Burnt Orange Report

"Bell didn't roll out any new policy initiatives, but did say he favored expanding the business tax both to pay for reductions in local school property taxes and to spend more on education."

That should guarantee that the big corporate PAC money will start rolling in to finance his campaign.

Might help if half the businesses that don't pay the current tax just paid it. Might help if they were no longer exempt.

As for Perry, he certainly is confident there won't be a huge turnout next November, isn't he?

Maybe he's planning to issue a terror alert on election day.

The AP story about Bell is now available.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3514903.html

From the AP:
Bell pledged to make Texas public schools the best in the country in the next decade. "I'll make that commitment," he said.

This AP quote suggests that Bell has a Texas-sized vision for our schools. This is great news. While it will obviously take a lot of work to make Texas schools the best in the country, I'm glad Bell isn't afraid to lead with a bold vision.

Voter apathy exists in Texas largely because the voters don't think Democrats are much different than Republicans. But if Democrats finally start displaying some leadership by proposing big ideas that will actually affect voters' lives in a meaningful way, then maybe voters will be more inspired to vote for Democrats again. Texas is a proud state, yet we're in a race with Mississippi to the bottom. But if Bell and other Democrats can appeal to Texas pride, then maybe we can finally leave Mississippi in the dust.

I should note that the quoted comment was not made with specific regards to Kinky's campaign, or anyone else's (though it was prompted by an article on Strayhorn's campaign).

How exactly is Bell going to expand the business tax? Is he going to change apportionment? Is he going to move away from the single-sales factor? He seems to be another in a long line of Texas politicians who ignores some sound policy, ie income tax, and is vague in his support for other decent policies. As long as Texas doesn't have a state income tax, there won't be longterm stability in school finance. On a related note, I'm writing a paper about Texas tax policy for Andy Reschovsky, the UW professor who testified that the school finance system doesn't meet the adequacy standard.

Like everything else that was supposed to fund education, the income tax would be spent on something else. That is why the majority of Texans oppose it. The politicians don't seem to care about us. All they care about is the special interest groups. All the politicians say they care while they're running. Then shoot the bird after we've elected them. And then blame the other party when election time rolls around. So far, it keeps getting the same ones elected. Over and over and over.

Expanding the business tax while allowing some to remain exempt is hardly sound. Or decent.

That is the one thing that Rick Perry cannot be faulted for. He called for equitable taxation and equitable funding. The lobbyists for the special interests, particularly the law firms and the oil industry, are the reason why we don't have equitable taxation in this state. The lobbyists and the legislature. The law firms in particular go nuts when you mention franchise tax. Why do some pay and others don't? They pay to make sure they don't pay. Through PAC contributions and their own lobbyists.

Even when we have a surplus, the legislature finds a way to spend the money on everything but education. They claim they can't find the money. We had a surplus this year. What did they do with that money? At the beginning of the year, Carole Strayhorn projected a surplus of $400 million. Rick Perry projected a surplus of $6.4 billion. Where's the money, honey? Where did they spend it? They sure didn't spend it on us. Or our children. They instead proposed raising taxes by raising the sales tax while supposedly lowering property taxes. Which produced a swarm of school district lobbyists.

As for taxes, equitable tax means just that. Everyone pays. And you can make bet even if Chris Bell repeated Rick Perry's call for equitable funding, the legislature would shoot the bird at him the way they did at Rick Perry. The way they always shoot it at us.

You want to point fingers with regard to equitable taxation and equitable funding, don't point them at the governor's mansion. Point them at the legislature. They are the ones who appropriate the budgets. Particularly the ones that have surpluses. Which somehow seem to always vanish into thin air by the time the legislative session has ended. And the poor and the elderly and the children are always told "sorry" and then told to blame the opposing party for cutting them out. Both parties carry equal responsiblity for the dismal shape of our public education system.

By rule, most of the revenue generated by a state income tax would be spent on education in the form of property tax relief. Property tax relief is generally code for state education aid with the hope that districts will lower property taxes. Districts almost never actually lower tax rates because they understand that they will get more state education aid if they keep taxes constant or raise them. That results in increases in education spending. That's been the result of property tax relief state education aid formulas in just about every case. There isn't nearly the revenue from any other option that the state could generate with a moderate income tax rate.

The fact is, our current governor is clueless. They're basing his poll number recovery on his grandstanding on the hurricane victim assistance issue. Perry put forward his own school finance report in the Texas House, and it failed 128(?) to 0. From one side of his mouth, he claims that he's against bringing gambling to Texas, while at the same time, he calls for video lottery terminals at horce races. Does this sound like a desperate governor, anyone?
This Republican feels like he was let down by someone who has demonstrated how much of a rookie he still is. Unfortunately, no candidate has stepped foward to offer a plan outside of the typical partisan playbook. At this point, I see myself 1)leaving the governor's race blank on the 2006 ballot or 2)voting for Kinky Friedman, who seems to be more solution minded than public relations minded.

Trey should start a Kinky Republicans group.

You never know...sometimes a candidate who wants to get down to the nitty-gritty when it comes to finding real answers to common policy problems, is exactly what our state needs....and you can count me in as a petition signer for Kinky... :D

Kinky has my signature. If Bob Gammage doesn't run for governor, he has my vote as well.

Perhaps we should form a "Partisans for Kinky" group?...LOL

Why the hell not? How hard could it be?

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