Action Update - Issue 89 :: February 19, 2007

Spending For Tax Relief -

The Spending Cap vs. Property Tax Relief
Talmadge Heflin - Texas Public Policy Foundation

Four years ago, the Texas Legislature faced an unprecedented $10 billion funding shortfall. Nevertheless, we balanced the state budget without a tax increase.

Today, the state’s fiscal fortunes are completely reversed. Billions of dollars are available, but in many ways taxpayers are at more risk than ever before. Nothing is more tempting for some policymakers than to spend surplus money on new and expanded programs, putting taxpayers on the financial hook into the indefinite future.

Fortunately, our legislative leadership has already signaled its intent to build a responsible budget. The introduced version of the budget would increase true general revenue spending by less than four percent over two years. This is likely less of an increase than the state’s population growth plus inflation.

At the same time, the legislature is debating how best to spend above a constitutional spending cap that voters approved 30 years ago. That cap has never before been formally breached and many are understandably hesitant to be the first to do so. The real issue, though, is local property tax relief.

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FWST : In Defense of Darfur

Bipartisan bills -- SB247 / HB667 -- call for the targeted divestment of Texas pension funds in companies that do business with the Sudanese government. If the leaders of the North African nation won't listen to reason, perhaps they'll respond to pressure from those who wish to do business with them.

The situation in Darfur -- declared to be genocide by the U.S. government -- continues to worsen. Late in 2006, The Washington Post reported that the Congressional Research Service said that 400,000 people there had died from violence and other causes since 2003. The U.S. State Department estimated that 2.2 million others had been displaced.

The African Union, the United Nations, numerous countries and a large number of aid organizations would like to help. But Khartoum stubbornly refuses assistance -- and is doing little to halt the fighting and killing.

Given that world opinion doesn't seem to matter, the Sudan Divestment Task Force, a project of the Genocide Intervention Network, came up with a different idea: Hit the intransigent leaders in the place that hurts all politicians -- the wallet.

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Alternatives to More Prisons Promote Public Safety,

Restorative Outcomes, and Fiscal Responsibility

Marc Levin - Texas Public Policy Foundation

For decades, Texas policymakers have been caught in a cycle of regularly passing sentencing enhancements and restricting parole and then, after several biennia, responding to the overflow of inmates by building new prisons. However, January 29, 2007 represented a critical moment as state leaders endeavored to break this cycle. First, Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order creating the Texas Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center and, later that day, two alternative scenarios to new prisons were presented by Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire (D-Houston) and House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden (R-Plano) at a historic joint hearing of the Senate Criminal Justice and House Corrections Committees. 

While the state’s criminal justice challenges can seem daunting, they are easier to solve precisely because, for the most part, incarceration is now the hammer and every offender the nail. Given that half of Texas prison inmates are nonviolent offenders, we need not and should not hesitate to incarcerate when it comes to violent offenders.

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RECOMMENDED READING:

• Another Kind of Black Gold
  Adding low-cost coal plants to the power mix would confer an array of benefits to Texas
  households and businesses.

• SA Express News: Give Autistic Children School Choice Option
  Many school districts are ill-equipped to educate autistic children.
  Some don't have the resources.

• Perry's Higher Education Plan Praised
  Sara Martinez Tucker, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Education, said no other state has put forward a plan as comprehensive as Perry's.

• Shepard: A Need for Accountability
  We should keep CHIP on a six-month renewal cycle to ensure the program has the funds to help those who really are eligible.

• The Honorable Sam Johnson Addresses Congress
  We POWs were still in Vietnam when Washington cut the funding for Vietnam. I know
  what it does to morale and mission success. Words can not fully describe the horrendous damage of the anti-American efforts against the war back home to the guys on the ground

• Utah's Revolutionary New School Voucher Program
  Heritage Foundation:  Today, 12 states and the District of Columbia provide public funding for school choice.

INFORMATION:
Janelle Shepard, Executive Director
Texans for Texas, Inc., 815-A Brazos St #384, Austin, TX 78701-9996.
© 2004 Texans For Texas, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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