It was good to see at least two of the the Democratic candidates, Farouk Shami and Bill White, get some free media on statewide TV last night. Let’s hope people watched. (If anyone missed it it can be viewed online here). It was not a contentious debate, which usually makes for better TV, but it was one where those watching were able to get a good sense of both candidates.
It’s clear that White will lean heavily on his experience bringing people together as Mayor of the fourth largest city in the United States, and Shami will lean heavily on his success as a self-made business man. Because of the non-contentiousness of the debate there really wasn’t a winner/loser situation. Both had certain things to do and, of course, each voter has certain things they want to hear. White was trying to get his name out and not make any gaffes, he did that. Shami too was trying to get his name out and also show he can be a credible Democratic nominee for the governor of Texas. And that last part is what I’m still not sure about with Shami.
I’ve never been one who thinks that just because someone can run a business, they can run a government. I don’t think it translates to good government most times. Some of the answers to his questions, and the harping on the governor as CEO, seems naive and seem to imply a top down type of management style. That’s not likely to work very well with the legislature. That being said there are many areas where I agree Shami on the issues.
White for his part has a very good command of the issues and where he stands on them. Spent a good amount of time attacking Perry, and some time attacking TxDOT. His answers on education, health care, and job creation/training were good. While White made a few good comments on transportation, hopefully he will come around to to raising the gas tax sooner, rather than later.
AAS, HChron, Burka, have some analysis. The Texas Tribune has it’s analysis including post debate Q&A’s with both candidates.
There could have been much better questions, delving deeper in the budget, health care, and education. There certainly should have been something on the Texas Enterprise Fund, on Perry’s cronyism and the the governor’s appointment power in general. The bottom line is at least two Democrats go to debate and they both did good for themselves and the Democratic Party in Texas.
I posted about the exclusion of the other five candidates for governor from tonight’s debate here, an entreaty that fell on completely deaf ears. I also had a compilation of news and blog articles on Shami last month, and my 2007 meeting on e-Slate issues with White, before and after.
The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates the city of New Orleans for the Saints’ stirring Super Bowl victory, and reminds them that the “hair of the dog” trick doesn’t really help with the hangover.
This week at Texas Vox Citizen Sarah geeked out on the new energy generation plan presented to Austin City Council. May not sound too snazzy but there’s enormous potential there to reduce carbon emissions, build up our local economy, and improve public health with this plan, so she thinks it is pretty cool.
Neil at Texas Liberal commented that office building janitors in Houston have set up a Facebook page as they prepare for a new round of contract negotiations in 2010. All work has merit and all people should be paid a living wage.
Nevertheless, Greenville’s Bob Deuell told members of our editorial board this week that he would support a one-time boost of 10 cents a gallon in the motor fuels tax — the same increase that Republican John Carona of Dallas has called for.
Deuell has shown in the past that he can be more reasonable than some in his party. We’re still not there yet, but we’re getting closer to the where enough elected politicians will finally recognize, what many of us have known for a while - that an increase, and indexing of the gas tax is the best way to pay for roads in Texas. It’s a tough sell but not impossible, and a skilled politician can support it and get elected. And as long as it done in a way that tax payers are assured the money is going for roads, it is politically feasible.
But the decline is dramatic. A year ago, Combs forecast essentially flat sales taxes receipts in the budget year that started Sept. 1; instead, they’ve decreased by 12.9 percent in the first four months.
To meet Combs’ biennial revenue estimates, Texas needs to collect nearly $44 billion from its revenue workhorse, the 6.25-percent state sales tax. It produces 57 percent of state tax revenue and about a quarter of overall funds, including federal money.
But just one-sixth of the way into the new two-year budget, it has collected only $6.3 billion. Last year, collections from September through December were nearly $7.3 billion.
And the estimates of how big the deficit will be in for the next budget cycle is looking grim. There are “educated guesses” right now of a deficit somewhere between $10 – 20 billion dollars.
The last time Texas lawmakers had to cut the state budget was 2003, when they faced a $9.9 billion shortfall. Next year’s deficit very well could be bigger. Some guesses that have been posed:
$10.8 billion: John O’Brien, director, Legislative Budget Board
$15 billion: House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie
$19 billion to $20 billion: Sens. Royce West, D-Dallas, and Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso
Which brings us to the House Ways and Means Committee. The committee has a Democratic Chair, but an 8 – 3 GOP majority. Here’s what an “An Outside Observer Analysis” [.pdf] said last year when the committees were announced about Ways and Means:
As has been reported here – over and over again – TxDOT has done, and continues to do, a bad job of talking to the public on the issue of transportation. Today at the Texas Tribune there’s an interesting article, and video snippet, of a talk with Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows, A Hard Road. The end of the article shows that TxDOT, or at least Meadows, still doesn’t get it. Here’s his take on the what went wrong with the TTC:
And when staffers do try to do something innovative, he says, the Legislature doesn’t give them a chance.
Take the Trans-Texas Corridor: The effort to create a new approach to statewide travel has been universally bashed for its infringement on private property and its reliance on toll roads — so much so that Perry, its biggest promoter, has abandoned the project. “Did Trans-Texas fail because of bad process,” Meadows asks, “or because it was a bad idea? It has caused this agency to be criticized and damned, but that doesn’t mean the efforts are bad.”
If lawmakers aren’t going to allow for creative ways to find revenue, Meadows says, then it makes the agency’s relationships with them all the more important. The Legislature is “far and away” the best place to secure funds, he says. “I’ve never forgotten that.”
First characterizing the TTC as a project where TxDOT staffers did something innovative and the legislature didn’t give them a chance with is wrong. The TTC was a top down project that was attempted to be forced onto Texans by Perry and was sneaked through the legislature (see HB 3588), and wasn’t. Not to mention the fact that Delisi said just this past Monday that funding is not part of TxDOT work.
Based on anticipated, long-range price hikes, the purchasing power of the state motor fuels tax — 20 cents per gallon — is declining, Delisi said. TxDOT needs a stable source of funding, she said, though it’s not the transportation commission’s role to say where the money should come from.
It wasn’t TxDOT staffers so-called “innovative plan” that was the problem. It was the sneaky way that those who concocted this plan – Perry, Ric Williamson, Mike Krusee – tried to shove it down the public’s throat without their input that caused the TTC so many problems. If Perry and TxDOT would have started this whole converstaion, years ago, travelling the state and getting Texans inuput, instead of travelling the state, after their plan was complete, telling Texans what they had already decided for them, there likely would have been a different result.
But what the intereview with Meadows shows is that the TxDOT commissioners still don’t get it.
Defending the indefensible
Though the Texas Conservative Coalition echoed many of the same sentiments, its Director, John Colyandro, was taken to task by Chairman Senator John Carona for advocating the most expensive road tax while rejecting a more affordable gas tax increase. “How is that conservative?” asked Carona.
While Colyandro stopped short of endorsing Rick Perry’s position of having all new capacity being toll lanes handed over to foreign corporations that charge 75 cents PER MILE to use public roads, he did advocate that private toll roads have a legitimate role as part of a mix of both toll and non-toll roads.
Earlier in the hearing, Carona laid down the gauntlet asking, “I’m looking for someone to come and defend to me that a privately built toll road is less expensive than a free road ’cause it just ain’t so.” While Colyandro and many of the lobbyists and local politicians asked for the moratorium on private toll roads be lifted and remain “one of the tools in the tool box,” none could defend how that funding “option” was more affordable than a gas tax increase. Because it isn’t. It’s rather telling when even a so-called anti-tax advocate lobbies for the most expensive road funding option, but outright rejects the most affordable one. [Emphasis added].
Corporate toll roads are the most expensive for drivers – because of profits, guaranteed profits in many contracts – much more expensive than raising the gas tax. Read her whole report, and she also agrees that the TTC is very much alive. Also be sure to read TURF’s oral testimony[.pdf] and written testimony[.pdf].
Three million Texans – or one in eight – including 1.2 million children were forced to visit a soup kitchen or food pantry to feed themselves in 2009, according to a new study released Tuesday by the Texas Food Bank Network (TFBN), the national organization Feeding America and the research firm Mathematica. The study revealed a 45% total increase in demand for charitable food over the previous five years, and an 85% increase in clients under the age of eighteen. 260,000 senior citizens were also among those served in 2009. “The pressure on private charity has become too great,” said TFBN State Director Barbara Anderson. “We need real solutions, and public investment to address this growing problem.”
The study comes on the heels of last week’s announcement of new polling data showing that nearly 21% of Texans had trouble feeding themselves or their families in 2009. Among those served by the state’s charitable food providers, the hungry were found to be getting hungrier. 53% of clients reported being forced to choose between paying for food or paying their utilities in the previous year. 42% reported choosing between paying for food or rent, and 37% reported choosing between purchasing food or needed medication. All were increases over the previous survey.
Here’s the link to the Press release and summary of findings[.pdf]. In Williamson County there is an outstanding group of concerned citizens headed by Joyce White, who are making a difference feeding some of the neediest in the county. See this EOW post from last year, Appeal for the hungry, to learn more and find out how you can help.
The increasing numbers going hungry in Texas and across this nation are often forgotten about. What is worse is the complete lack of discussion this gets in our political discourse. Here’s a paraphrase of what Texas Gov. Rick Perry said in his closing statement at the last debate, via Burkablog:
I get asked why texas is number one in so many categories
don’t spend all the money, use the rainy day fund
don’t allow for oversuing
We’ll need experienced leadership over the next four years.
Sure looks like don’t feed the hungry should be part of that too. For some reason he forgot to mention the 3 million Texans that are having trouble getting enough food to eat. While this is all our problem to solve, and not only the governor’s fault, it’s as if these people don’t exist in Rick Perry’s Texas.
From this SAEN article, Legislators debate road funding, it looks like it was an interesting, in a good way, joint hearing on transpiration yesterday. It certainly looks like Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) gets it.
Texas lawmakers on Monday hammered home that without a new funding method, the Texas Department of Transportation will be unable to build any new roads beyond 2012 and will not have enough money to properly maintain existing roads within two to three years.
They also demonstrated that finding a new funding solution they can agree on won’t be easy.
Legislators on the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security and the House Committee on Transportation grappled with the use of “public-private partnerships” and comprehensive development agreements, or CDAs, that in some cases privatize toll roads.
Senate chairman John Carona, R-Dallas, chastised language often associated with toll roads — that drivers can “choose” to use them. Carona said it’s “disingenuous” to say drivers will have an option if the only way to fund new road construction is by tolling them.
“If every new road going forward is a toll road, that’s no choice,” he said.
GOP TxDOT chair Deirdre Delisi was quoted as saying in the article, a couple of times, that TxDOT has nothing to do with the decision of how money is raised for roads, that’s up to the legislature.
Looking into other potential sources of dollars, Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, asked Texas Transportation Commission Chairwoman Deirdre Delisi whether her board, appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to oversee TxDOT, supported an increase in the gas tax — something Perry has said he opposes. Delisi said it’s not the commission’s role to determine how much the gas tax should be increased — that’s the legislature’s job.
Increasing the gas tax has been a political hot potato, but it’s an issue that’s gaining traction among lawmakers. It’s unclear, however, what chance it will stand during the 2011 legislative session.
What is clear is that lawmakers say they know something must be done to address the funding shortfalls. Based on anticipated, long-range price hikes, the purchasing power of the state motor fuels tax — 20 cents per gallon — is declining, Delisi said. TxDOT needs a stable source of funding, she said, though it’s not the transportation commission’s role to say where the money should come from.
The only stable source of funding is the gas tax. Which everyone should know by now hasn’t been raised in almost two decades, so of course it’s “purchasing power” has declined. The neglect has gotten so bad, that as this KVUE report states, even “..leaders of some of the biggest businesses in Texas told Senate and House committee members they’re on board too” with raising the gas tax. Most business leaders understand that roads help drive the economy and that the gas tax is the best funding option to pay for roads.
But as Texas TURF’s Terri Hall states:
Terri Hall — founder of the grassroots, anti-toll Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom — told the committees that her organization supports a statewide gas tax increase, but with certain expectations.
“What we the taxpayers cannot allow is a gas tax hike, in addition to the continuation of toll proliferation,” she said. “What we observe is a push for a gas tax increase in order to have more money to borrow against for yet more toll roads.”
I would amend that just a bit. While the gas tax should be the main source of road funding, that doesn’t mean no toll roads. (No corporate toll roads for sure). But toll roads can work in specific circumstances, and should need the support of the people where they will be built. Stopping diversions can help too, but that alone won’t come anywhere close to making up the billions that are needed. And raising fees can help some as well. But what we all have to realize, finally, is that raising the gas tax, and itemizing it to inflation, is the only way we can make up for the neglect of nearly 20 years. And it’s unlikely that electing another Republican governor will do anything to change this.
If U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison had any hope of gaining ground on Perry in this debate, she needed to talk about education and Texas’ dropout rate. That might have stirred Texas schoolteachers to show up and vote in the Republican primary March 2.
But two debates have produced absolutely zero questions about Texas schools. Instead, the newscast-debate seemed to focus on which toll roads are dead or alive, plus something called the Texas Enterprise Fund.
We also learned about poor Gov. James Pinckney Henderson, the first governor of Texas after independence and the answer to a petty trivia question that stumped not only Hutchison but almost every Texan.
It’s probably best they skipped it. It’s not like any of them would have an answer. They likely think we spend too much already on education, and we just need to defund the TEA and we’d have plenty of money for education.
Today is the last day to register to vote in the March 2nd Primary.