders prepares to declare independence and start Broward's first black-majority city

State Republican Does Not Want A Billion Dollars

Rep. Anitere Flores should be grateful that only dorks like me watch Issues, the Sunday political program on our local public television station WPBT. I can't imagine she'd have wanted her constituents in Kendall / University Park / Westwood Lakes to watch her appearance this past Sunday.Here's a li ... More >>

Schoolkids, State Workers: You're All Under the Bus for Tax-Shy Legislature

Our Florida legislators have some budget-cutting to do, but they also need to improve the state's education system, which is fast becoming a national embarrassment. This will take some creativity. Republicans, as the majority party, you're up.flhouse.govAdam HasnerAdam Hasner, Republican from Delray ... More >>

Florida: Where It's Good to be a Smoker, Bad to be a Lung

Smoke up, Florida! Kentucky raised their state taxes on cigarettes and booze yesterday. Residents will now pay 60 cents in state taxes per pack of cigarettes. So there's good news and bad news for Floridians. This means that the nation's two biggest tobacco-producing states, Kentucky and N ... More >>

Beenie Man

Smoke up, Florida! Kentucky raised their state taxes on cigarettes and booze yesterday. Residents will now pay 60 cents in state taxes per pack of cigarettes. So there's good news and bad news for Floridians. This means that the nation's two biggest tobacco-producing states, Kentucky and N ... More >>

Heartbreak Hotel

It's the end of an era on Hollywood Beach, where small, cheap motels are all that stand in the way of another playground for the wealthy

Hooray for Hollywood

Even with a housing bust and bad court verdicts, the show goes on.

Slush Money

Hollywood sets aside big money for its friends and doesn't want you to know

Curious George Sails the River of Red

Following a long tradition, new Fort Lauderdale City Manager George Gretsas tries to tame the big spenders at City Hall

The Big Lie

Is the North Broward Hospital District playing a shell game with tax dollars?

The Hypocritic Oath

Weston only the start of hospital district chicanery

Annexation Vexation

The plan to bring Broward County's poor areas into the fold is full of holes

Cigarette Smokers Burned By New Tax; Cigar Aficionados Blow Celebratory Rings

flickr.com While cigarette smokers will now pay a dollar per pack more, the legislature gave the cigar industry a break. A new state-wide dollar-per-pack tax on cigarettes and smokeless and pipe tobacco starts today. The stated goal from the legislature is to encourage smokers to stop. If ... More >>

Plantation Accountant, Firm Barred From Filing Taxes for Clients

In a deal that will have to come with a career change, Carole Exantus of Plantation accepted a permanent injunction against filing tax returns on clients' behalf in order to settle a case with U.S. Justice Department attorneys who had sued her for fraud. From the release:The court found that [Exantu ... More >>

Crooked Courthouse

The Broward Commission will build a courthouse, even if voters don't want it and there's no good way to pay for it.

Bueller? Pines Leaders Fumble Tax Calculations

Flickr user: HeneghanCan you calculate your tax hike?​Pack City Hall with more than 150 angry citizens and any governing body would get a bit anxious. But at Wednesday night's budget hearing, the Pembroke Pines city commissioners appeared to be auditioning for Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? An ... More >>

Michael and Victoria Meisner Earn Wrath of Unpaid Taxman

Photobucket This wasn't the Meisner's place, but theirs was a similar Palm Beach mansion​Following a Rothsteinesque money scheme, Boca's white collar Bonnie and Clyde are finally facing the music. This week, Victoria Meisner made her first appearence before a judge, answering charges of fil ... More >>

GlobeTel CEO Indicted

courtesy GlobeTel​A couple of years ago, we ran a feature story about GlobeTel, a company that was supposedly going to deploy blimp-like satellites across the country and beam down internet signals. There were a few problems with the scheme: building hi-tech airships seemed a job more suited for b ... More >>

Deerfield Housing Charity Owes Nearly $150,000 in Delinquent Taxes

A nonprofit organization in Deerfield Beach under investigation for mishandling tax dollars has failed to pay taxes on any of six properties for at least five years, according to records released to Juice this afternoon. The Westside Deerfield Businessmen Association stands to lose all six propertie ... More >>

Charity President Says Agency Isn't Ducking Investigator

Flickr: itbe-GregDid Deerfield Beach's housing dollars go down the drain?​Felecia Poitier, president of a charity being investigated by Deerfield Beach for its management of housing funds, denied allegations that her agency has not cooperated fully with auditors, blaming delays on the time-consumi ... More >>

Broward Health Commissioner Says System Will Be Less Political as a Nonprofit

browardhealth.orgCommissioner Richard Paul-Hus​If the North Broward Hospital District follows through on plans to lease its assets to a nonprofit organization, then it will "take the politics out" of managing that public hospital district, according to Commissioner Richard Paul-Hus, who responded ... More >>

Rick Scott Property Tax Calculator Ignores Small Fact: Florida Law

​GOP candidate for governor Rick Scott released this pretty snazzy new website on Friday: It's a property tax calculator that figures out a Floridian's tax if Scott gets elected versus Democratic opponent Alex Sink. There's just one problem with his site: It ignores the Florida Constitution.Scott' ... More >>

Kristin Haynes, Millionaire Creator of "Dreamsicles" Figurines, Sentenced for Tax Evasion

We must be in the wrong business. Looks like the big money is in knickknacks, trinkets, and doodads. According to court documents in a federal criminal case, Kristin Haynes, creator of the Dreamsicles line of collectible ceramic figurines (like the one pictured here) raked in nearly $3 mil ... More >>

Florida Among Top Three States Targeted for a New Form of Identity Theft

flickr.com​How low can you go? Apparently six feet under wasn't low enough for the Fort Lauderdale man sentenced to nine years in federal prison last Friday for stealing identification from mourners attending funerals as part of an ID theft ring. But Diaz's funeral fraud ring isn't the only s ... More >>

Florida's Loss: Rick Scott's High-Speed Rail Shoot-Down

Art Seitz Wild Art: Congressman Allen West joins a motley collection of local politicians (including fellow Republican Chip LaMarca, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, Charlotte Rodstrom, and Romney Rogers) in Fort Lauderdale for yesterday's St. Patrick's Day festivities. (Photo by Art  ... More >>

Ain't No Sunshine on State Spending: Florida Gets a D For Transparency

​While Florida's Senate Majority Leader makes misleading statements about a government spending measure currently moving through the legislature, the entire state government received a D grade for disclosure of how it spends taxpayer money, according to a recent report from the U.S. Public Interes ... More >>

Tea Party? Try Tea Puppets

I wonder if the nonsense-spewing Tea Partiers are really paying attention -- because if they are they'll know they're just puppets for war profiteers and the oil industry, which are one and the same. ​Case in point: A federal audit just found that former Florida Republican Party fin ... More >>

Florida Prisoners Lead The Nation in Tax Fraud

​Florida is number one again. The state that holds the championship belt in oxycodone consumption now leads the U.S. in fraudulent tax returns filed from prison. Perhaps our prisoners are trying to emulate the leadership traits of Captain Medicaid Fraud, aka Gov. Rick Scott. Florida inmates filed ... More >>

Allen West Interview: Florida Tea Party Favorite Talks About Islam and Donald Trump (Part 2)

​Read the first installment of the Allen West interview here.New Times: Let's talk about the Ryan budget [introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin)], which you supported in the House. [This proposal was passed by the House and at presstime was awaiting a vote in the Senate, although House leader ... More >>

Gov. Rick Scott Allocates $370 Million of Stimulus "Disaster" Money Into State Budget

tolivetolaughtolove.comFlip flops: The official footwear of Gov. Rick Scott​Remember that campaign talking point Gov. Rick Scott had about President Barack Obama's stimulus package being a "disaster," when Scott said he would endlessly fight the stimulus money?Well, he managed to leave $370 millio ... More >>

Palm Beach County Housing Authority Workers Arrested, Assistant Director Charged Eightfold

PBSOKechevella Wallace​Kechevella Wallace, assistant director of the Palm Beach County Housing Authority, has been arrested along with three other housing authority employees on fraud-related charges in an alleged apartment-renting scheme, the Palm Beach Post reports.Wallace, 26, was supposed to m ... More >>

A Tour of Gov. Rick Scott's Dirtiest Deeds

PBSOKechevella Wallace​Kechevella Wallace, assistant director of the Palm Beach County Housing Authority, has been arrested along with three other housing authority employees on fraud-related charges in an alleged apartment-renting scheme, the Palm Beach Post reports.Wallace, 26, was supposed to m ... More >>

Allen West on NPR: Do We Really Need the Justice Department?

How important is the Justice Department, really?​Yesterday, NPR host Robert Siegel interviewed U.S. Rep. Allen West about the federal debt fight. West, a member of the House Tea Party caucus, is adamantly opposed to raising the debt limit. He doesn't want the U.S. government to borrow any more mon ... More >>

Allen West, Amateur Biologist, Thinks Obama Supporters Are a Threat to Human Evolution

Allen West: Out to save the human race.​Who knew Rep. Allen West practiced biology on the side? At least he's proven he believes in evolution.In West's column on Red County this week, he describes how upset he is with unemployment,  federal debt, and federal spending, as well as how it's all ... More >>

Rick Scott Plays Armchair President on Debt-Ceiling Drama

Gov. Rick Scott is a dreamer​Gov. Rick Scott seems to like the idea of being president of the United States -- he's hinted that he'd make a good president because of the "tough choices" he's made as governor, and now he's playing armchair president from the governor's mansion.Sunshine State News c ... More >>

Democratic National Committee: Florida Would Lose 473,000 Jobs Under Tea Party Economics

​In advance of tonight's GOP presidential debate, the Democratic National Committee has released a report claiming that 9.5 million American jobs would be lost if a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution were implemented by next year -- including the loss of 473,000 jobs in Florida.The reas ... More >>

Two of South Florida's Fortune 500 Companies Land on List of "Corporate Tax Dodgers"

Good one, Mr. Moneybags.​Out of the five Fortune 500 companies based in South Florida, two of them managed to bank on a negative tax rate over the past three years, earning them a spot on a list of the country's "corporate tax dodgers."Citizens for Tax Justice issued the report evaluating 280 comp ... More >>

Florida Power & Light Rebukes Report on "Corporate Tax Dodgers"

​NextEra Energy -- which owns Florida Power & Light Co. -- ain't too happy about being placed on a list of "corporate tax dodgers," which we wrote about earlier today.A group that calls itself Citizens for Tax Justice issued the report evaluating 280 companies nationwide, and named 78 of t ... More >>

Seven People Charged in Tax Fraud Case Based on Secret Bank-Account Conspiracy Theory

ambienceofmedia.com​Get this: The government creates a secret bank account for every person issued a birth certificate in the United States -- and has been doing so since the enactment of the 1936 Social Security Act -- that holds $630,000. Through a series of IRS filings, people can become entitl ... More >>

PolitiFact: Where "We Have No Way of Knowing" Turns Into "Mostly False"

wildmanhangout.com​Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?The Pulitzer Prize-winning analysts of political statements over at PolitiFact -- a project of the St. Petersburg Times -- ran a pretty curious rundown of one of President Obama's statements this week.The claim: "Some billionaires have a tax ... More >>

Newt Gingrich Says Nobody Cares About the Right to Privacy, Challenges Obama to 21 Hours of Debates

Rich AbdillSpotted at the rally: The best idea we've heard all day.​Newt Gingrich's stump speech at Wings Plus in Coral Springs had a lot of meat to it -- he criticized President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, he made fun of the media, and was heckled mercilessly for the first half of t ... More >>