Facing an $18 billion dollar budget shortfall in the upcoming legislative session, House Republicans are coming to the realization that federal stimulus dollars won't help them balance the budget this time, and that perhaps other solutions will have to surface to fix the problem that more than a decade of GOP leadership in Texas has created. To that end, legislative Republicans are considering legalized gambling as a way to increase revenue.
"Gambling could help us on our budget," said Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, after his Appropriations Committee heard sobering testimony from revenue and budget experts this morning. "I'm going to look at every revenue enhancer that we can get," Pitts said. "If you go across the border [to] Oklahoma and Louisiana, you're going to see Texas cars, and we need to grab that money."
You don't say? I just couldn't believe that so many Texans, in the Bible belt, would cross the borders of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana to gamble--spending billions of dollars in neighboring states when such dollars could be spent right here in the Lone Star State. Who would have thought that? Welcome to reality, Texas GOP.
Given that Republican Speaker of the House Joe Strauss has hemmed in House budget writers from even considering new taxes to close the budget shortfall, what exactly are legislators supposed to consider outside of legalized gambling? Rick Perry decided to hem the legislature in even more by declaring his opposition today to legalize gambling.
"The Texas Legislature may find that it is something they're interested in," Perry said during a visit to Richardson. "I would highly recommend they don't send it to my desk."
Rick Perry had no problem raising taxes on small businesses after rejecting federal stimulus dollars to Texas' unemployment trust fund. I guess Joe Strauss doesn't mind taxes being raised if it is Rick Perry doing it; meanwhile, the legislature is forced to figure out ways to balance the budget after politically expedient decisions are made for the good of primary campaigning a la Perry vs Hutchison.
It may be politically popular right now to publicly declare "no new taxes" as Strauss has done, or even develop fictional accounts of a low-tax resume such as Perry, but the fact is that for state government to provide even the most basic of services to Texans then some sort of viable solution must be pursued or state services will be cut dramatically farther than they are right now. Taxes, despite misinformation to the contrary, have never been lower than they are right now. Pandering to Tea Party activists, who represent about 15% of the voting population, and not representing the interests of mainstream voters, or the needs of Texas as a state, is political pandering at your own peril. |
