Graham over at Impolite Company takes a more in-depth look at renewable infrastructure for power transmission, which we skimmed the surface of yesterday. Be sure to check it out–good stuff!
Popularity: 15% [?]
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Once again, we have a tidbit of something far less than sheer brilliance from the folks at Texans for Fiscal Responsibility:
For decades the school property tax that funds “maintenance and operations” has been causing troubles for taxpayers – skyrocketing burdens, lawsuits and general confusion. Legislators, taxpayers, school boards and judges have all taken cracks at reforming a system that is fundamentally irreparable.
As you know property taxes are a horrible way to fund government, turning every Texan into a renter while deterring job creation. Property tax burdens essentially double every 7.5 years! And for most folks, retirement funds will be completely depleted by a property tax system that devours everything in its path.
Now a group of legislators are looking to do something about it: Abolishing the tax altogether! This is an idea whose time has not already come, but the people are cheering loudly for it. You can join the winning battle!
First, let’s take a crack at some myth-busting:
Popularity: 34% [?]
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Today, three commissioners appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry will decide whether or not to approve a license for a huge radioactive waste dump in West Texas that the state’s environmental experts have already said will likely contaminate groundwater.
Although the good folks of Andrews County, where the waste will be dumped, seem to be blind to all of this (maybe they are excited about those jobs, which probably come with a nice case of glow-in-the-dark cancer), but it is clearly an environmental disaster for Texas.
How, exactly, did Texas become the favored dumping ground for radioactive waste? It’s thanks to your friendly neighborhood Republican state representatives.
Back during the 78th Texas Legislature in 2003 (the first one where the Texas House was under GOP control), the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1567 which allowed for the disposal of “low-level” radioactive waste from other states right here in Texas. A slew of Republicans in hotly contested races this year including Betty Brown (R-Terrell), John Davis (R-Houston), Dwayne Bohac (R-Houston), Myra Crownover (R-Denton), and Linda Harper Brown (R-Irving) voted to make Texas a glowing, leaking, radioactive waste dump. [CSHB 1567: Record Vote 316, Day 53, Texas House Journal, 78th Texas Legislature, p. 1713-17-14].
Popularity: 50% [?]
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Those of us who follow the state budgeting process have been waiting for a few weeks now for “the other shoe to drop,” so to speak, concerning the raid on the West Texas polygamist compound. I think most people realized that the state would be paying a heavy price tag for the affair. Of course, because of the way district court systems are set up and funded in Texas, the county where the raid occurred will pay a big price, too. The latter is something a lot of people don’t realize, as they assume the costs for all things judicial magically flows directly from the state’s coffers.
Of course, it doesn’t:
With court costs expected to top $2.25 million — even before lawyer fees are included — legal proceedings from April’s raid on a polygamist group’s ranch near Eldorado promise to be a budget buster for rural Schleicher County.
The county of about 3,000 people, with an annual budget of $3.9 million, cannot hope to handle the expense alone, District Judge Ben Woodward said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday at the Capitol.
“I’ve come here to run up the red flag for the judiciary branch,” Woodward told the committee. “We need resources.”
Most of the expense will be borne by Schleicher County, where more than 450 children were removed from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in April and placed in foster homes across Texas.
Most court costs are related to the ongoing Child Protective Services custody cases, but the estimate also includes expenses related to anticipated criminal charges, Woodward said.
For what it is worth, $2.25 million is a figure that probably won’t even scratch the surface if the county figured in all the costs related to criminal charges. Trying a bunch of child sex abuse cases won’t be cheap, and the most significant expense will probably be for court appointed criminal defense attorneys. I have no idea what the hourly rate indigent defenders are allowed to charge (a rate set by the district judges in the area is for non-capital offenses), but even if it is a paltry $40 per hour, $2.25 million won’t cover both the civil and criminal costs if a large number of the sect members ultimately charged (again, assuming a large number are charged) require court appointed counsel.
Popularity: 45% [?]
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In yet another example of Texas’ Republican-led government failing to pay attention to infrastructure needs, a report by the State Auditor’s Office released last week shows that the state has poorly funded the state’s dam safety program. In fact, Texas ranks 28th out of 47 U.S. states with state-funded dam safety programs.
Too, many dams inspected from 2002-2007 had not been inspected since the 1970s and 1980s. Since 1970, 98 of the state’s 7,603 dams have failed. That may not seem like a large number, but consider this:
Popularity: 45% [?]
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Poor State Rep. Phil King (R-Wetherford). He evidently doesn’t have near enough to do after surviving a hang-on-for-life primary campaign, because now he evidently wants to start a collection of appraised value notices from appraisal districts in his area:
Popularity: 43% [?]
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Are we the only ones wondering why Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs had her office issue an Energy Report?
Did we miss a piece of legislation that instructed or authorized the Comptroller’s Office to spend state dollars on this report? I hope not, since it appears that this is the stunning conclusion that comes from the 443 page report:
Texas has the resources it needs to meet its energy demands for the foreseeable future, though tomorrow’s fuel mix may be quite different than today’s.The days of near-total reliance on cheap and abundant fossil fuels may be decreasing. Instead, we will rely on a mix of fuels and improved efficiency.
Seriously? Twenty-seven chapters (which we will consent are probably the most beautifully typeset report pages in state history), 443 pages, thousands of footnotes, and a list of contributors that appears to encompass darned near every employee in the Texas Comptroller’s Office and “tomorrow’s fuel mix may be quite different than today’s” is the absolute best they could come up with?
Popularity: 30% [?]
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It should come as no surprise that Governor Rick Perry’s newest appointments to the Texas Transportation Commission are pro-tollers, and that fur is already flying over the two appointments:
The GOP governor’s support of private investment in public tollways as a key avenue for needed infrastructure is echoed by former aide Deirdre Delisi of Austin and a second appointee announced Wednesday, Bill Meadows of Fort Worth.
Both appointees see private investment as an important part of the picture, though not all of it, and said they want to work with lawmakers. The Legislature has sought to curb such projects, alarmed the state would go too far in ceding control of Texas’ infrastructure.
In other words, these two see no problem with sweet-heart deals like the CINTRA/Zachary partnership to build the early phases of the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. It will be interesting to see whether or not the Senate confirms either or both nominees next January. State Sen. John Carona is already hinting that Delisi may not get a positive nod from the Senate:
Popularity: 26% [?]
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Not surprisingly, a lot of Texas businesses are peeved over the new franchise tax (or, rather the changes to the franchise tax) passed by the special session of the Texas Legislature back in 2006:
Hundreds of thousands of Texas businesses, fresh from paying their federal income taxes earlier this month, are now busy calculating what they owe the state under its new business tax – and many don’t like what the numbers show.
The new tax – approved by the Legislature in a special session in 2006 as part of a massive tax overhaul package – debuts this spring with businesses large and small expected to navigate their way through the complex requirements and file their returns by June 16.
Among the disenchanted taxpayers is Dallas businessman Andy Ellard, owner of a machine shop with 28 employees. Mr. Ellard said the size of his tax bill doesn’t match up with the pledges of state lawmakers. “We were promised a number of things, and none of them happened,” said Mr. Ellard. He estimated that he would pay about $8,900 under the new business franchise tax, more than double the $4,200 he paid last year.
“There are going to be some mad business owners [on June 16], and I think you’re going to see some people get voted out of office because of this,” he said.
Ya’ think? The fact of the matter is that the 2006 special session wasn’t conducted for the reasons that most Texans thought it was: more money for public schools. Yes, the Legislature was up against a court-mandated deadline to “equalize” funding for public schools and end what the court declared was essentially an unconstitutional tax, but it did so not with more money for public schools, but with a tax shift of gigantic proportions–all in the name of the bogus concept of “property tax relief.” To wit:
Even with the $1,700 he saved in property taxes – a result of the tax overhaul law – his net state tax increase is still about $3,000.
“We were told there would be no increase if we paid the [old] franchise tax last year,” he said, referring to the promise of lawmakers not to penalize businesses who were paying the franchise tax while many others skirted the tax. “I haven’t talked to a single businessman who isn’t looking at a tax increase.”
What exactly can the Legislature (or at least those who voted for the plan) say here? “Oops, our bad?”
This simply proves the point that the idea of property tax “relief” is a truly bogus concept without a complete re-write of Texas’ tax system. Clearly, just tweaking the franchise tax (incidentally, I notice that, these days, nobody is talking about all of those “loopholes” that were closed in the franchise tax rewrite) doesn’t do anything to equalize the tax burden.
While I do believe that big businesses (ie, banks, Wal-Mart, TXU) should be responsible for more taxes than the average man or woman ‘on the street’ by nature of their profits, the “wash” that small businesses were promised, i.e., “you won’t actually pay more taxes by the time you see your property tax relief and your new business tax and, indeed, may actually pay less taxes” seems to have not materialized.
Until we have truly meaningful tax reform in Texas, there will always be such difficulties.
Popularity: 32% [?]
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A new report by NARAL Pro-Choice Texas evaluating taxpayer-funded crisis pregnancy centers charges that the facilities are detrimental to the health of Texas women, and lack accountability and regulation in their use of millions of taxpayer money.
The report answers key questions about the Texas Pregnancy Care Network which are worth noting:
Does the TPCN meet self-identified goals? No. A close look reveals the TPCN did not come close to reaching self-identified projected goals. For example, the TPCN failed to meet their projected goal of “clients served” by more than 35% in the first two fiscal years (FY 06 and FY 07) of the contract. Over the first two fiscal years, the entire statewide TPCN network served an average of 127 women per month at a cost of more than $3 million. Assuming there are twenty workdays per month, the entire TPCN network reached about six women per day statewide.
2. Is the TPCN an efficient public structure? No. By any reasonable standard of service delivery competence, the TPCN contract is grossly inefficient and wasteful. Under the contract, the state of Texas is paying the TPCN almost $1.4 million (44% of all funds) in administrative fees and passing through almost $1.8 million (56% of all funds) to service providers (pre-existing local organizations that were already providing services to women long before TPCN was created). For every $1 that is passed through the TPCN to a local service provider, Texas taxpayers are paying the TPCN over $.44 – almost half - in overhead!
3. Does the TPCN, acting as a public structure to assist pregnant women, offer recommended services to prepare Texas women for a healthy birth and raising healthy children? No. In contrast to services recommended by mainstream, non-controversial organizations such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and National Association of Social Workers, the TPCN does not offer, and is not required to offer, recommended services for pregnant women. These services include licensed medical services, licensed counseling and support, or (with the exception of maternity homes) significant material assistance, such as cash, housing, or transportation assistance. The Texas “Alternatives to Abortion” program fails to consistently deliver recommended services for pregnant women. Texas women and families deserve a higher standard of care than the TPCN and its CPC partners are designed to provide.l Furthermore, hardworking Texas taxpayers deserve to know their multi-million dollar investment is justified by efficient and beneficial public structures.
Popularity: 15% [?]
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