Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature is wrestling with property tax reform, and hardly a day in session passes without some new and even more ridiculous proposal to solve the problem.

The St. Petersburg Times nailed the current state of lunacy in an editorial.

Republicans in the Florida House have achieved something truly extraordinary. They have managed to rewrite their terribly flawed tax relief proposal and make it worse, a feat previously thought to be impossible. It is time for adult supervision from the governor and the Senate to steer this debate back into reality.

Forcing drastic cuts in government spending through property tax rollbacks, abolishing property taxes on homesteads and replacing some of the money by raising the state sales tax by 2.5 cents would be short-sighted and irresponsible…Better ideas have been drawn up on cocktail napkins as bartenders served a final round.

I won’t bore non-Floridians with the details but suffice it to say that property values (and therefore, assessments) have skyrocketed over the past few years. Homeowners are getting it on two ends — increased property taxes and out of sight insurance premiums.

But the cure could be worse than the disease. Republicans, who adore “not taking anything off the table,” offered up the idea of just eliminating all property taxes. Hold on, Florida’s 67 counties said, what will we do for money? Cut back, the brave legislators replied. Yes, and then what, the counties rejoined.

So a new plan was hatched — raise the state sales tax! After all, it’s you tourists who will pay most of it, they said, plus all those freeloading renters. So many proposals have been tossed about to increase sales and bed tax rates, and to tax things that were previously exempt that a t-shirt from a Disneyworld hotel gift shop will cost about $19.95 and the tax will be $124. Should do wonders for tourism.