Largest Tax Cuts in Florida History The Sun Bay Paper Page 24 February 18, 2022 - February 24, 2022 I'm a 5-foot-1, 105-pound, 51-year-old woman of Pacific Islander/Asian descent. That's much more personal data than most women are willing to share publicly, but I'm all about being blunt. Let's face it: My gender, ethnic background and small stature make me a perfect target for violent crime in big cities that are soft on criminals -- especially repeat offenders who happen to be black. Black-on-Asian violence is a bloody reality. According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics criminal victimization report published in 2019, 182,230 Asians in America were victims of violent crime in 2018. Black offenders were the perpetrators in a whopping 27.5% of those cases -- the highest of any racial group. Given that black Americans make up only 12% of the population, that means black offenders on a per capita basis commit more than five times as many violent attacks on Asians as whites or Hispanics. The math is the math. The facts are the facts. But you wouldn't know it from mainstream media coverage (or rather, cover-ups) of the robberies, rapes and homicides committed by black assailants against women who look like me. Here is how The New York Times selectively reported on the grisly stalking, alleged sexual assault and brutal stabbing frenzy this weekend that left a 35-year-old Korean American online producer bleeding to death in her own New York City apartment bathroom: "A 35-year-old woman was killed in her Manhattan apartment by a man who followed her into her building, the police said. Identified as Christina Yuna Lee, she was the latest person of Asian descent injured or killed in a string of attacks in New York City." Lee's attacker was not just a "man," but a black man -- the latest perpetrator of said race arrested in a string of violent attacks against victims of Asian descent in New York City. And Los Angeles. And San Francisco. If Lee's race is relevant enough to spotlight in the lead paragraph of America's so-called "newspaper of record," why isn't the alleged killer's? In Woke America 2022, you're not allowed to ask such questions, let alone notice..... I notice. When Chinese American financial executive Michelle Alyssa Go was pushed to her death off a subway platform in the Big Apple a month ago, the Black Lives Mattercrusading media played racial hideand-seek. NBC News headlined a piece decrying the crime: "NYC subway station death of Michelle Go leaves Asian Americans reeling." Described simply as a "homeless man," Go's admitted murderer is a serial black offender with a long rap sheet dating back to 1998. His race was not mentioned a single time in the NBC News story, which drummed up hysteria about "hate crimes." When Filipina American nurse Maria Ambrocio was fatally attacked in Times Square last October, Yahoo News made sure to put her ethnicity in the headline but described her attacker -- in the midst of a violent crime spree -- as merely a "mentally ill man" of unidentified race. I'll let you guess. When Vietnamese garment worker Than Than Htwe was murdered last July in NYC, WABC radio reported: "Asian Woman Pushed Down Subway Stairs Dies; NYPD Identify Suspect." Once again, the race of the victim earned its place in the headline, but not the race of the suspect, David Robinson. Guess again. Why does it matter, you might ask, that the Black Lives Matter-worshiping media selectively plays up the race of Asian victims while deliberately whitewashing the race of the perpetrators in these horrible cases? It matters because when you remove "white privilege," "white supremacy," "white patriarchy," Donald Trump and the Republican Party as scapegoats, uncomfortable facts, statistics and realities about these violent outbreaks of failed coexistence in America remain. Woke white academics and political propagandists are part of the cover-up. So are clueless woke Asian liberals. For merely noticing and sharing my observations with others who have noticed, I've been flagged by the Southern Poverty Law Center, banned by Airbnb and, most recently, tarred as a white supremacist sympathizer by the Idaho Statesman. No matter. You can rig the headlines and algorithms. You can smear and condemn. But you can't stop those with eyes open from noticing. Michelle Malkin Who Murdered All the Asian Women -- and Who's Covering It Up? R-Palm Harbor, said. “We’ve expanded existing tax cuts like the popular Freedom Week, Hurricane Preparedness and Back-toSchool holidays, and we introduced new tax cuts to ensure that every person who resides, works and pays taxes in Florida is the beneficiary of these tax breaks.” Introduced as PCB WMC 22-01, the wideranging tax cut package would expand the annual Back to School and Disaster Preparedness holidays from 10 days to two weeks and add new qualifying items. It also would retain the Freedom Week sales tax holiday introduced last year, and add a new sevenday sales tax holiday through Labor Day. It proposes temporary sales tax cuts for purchases of baby and toddler clothes and children’s diapers, for one year, and on children’s books for three months to encourage summer reading. Floridians purchasing ENERGY STAR refrigerators, washers, dryers and water heaters, for example, would pay less in sales tax on these items for six months; those who purchase impact-resistant windows, doors and garage doors would pay a lower tax for two years. “More than sales taxes, our tax cut package provides property tax relief, increases the cap for the Strong Families Tax Credit and assists affordable housing projects,” state Rep. Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, Ways & Means Committee chair, said. “Every Floridian can find a way to take advantage of the provisions in our package.” The bill would expand flexibility in the timing of the New Worlds Reading Initiative and Strong Families Tax Credit programs. It would increase the annual cap of the Strong Families Tax Credit to $10 million and provide an additional $5 million annually for the Community Contribution Tax Credit program. By expanding the donations cap for the Community Contribution Tax Credit Program, the bill would encourage investments in affordable housing programs, according to the bill summary. It also would exempt loans from the federal government made in response to a state of emergency from the documentary stamp tax, and expand the list of overseas military deployments that qualify for the deployed service member homestead exemption. According to the bill summary, the number of tax reductions and other tax-related modifications would directly benefit families and businesses. Homesteaders would see some relief, including widows, widowers, blind, or totally and permanently disabled, who would receive an increased exemption from ad valorem taxes from $500 to $5,000. Proposed sales tax changes include a 14-day “disaster preparedness” holiday in May and June for specified disaster preparedness supplies for families and their pets; a seven-day “Freedom Week” tax holiday in July for specified recreational items and activities; a 14day “back-to-school” tax holiday in July and August for certain clothing, school supplies, learning aids, puzzles and personal computers; and a seven-day tax holiday in September for tools and equipment needed in skilled trades. Other sales tax benefits would include cutting the sales tax from 6% to 3% for the purchase of a new mobile home. Bethany Blankley The Center Square Cont. from pg 1
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