Thursday, June 04, 2009
Upon Senate passage of the state biennial budget, the well-attired David Dewhurst was busting his buttons.
The lieutenant governor praised a state budget “that meets the needs of our growing state.”
State Sen. Elliott Shapleigh, D-El Paso, had a different take: With this budget, the gorgeous state of Texas once again is jostling for the crown in the Miss False Economy Pageant, likely again to spend less per capita on human services than any other state.
“What’s the cost of being last?” Shapleigh asked.
What Shapleigh didn’t point out was that wherever Texas ranks, it is certain to fall further in the biennium ahead because it has clothed itself in policies that have put tax cuts ahead of obligations like schools, highways and preventive health care.
Gov. Rick Perry, who looks good in any suit, hitched up his designer tie and bragged that Texas was alone among states in cutting taxes during a recession.
He spoke of a $172 million measure that increased the numbers of businesses exempt from the state business tax.
It’s as if the state won’t be needing that money down the road. But, of course, it will. Right now? Thanks to $12.1 billion in federal stimulus dollars, this budget holds the rate of spending increase to under 2 percent, below inflation and population growth.
Guilty pleasure: federal dollars
What will happen when those federal dollars go away is likely to make even the most hardhearted conservatives wince.
Remember, the state faced a $9 billion shortfall before Barack Obama rescued it.
Denouncing him all the way, our Republican leaders then set out to patch holes in the rotting life raft that we in Texas call state services.
Shades of 2003: That year Republicans, newly in control of the Legislature, went on a budget-cutting, privatization fest. But when it came down to certifying the budget as balanced, it was only a last-second infusion of $1.6 billion in federal aid that allowed lawmakers to say they had done their jobs under the law and balanced their budget.
Since then, our intrepid scofflaws have done much to make sure that Texas has a fiscal hole that one day will cave and collapse upon those who most rely on state services.
This was preordained with the bill that in 2005 misleadingly was framed as “school finance reform” but was really all about property tax cuts Texas couldn’t justify.
Because lawmakers committed themselves to a one-third property-tax cut over four years, and because the business tax they created was not sufficient from the start to replace the lost revenue, they created a structural deficit that would have come into play this session if not for the big bucks from Washington.
Now watchdog groups from the left and right are projecting that in two years, Texas could face a shortfall of $13 billion to $15 billion and no escape hatch except to butcher state programs for the frail, infirm and mentally disabled.
Schools and highways? Maybe we can just do without. Can’t private enterprise educate our children? Don’t big-butted pickup trucks and off-road SUVs obviate the need for roads in the 21st century?
When those federal dollars go away, we will see what shreds are left of the fine threads our governor and lieutenant governor model today.
In the meantime, consider some brags.
Texas is last in the nation in per capita spending.
It has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation. It is last in the percentage of residents with high school diplomas. It does, however, lead the nation in executions.
Perry and Dewhurst believe that cutting taxes that are already 49th lowest nationally per capita is how we address our needs.
Chides Shapleigh, “Those who value tax cuts over children . . . have put Texas at risk in her ability to compete and succeed.”
That’s what being last means. Last and dropping.
John Young appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Comments
By Mark
Jun 8, 2009 10:44 PM | Link to this
skayne you can't be serious. You really want Big Govermant telling you how much money you can make and how much health care you will be limited to and yes thier will be limits on salary. our own treasury secutary has said he wants a econonamy with no peaks or valleys so yes that means zero growth in the economy and less money for tax and yes less to pay for nationalized health care so yes we will have limits on the amount health care we will be able to get from your Big Goverment. If the President and Congress will leave the free market alone we will come out of this economic down turn and keep the best Health care in the world. I beleave less Goverment is best Goverment and that is what our what founding fathers wanted when they wrote the constitution.
By skayne
Jun 8, 2009 6:13 PM | Link to this
I'd rather rely on big government for everything than rely on Corporate America for ANYTHING! We have a serious problem in this country -- profits are more important than human life. Why else did they not recall the Firestone tires that blew and caused rollovers until the government made them? Even though they knew it would kill people? Why else put drugs on the market and not tell your customers the ways in which this new drug could kill them? Why else push a completely unregulated product -- tobacco-- on people for decades even though you know it will KILL THEM, and not bother to mention this fact until the government makes you? Why else cancel your loyal customer's health insurance policy, even though the life-threatening disease they just contractd, which would be so bad for your bottom line, will KILL THEM??? If weprosecuted CEO for manslaughter the way we do when they -- gasp! -- steal money, we'd have to build more prisons.
BTW, Taxes aren't the 'penalty' for making money. They are the price we pay to live in a civilized society (as someone great once said). I'm sick to death of tax cuts. I want my government looking out for me the way it is supposed to!
By Mark
Jun 6, 2009 8:35 AM | Link to this
Hey harleyj by all means please move back to cali sounds like they really need your tax dollars. I think I will stay here and use it on my Granddaughters and give them the life I want them to live . Big Govermant wants us all to suffer so we have to depeand on Big Govermant for everything.Sounds like Big Govermant in california and new york is doing great. But I will stay in Texas where I can keep my money and it is not a nanney state.
By harleyj
Jun 5, 2009 6:49 PM | Link to this
Hey, Robbie, a home is easy to buy in California if you can qualify for the loan. House prices are down among Texas prices out there these days. However, it is just as hard to qualify for a loan in Texas as it is in Cal these days, And, for your information, property taxes are lower in Cal than they are in Texas, Robbie! Oh, and Robbie, I bought three houses--2 condos and a house in the gated neighborhood where Congresswoman Bono lives. in the time I lived in Palm Springs and, let me say it again, the property tax in California is, as a result of Prop 13, lower than the property tax in Texas....Got it! Businesses are moving to Texas because they don't have to pay any taxes--they pass their business taxes on to the consumer and because Texas has no income tax, entrepreneurs don't have to pay taxes on their income, no matter how rich they are. That means the burden of running Texas is on the comparatively low paid middle class and working poor; and since Texas is one of the lowest hourly employee wage states in the US, payroll is not a burden to business either. As a result, Texas has among the lowest quality of life situations in the US. We have the highest infant mortality rate in the US, the highest percent of uninsured workers in the US, the highest drop out rate in the US, the highest percent of single parent households, among the highest divorce rates..Oh, I could go on but you wouldn't get it. You spout a line but you can't really defend it. Lets have a real debate sometime.
By Scott Dixon
Jun 5, 2009 5:51 PM | Link to this
If you would like, Mr. Young, we can start taxing and spending like California has been doing since the Governator took over. They don't seem to be having any issues with higher taxes. Oh yeah, California is now broke and people are moving out of the state faster than Baylor's 4X400 men's team can finish the 1600 meters.
By JJ
Jun 5, 2009 3:38 PM | Link to this
for those of us who have attempted to be hard working employees in the mental health field, texas isn't the place to do it. i left that field and started my own business, but is that really what we want people to do? and then penalize them for making money through taxes?
By JJ
Jun 5, 2009 3:37 PM | Link to this
for those of us who have attempted to be hard working employees in the mental health field, texas isn't the place to do it. i left that field and started my own business, but is that really what we want people to do? and then penalize them for making money through taxes?
By Law N Order
Jun 5, 2009 2:11 PM | Link to this
Mr. Young thanking Mike H. for being a mirror image of Barack Obama is like Fidel Castro thanking his opponents for being a mirror image of Nikita Khrushchev. Oh, Mr. Young, before your liberal arrogance expectedly denounces the comparison of Obama with Castro, I'll let you argue with my 78 year-old Cuban-born and exiled father whose been there, done that. Keep writing such liberal drivel...the TCEQ needs more job security in finding more generators of hazardous waste. Ain't America great?? Keep writing, Mr. Young!
By John Young
Jun 5, 2009 11:14 AM | Link to this
John Young responds
To Mike H, who calls me the mirror image of Barack Obama: Thank you.
By mec
Jun 5, 2009 9:12 AM | Link to this
"...tax cuts ahead of obligations like schools, highways and preventive health care."
Good. It's about time somebody caught onto thoser bottomless money pits. The budget boards should take a close look at the state services that no longer provide their intended purpose but have devolved into bureaucratic self winding perpetual motion machines.
[1 2] next
Commenting is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F, except on Tuesday when it's open until 9 p.m.
Post a comment
*HTML not allowed in comments. Your e-mail address is required.