Burnt Orange Report

Hopefully the Three Stooges will be retired soon by the voters. But to give the devils their dues, most of this falls on the legislators themselves. All of the plans including the Democratic plans put the tax burden on the people instead of the corporations and in particular these limited partnerships which is how most law firms and oil and gas interests operate and do so for the sole purpose it would seem of escaping taxation. And the tax burden of all these various plans was not put on all the people. Just the poor and middle class.

You can get rid of the Three Stooges and you will have the same problem. The same bipartisan problem. Our legislators seem to have decided that special interests take precedence over the public interest. We don't matter. And neither do our children. That was the message they sent us as well.

Our legislators managed to pass other legislation including shifting electric bill subsidies to the general fund and giving themselves a bigger pension and trying to hide it behind a "judicial pay" increase hoping we wouldn't notice. We did.

And some of the Democratic reps may have as big a surprise at election time as the Republicans. The voters are becoming bipartisan as well. They are getting fed up with all of them. And in particular, they are getting fed up with the partisan finger pointing.

BS-

Look at the votes in the House and Senate, and see which party was voting to pass these horrific tax and education bills. Seeing how people vote isn't partisan finger-pointing -- it's holding legislators accountable. Look at how many Democrats voted for the people of Texas, and look at how many Republicans voted for the leadership/special interests in Texas. Look at who supported bills to raise taxes on 90% of Texans (Republicans), and who offered amendments to give tax relief to the hard-working families of Texas (Democrats).

Don't look at the quotes in the paper -- look at the votes on the floor. It was clear, through these last sessions, which party was for the people of Texas, and which was for themselves. If you still can't see the difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to education and tax issues, then you just don't want to see it.

"...who offered amendments to give tax relief to the hard-working families of Texas (Democrats)."

I'd like to see the amendments that would have given tax relief to anyone at the point we had the highest sales tax rate in the country.

I believe it was Eddie Rodriguez who proposed an income tax in lieu of a sales tax that would have limited tax liability somewhat on the poor but who also proposed abolishing Robin Hood. When there is disproportionate wealth in a district, there is disproportionate funding in others which is why we have Robin Hood. All Texans have the right to the best education possible. While certainly not perfect, Robin Hood at least provides a foundation for equitable funding to ensure the best education possible. The wealthy districts hate it, the poor districts love it. But he would have abolished it. The last time I checked, he was a Democrat. But proposed the two things most the majority of Texans soundly reject time after time, poll after poll.

Many Texans are also tired of the waste and in some cases the outright fraud by district administrators. I did not see one bill that addressed that. In Houston it seems to be a monthly feature on Wayne Dolcefino. HISD's "heist of the month." Taxing us to death and then not bothering to ensure the funding derived from that taxation is properly spent and properly accounted for is not good government. And the main problem with education funding in Texas is the spending of the funding by the individual districts. And please do not respond that it is a local problem. The local districts respond to you by shooting the bird at you or having you forcibly removed from board meetings when you ask for the facts and figures. The legislature should ban some of the more popular budget bonananzas for political insiders such as consulting. If an administrator has to use outside consultants to do their job, they need to find another job.

All of the bills were concerned with continuing this "education by performance" which only ensures students can pass a test. Not whether they have really learned anything. Time was a teacher decided who passed and failed. Not a standardized test. Students spend more and more classroom hours preparing for tests than in simply learning. If they learned in the classroom, most would pass the tests. Despite increased emphasis on "preparing" the students for the tests, more and more districts are still not producing the higher scores the state mandates. So something is wrong somewhere.

Government is very complicated. Votes are one thing. Alternative solutions are another. My point was and is that I didn't see any viable alternative solutions offered by the Democrats. Neither did quite a few others around the state.

I blame Governor Goodhair who possibly might have reached a compromise somewhere himself if he had tried a little bipartisan "conferencing" on his own. He claims to have wanted equitable funding through equitable taxation while reducing tax burdens on the people who can least afford increased taxation. But reality is he didn't offer much incentive to anyone to find a way to accomplish that. Because he is running for office. Which apparently is the problem with all of them.

Which is how we will spend 2006. Watching them run for office while the lobbyists are busy on both sides of the aisle making deals for the 2007 session. Austin should be called Loophole City during the even-numbered years. That seems to be the primary focus of the lobbyists and the legislators themselves. Maybe they should ban golf during even-numbered years?

"My point was and is that I didn't see any viable alternative solutions offered by the Democrats. Neither did quite a few others around the state."

Really? Not any other solutions? Nothing about making sure that more money goes to instruction? Nothing about stripping performance measures from being based entirely on testing? Nothing about giving incentives to experienced teachers to keep them in the classroom? Nothing about the state paying for all college prep tests? Were you watching this Session, Baby Snooks, or just reading cluttered accounts on the blogs and in the papers? You even from Texas? B/c for someone who follows the blogs so closely, you seem a little detached from most of what's going on here...

I bet he's from New York City