80th Legislature: Knives Come Out Over Carving Up The Sporting Goods Tax
By Vince Leibowitz on Jan 20, 2007 in 80th Legislature
Let one legislator utter the phrase “tax reallocation” when it comes to a honey pot like the Sporting Goods Tax, and suddenly everyone wants to stick their chips in the dip:
New funding sought by advocates of the state’s troubled parks system has become the target of a legislative tug-of-war, with proposals afoot to reroute some to the Texas General Land Office, some to taxpayer rebates and some indirectly to the Texas Historical Commission.
Hold, up, playahs. When everyone was talking about “reallocating the sporting goods tax” during the campaign cycle, “reallocation” meant “putting it all back in the TP&WD budget where it was supposed to go,” not, “Dianne! Warren! Tom! Time to get the pork barrel a’ rollin, ya’ll! Woo Hoo!!!”
Now, folks want to divide the pot up like a pie at a church social.
Governor Perry wants “rebates” to sportsman, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson would like to use $5 million to fight costal erosion, and, of course, the possibility that 20 historic sites under TP&WD control would shift over to the Texas Historical Commission means that some folks want money reallocated to THC.
I can understand money to THC if the TP&WD sites end up under their jurisdiction. After all, if those sites stayed with Paks & Wildlife, they’d be recipients of that money anyway.
“Rebates to sportsman” (reparations to Harry Whittington for Dick Cheney shooting him in the face?) doesn’t sound like too worthy of a cause, however. What are we going to “rebate” to sportsmen?
The GLO’s erosion proposal is one that deserves funding, but not from the Sporting Goods Tax. This is money that needs to be appropriated regardless and a permanent fund for it should be established from the current surplus. Anyway, the GLO isn’t particularly stuck on the money having to come from the sporting goods tax, so this should be an easy fix.
Before it is over, though, there will be many more fingers in this pie. Lord knows some in the Lege will try to milk the sporting goods tax for everything from studying the bowel movements of white tailed deer a public voucher program to allow disadvantaged youths to purchase hunting rifles.
This could be one of the more interesting behind-the-scenes committee fights during the 80th.
Both Perry and Patterson were, six months ago, on the side of selling off parklands. Their current words indicate to me that they have not changed their minds and are hoping to ride out the current wave of support for parks without giving them much more money. Presumably they hope to eventually return to their old ways.
Fortunately, our legislators appear to feel differently, as fully half the Texas House has now signed on as co-authors of Hilderbran’s bill to fully fund our parks.