05.15.06

This Is Not A Fix, That Will Be Done By Future Leaders

Posted in Commentary, The Lege at 2:35 pm by wcnews

On our visit to my parent’s house yesterday, to visit with my Mother, the conversation eventually turned to the latest “slight-of-hand” by the legislature. Needless to say my Father, from where a great deal of my political philosophy is derived, doesn’t believe he’ll ever get a “tax cut” from this. His words were, “They cut the tax rate, that doesn’t mean my taxes will go down”. What he meant was that the county will just raise the appraisal on his home and not much, if anything, will change. No one, not even the esteemed “tax-cutting” duo of Perry/Sharp could pull that one off. But an appraisal cap is another post for another day.

What I’m trying to show with that quote is what will the perception be of what the legislature did? Who will get the credit or blame? Too little too late. The tax changes will not show on anyone’s mortgage payment until way after November 2006. All they did was do what they could have done years ago.

Is Perry now a shoe-in for reelection?

The FWST applauds the work done last week, except for all the problems that it left and causes.
Chris Bell thinks it just put a big dent in OTG’s only reason to be in this race, “Rick Perry couldn’t pass an old lady driving a DeSoto, much less pass a tax cut and school finance reform.” It’s a good line but she can’t use it anymore and I’m not sure she can beat Perry with just anti-toll road sentiment. This will probably bring a fair share of those disaffecteds back to Perry.
Vince Leibowitz has a great post on whether or not this satisfies the Supreme Court’s, The fix is in but will it work? As far as whether the Supreme Court will accept it there’s only one thing that needs to be said, it’s a Republican plan and the Supreme Court in Texas is Republican. The court will accept the plan.

There are many facets to what this tax-swap will do in the future, short and long-term, to know what the reaction will be. Will the teacher’s groups be placated by this $2,000 raise? Will the legislature and state leadership have to pay at the ballot box this year for a plan that will force the next legislature into deciding between paying for public schools, or CHIP, Medicare, and other vital state services. Now many Republicans might say that’s just fine with me. My point to them is, if it’s fine with you then why don’t you tell us that’s what you want to do up front? Well, we know why. Because if they would have stood up there last week and said, “We’re going to cut your property taxes by a third and then next session we’re going to cut vital state services as a result”, they know it would have never passed. Instead Rep. Chisum stood on the House floor and predicted the future.

Rep. Carter Casteel, R-New Braunfels, suggested backers of the bill were playing a “shell game” by cutting property taxes now with no way to replace the revenue in future years. She cited a nonpartisan budget analysis indicating that the state could face deficits of as much as $5 billion a year within a few years. But Mr. Chisum responded that the new taxes in combination with the strong economy in Texas will handle the property tax cut, which will be phased in with an 11 percent reduction this year and another 22 percent decrease next year.

“I have a lot of confidence in the economic engine of Texas,” he said. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I weren’t comfortable with this plan.”

I hope someone will quote that back to him next session when he’s voting to cut social services and vital state programs. The Republican leadership passed a plan and the public schools will not close. For that, they deserve credit. They still have not done what needs to be done. They left that to future leaders.

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