{"id":104955,"date":"2026-01-04T04:55:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T04:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/104955\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T04:55:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T04:55:34","slug":"rep-sam-garrison-former-congressman-ted-yoho-talk-property-tax-relief-national-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/104955\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Sam Garrison, former Congressman Ted Yoho talk property tax relief, national debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 As Florida\u2019s legislative session begins, Clay County leaders Ted Yoho and Sam Garrison shared their perspectives on the proposed property tax repeal and other key issues facing the region.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Gov. DeSantis details proposal to eliminate Florida property taxes; Jacksonville councilmembers divided<\/a><\/p>\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed to reduce or eliminate property taxes on homesteaded properties, a topic Garrison said will be a major focus this year.<\/p>\n

Garrison said that essential services must be protected. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made it very clear that public safety, police and fire, teachers, education…that there\u2019s absolutely no reduction in essential services.\u201d <\/p>\n

Garrison also highlighted UF\u2019s downtown graduate campus<\/a> and UNF as major growth drivers, calling UNF \u201ca growth stock\u201d and saying, \u201cit\u2019s an amazing asset that we have as a region to recruit, train, and retain top talent.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yoho also joined us to speak about Florida\u2019s property tax repeal push, agricultural labor, and the national debt.<\/p>\n

On eliminating or drastically reducing property taxes, he said, \u201cit sounds great on the surface, but then you have to look at the unintended consequences,\u201d warning that when government runs short of money, \u201cthey\u2019re gonna have to make it up somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drawing on his experience, he suggested alternatives like taxing \u201cmaybe on square footage\u2026or maybe per capita,\u201d and even eliminating property taxes for older, long\u2011time residents.<\/p>\n

Yoho called the national debt \u201cthe primary existential threat to our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that when he arrived in Congress, the debt was about $12.5 trillion and that now it is $38.4 trillion.<\/p>\n

Both leaders acknowledged the challenge of balancing tax relief with maintaining funding for essential public services. Garrison said local governments with rapidly rising property values have become \u201ca bit fat\u201d on tax revenue, while others run lean and need support to maintain core services.<\/p>\n

To watch our full interviews with Garrison and Yoho, tune in to This Week In Jacksonville<\/a> on Sunday at 9 a.m. We touched on topics like agricultural labor challenges, national debt, and drug policy. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 As Florida\u2019s legislative session begins, Clay County leaders Ted Yoho and Sam Garrison shared their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3487,28,116,118,117,99,7363],"class_list":{"0":"post-104955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-clay-county","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","12":"tag-jacksonville-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-this-week-in-jacksonville"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}