Category Archives: Budget ballyhoo

I haven’t checked in with Father John for a couple of days, but he’s keeping up with the Colorado privatization mess and the concurrent activities here in Texas in a big way. Here’s a roundup of his latest on the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Interesting article on how State Reps Mark Strama and Todd Baxter, both of whom were elected by miniscule margins in November, arrived at their votes on HB2. Baxter, the Republican representative for District 48 in northwestern Travis County, fresh from … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Actually, it’s the Senate Finance Committee that’s showing the love. A Senate panel quietly approved a raise of more than 30 percent for the governor and other statewide elected officials Thursday, saying that those officials don’t make enough for the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Turns out that the payroll tax floated in HB3 isn’t so popular. Who knew? Trying to build more support for a controversial $10.8 billion tax trade-off, House leaders worked Thursday to revise a business payroll levy to also give companies … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Kimberly posts her Quorum Report article on the furious money shuffling that the House GOP is doing to get enough votes for HB2 to pass (breaking update – according to QR, it passed by a surprisingly close 76-71 vote, with … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Here are the headlines for stories about the Legislative Budget Board’s analysis of the awful House Bill 3. Chron: Tax bill called best for richest Express-News: Tax bill has silver lining for richest Statesman: Study finds poor Texans would bear … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Remember how I said that “revenue neutral” can still mean winners and losers, and that there could be more losers than winners? Take a look at this document (PDF) from the Legislative Budget Board. Every family taking in less than … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Lots written about House Bill 2, the Republican school finance bill, and House Bill 3, the tax overhaul bill, and much of it is decidedly negative. The Chron writes about how much more regressive the tax system under HB3 would … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It’s a start. House Democrats countered Thursday with a school finance plan that they said would do more for homeowners and schools than a Republican-backed plan, but they did not detail how it would be funded. Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

So how does Texas: The nation’s highest sales taxes! grab you as a new state motto? Texas would have the highest state sales tax in the country, businesses would pay a payroll tax and smokers would pay a dollar more … Continue reading → Continue reading →

More from Father John on the upcoming changes in how the Texas Health and Human Services Commission will be doing its business, and hoe Colorado may be setting the (not good) example for us. I don’t really have anything to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

House Bill 2, the omnibus bill overhauling school finance, passed out of committee yesterday. The Committee on Public Education voted 6-3 in favor of the bill. The committee’s three Democrats, Houston Reps. Harold Dutton and Scott Hochberg along with Brownsville … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Something I meant to link to when discussing the forthcoming Democratic alternative to HB2 but forgot was a series of posts by Greg Moses covering the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)’s position on the upcoming Supreme Court review … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Following up on this post regarding the new call center system in Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), we see that they have made a tentative award of a contract to Accenture. Notice of Tentative Award HHSC announces the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Inside the Texas Capitol brings us this interesting tidbit: The word on the street is that the Republicans’ committee substitute for HB 2 will come out Monday night. The Democrats will wait 24 hours “to let the media digest it” … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Father John points to a story about major problems with a new computer system used by Colorado to handle its food stamps, Medicaid, and other relief services: [T]he explosion in hunger across the state is the direct result of problems … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’ve harped on the drastic cuts in CHIP funds from the 2003 legislative session many times. It was bad policy in many ways, and helped contribute to the deserving defeats of Arlene Wohlgemuth and Talmadge Heflin at the polls, but … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Rep. Sylvester Turner has had a change of heart, and is now supporting slot machines. In addition to allowing slot machines at horse and dog tracks and Indian reservations, the legislation would legalize the games at one location in each … Continue reading → Continue reading →

We aren’t anywhere near the point of specific proposals to overhaul our state’s tax structure, but we all know that redoing the way we tax businesses is going to be a big part of it. The issue, as always, is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In the 78th Lege, the Senate and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst took the problem of school finance seriously (unlike Governor Perry and Speaker Craddick), and proposed a real overhaul to both the state tax structure which would allow for a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Comptroller Strayhorn has given her revenue report to the Lege, and it’s much better than the last time. Strayhorn estimated legislators will have $64.7 billion in state revenue to spend in the upcoming two-year budget — $6.4 billion more than … Continue reading → Continue reading →

One possible source of school finance revenue is a change to the way farmland is evaluated for property tax purposes. [A] growing number of legislators would like to add a revamp of the agricultural valuations to the list. Rep. Sylvester … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Judicial Watch is a bunch of crackpots, but they can be useful. A lawsuit filed by a watchdog group seeks to block the state from making more payments to a Las Vegas law firm hired a year ago to draft … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Governor’s plan to overhaul school finance with help from gambling revenue took a hit yesterday, as Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that two of the three Indian tribes in the state are off limits according to federal law. Abbott, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Lege has until October 1 to fix school funding. Or else. Judge John Dietz of Travis County ruled Tuesday that the funding system is operating as an unconstitutional state property tax and is inadequate to meet the high standards … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Two years after the ferocious budget-cutting of the 78th Lege, we still have a budget deficit. “It looks to me like we’re going to be short about $2 billion,” said [Lt. Gov. David] Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate. “That’s … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Are you a smoker who opposes a state income tax or an increased sales tax? One way or another, you’re gonna get screwed. More than three out of four Texans say the state should put more money into public schools … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Do you ever wonder if the reporters who cover the state Capitol keep stories like these written and ready to go at all times so that they can file them easily whenever the Governor makes his next “we can have … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Rick Perry sure does want to come down on the losing side of the school finance debate, it seems to me. While Gov. Rick Perry on Friday questioned whether a state district judge’s ruling on public school finance would be … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Now that a judge has forced the issue, Tom Craddick is stating the obvious: We need a real tax to replace the useless corporate franchise tax. “I really believe we’ve got to find a broad-based business tax in this state, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Some state lawmakers wanted a court ruling before they got to work on school finance reform. They have one now. A state district judge declared the school funding system unconstitutional Wednesday, saying Texas faces a bleak future if it fails … Continue reading → Continue reading →

There’s a fine line between “persistent” and “delusional”. You tell me which side of that line Governor Perry is on. Gov. Rick Perry said Sunday that he would not rule out a special, lame-duck legislative session – perhaps after the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

And Comptroller Strayhorn piles on Governor Perry regarding the continued underfunding of CHIP. In a letter addressed to the governor and in a speech at the Austin Hilton, Strayhorn accused him of shifting the cost of, rather than cutting altogether, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Legislative Budget Board has approved more spending, but CHIP is still getting stiffed. Legislative leaders approved $591 million in state spending Monday to restore health care for the needy but let deep cutbacks in the Children’s Health Insurance Program … Continue reading → Continue reading →