Just a few facts before I discuss my thoughts, positions, and solutions on the Texas State budget. From the year 2000 to 2010, the Texas budget increased 300%. However, the population in the State only increased by approximately 50% while inflation remained basically flat. It was also during this time that Texas was an economic powerhouse with respect to the other 49 states. How is it that the Texas State budget increased so dramatically (300%) while our population growth remained a modest 50%? I have an idea about that! The incumbents from both parties that have controlled power in Austin have been affected with the same spending disease we have all seen in Washington. Texas must turn away from that destructive path and return to a fiscally responsible budgeting process that allows Texas to meet the true needs of its citizens and cutting the waste and corrupt spending that has been a hallmark of the Texas Legislature over the last decade.
Before the start of the 82nd Legislative session, the Republican caucus pledged to balance the Texas State Budget with no new taxes, no tax increases and without raiding the Economic Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund, or RDF). Since the end of the Legislative session and subsequent special session, many “conservative” Republican lawmakers have been running around the State bragging about it. Unfortunately, the 2012-2013 budget was cobbled together with a few cuts, tax payment speed ups, accounting tricks, and deferrals. "Budget writers had to rely heavily on gimmicks and one-time fixes, like a $2.3 billion payment deferral to the Foundation School Program and underfunding Medicaid caseload growth to the tune of $4.8 billion.
By delaying $2.3 billion for public school funding and $4.8 billion to a “Medicaid credit card,” our “conservative” legislators have already left us with a $7.1 billion PLANNED shortfall. Just like during the 2010-2011 budget debate, both Democrats and Republicans will clamor to make up the shortfall by spending the Rainy Day Fund in the next session. Except this time there will nothing left in the RDF for real disasters and economic emergencies. This is exactly the kind of trickery that goes on in Washington. Shouldn’t we expect more from our own State Government? I know my answer is yes!
But it gets much worse than the games described above. While the so-called “conservatives” have been going out to Republican organizations and PACs bragging about their “balancing” the budget without raising taxes, they are setting Texas up for one of the biggest financial calamities in Texas history. They have not told you about the impact that Obamacare is expected to have on the Texas budget in the 2012-2013 biennium! The State projects that implementing Obamacare will cost Texas an additional $14 to $15 billion more dollars than is in the budget! The cost of Obamacare and the planned shortfall of $7.1 billion that our legislature left us with comes up to a staggering $21 BILLION dollar deficit.
It is my belief and others who have been watching the leadership in Austin, that in the 83rd Texas Legislature will offer Texans a choice between a State Income Tax or State Gambling to raise revenues to meet the Texas requirement for a balanced budget. They will claim that they cannot cut $21 billion out of the State budget and must raise revenues. In fact, Texas House Speaker Straus has already publicly stated that “At some point you can't cut your way to prosperity.” Indeed, Speaker Straus has just ordered a comprehensive review of the state's tax structure, from sales taxes to the business margins tax created in 2006. This contemptible scheme to force the people of Texas to accept a job-killing, prosperity-destroying State income tax or a corrupt proposition to legalize gambling that will personally benefit the Speaker’s family business and the corrupt elites that are already buying property for the horse track/slot machine casinos that will dot the Texas landscape. They already know the State income tax won’t pass in Texas and are betting the farm on legalizing gambling. While I don’t mind a straight-up debate over gambling, I will fight with every fiber of my being against the massive manipulation of the State Legislature, especially a Republican-controlled legislature.
Perhaps even worse than budget shenanigans and the outright corruption is the fact that, despite having a golden opportunity, our “conservative” lawmakers failed to make any substantive changes to how and why state government spends money." (Texas Public Policy Foundation: http://www.texaspolicy.com/commentaries_single.php?report_id=3939.) The following are a few of the options that I propose as common sense solutions.
- I will work for sensible cost-cutting measures including a hiring freeze for all state agencies (excluding law enforcement, corrections, and the court system).
- I will demand that the State budget process enact a “zero-based budgeting” with a constitutional justification for spending by all State Agencies.
- A cost/benefit analyses must be required to assess the impact of illegal immigration on Texas services.
- I would support initiatives to reform and replace Federal “safety-net” services imposed on Texas for better, cheaper, and more effective State-based services such as Healthcare compacts and other solutions.
- I promise that by “sun-setting” many overlapping and duplicated departments, agencies, and programs, we can achieve substantial savings, reduce bureaucracies, and make State government more effective and efficient.
- I will refuse to accept a choice over an income tax or gambling that only enriches the powerful in this State.
