Sine Die Report: What Survived, What Died
It's over.
After 170 days — 140 days in regular session and 30 in special session — Texas lawmakers cleared their desks on Wednesday and prepared for the journey out of Austin. At the beginning of the special session on May 31, Gov. Rick Perry laid out four core issues he wanted lawmakers to resolve: balance the budget for the next two years (including a plan for cutting school funding), reform the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association's claims process, draw congressional redistricting maps, and rein in the cost of health care.
As the weeks passed, he listened to some of his ...
Comments (18)
Dave Mundy
The failure of our state Legislature to accomplish anything of substance can be laid at the feet of three men: Rick Perry, David Dewhurst and Joe Straus.
Gentlemen, the Texas Nationalist Movement has a message for you: You're sitting in our seats.
mike adams
THANK THE LORD
THANK THE LORD
THANK THE LORD!
SB 28 IS DEAD!
IT WAS A VERY BAD-NON FREEDOM-{UN CONSTITUTIONAL} STUPID BILL!
SMOKING IS LEGAL & SHOULD BE LEFT UP TO EACH BUSINESS OWNER,
MAY IT BE A RESTAURANT, BAR, POOL HALL, BINGO HALL, BOWLING ALLEY-ETC!
PLUS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TERRIBLE FOR BUSINESS!
PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD!
CARLY PEITEL
PS.....I DON'T EVEN SMOKE!
Jon Roland
The anti-groping bills were knee-jerk legislation that got the support of a lot of people rightly concerned about the issue, who didn't think through what it would take to actually solve it. They clung to their determination to criminalize federal agents for one kind of violation, when what was needed was an entirely different approach, a Federal Action Review Commission, that could actually solve not only this kind of constitutional violation, but others as well, now and in the future.
Congress passes more than 20,000 legislative clauses a year that give rise to unconstitutional actions by federal agents, far more than can be challenged in the courts, or in state legislatures, even if they did nothing else.
Passion is good for motivating legislation, but not for writing it. It too often fastens on bills that are simple and that appeal to emotion, instead of on bills that have been carefully thought out.
On the other hand, the anti-groping bills appear to have worked without being passed, because the TSA has announced it will revise its policy on the subject. A "publicity stunt" can be effective, and this one may have been. But it should also teach people how better to approach this kind of issue in the future. See http://nullifynow.net
Daniel Monroe
Thank you to all of the legislators that didn't give in to the big corporations and held their ground. SB1 with Amazon in it is very important because it will allow all Texas businesses to compete on a level playing field.
Michael B Openshaw
Danial, watch Amazon and other big online retailers shut down ALL instate physical locations and move those jobs to any of the many states who don't have the tax. This provision is a state job killer.
Daniel Monroe
Mike B. I appreciate your concerns on it being a jobs killer. However, I think that allowing one company to have a competitive advantage over other existing companies is a jobs killer. These other companies would be unable to compete against the big online retailers who have a pricing advantage because of their tax exemptions. Also remember that Amazon has a history of picking up and leaving anyway after they don't get what they want. In many states they have shown they will leave once the tax break is expired. You would think they would be grateful for getting a 4 year break unlike their competitors and realize they should pay their fair share. However, that's not how Amazon operates. T
Daniel Monroe
Mike B. I also want to mention that you proved the argument for why Amazon should be required to collect the same sales taxes as everyone else. They DO have physical locations and therefore should be treated the same as other brick and mortars and mom and pop stores, not given preferential treatment.
Michael B Openshaw
Daniel, All I did is list the guaranteed impact of the decision in Austin. Not speaking the the right or wrong; just what WILL happen. My wife's job of 21 years was 'offshored' just a couple of months ago. Business work to control costs and sometimes the decisions made lack the 'right thing to do'.
Jon Roland
It makes some sense to collect sales tax on each book shipped from a warehouse inside Texas to a customer inside Texas, but the effect of the Texas demand was to also tax books shipped to a customer outside Texas from such a warehouse. Courts have held, correctly, that a state may not tax imports to it, and it is also not a good idea to tax exports to another state, which Texas generally does not do. Many businesses in the age of online sales cannot compete if they have to charge sales tax on top of a shipping fee. Many Texas-based online sales operations wind up selling only to out-of-state customers for that reason. There is a trend away from in-state sales of small, shippable items because sales taxes makes it cheaper to ship to customers out-of-state.
This situation is one of the reasons I advocate going to a purchase tax. That is like a sales tax except it is paid by the purchaser on items used for production, not on items he consumes himself. The tax is ultimately passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices, but it avoids many of the problems that come from trying to collect a sales tax. See http://www.constitution.org/tax/us-ic/cmt/purchasetax.htm
Brett Baldwin
This is why we need a National Sales Tax and a Constitutional ban on Federal Income Taxes.
Then the playing field is leveled for all businesses.
Brett Baldwin
Why didn't the reporter give the Texas lawmakers credit for the Photo Voter ID bill?
That bill was one of Gov. Perry's emergency bills. How did the reporter miss that?
Jon Roland
There are national sales taxes on some items, such as gasoline, but while that is earmarked for spending on U.S. highways, and does produce some local jobs, it does not in general bring in much revenue to the State Treasury, which is the main point here.
If Texas didn't collect Chapter 202 oil production taxes on production from Texas fields we would be in the same mess other states are in. That is why Texas can keep its other taxes low and be so attractive to business. We are currently benefiting from the higher price of oil, which in turn is largely the result of China and India buying more oil, which is made possible by those countries running a trade surplus with the U.S., selling more to us than we buy from them. What China doesn't loan us to cover our fiscal deficits from paying out too much in benefits and government salaries, it uses to run up the world price of oil, which you pay at the pump, but also pay less in other taxes because the higher global prices for oil boosts Texas oil production and therefore state tax revenues.
Everything is connected, and one way or another, everyone pays.
Jon Roland
As for the national income tax on compensation for labor, the way to ban that is for Congress to recognize the Income Tax Amendment was never ratified, and that "income" never included compensation for labor. We could use some clarifying amendments to do that. See http://amend-it.org
Brett Baldwin
@Jon,
I support the continuation of the Chapter 202 oil production taxes on production from Texas fields.
I only support a National Sales Tax if it is a 50-50 tax. 50% goes to the State where it is initially collected.
We must get rid of the Federal Income Tax because it is making the cost of goods sold in the USA too expensive to compete with foreign made goods.
Jon Roland
@Brett,
The trouble with letting the Union government collect taxes for the states is that it gives it the power to unduly pressure the states by threatening to withhold payments to them. Each state or other jurisdiction needs to collect its own taxes.
What really hurts the competitiveness of U.S. companies is the corporate income tax, including taxes on foreign earnings, and withholding taxes and mandated benefits, not the tax on compensation for labor. Part of the problem is we are spending money for the benefit of other nations, as the world's policeman, without them paying their fair share. We need a tax on other countries, but then they would have a right to be represented in Congress, and most of the rest of the world is nowhere near ready to be admitted as states.
The Roman Empire had the same problem, and we all know how that worked out.
Leslie Aisenman
I don't understand why the Trib constantly adopts the rhetoric of the most regrtessive forces in our state, ie..."rein in the cost of healkth care." The states expenditures on health care weren't simply reined in, they were savaged. There is a differfence and it's past time that the Trib recognize the real differences in its editorial statements. I don't see quotation marks in the body, and usage is that of the Tribs writer.
And I wonder, why is it that asking big corporations to pay their fair share of any tax is a job killer. Is it that they have succored states into bidding against one another with outlandish tax beaks only to pick up stakes when that tax break ends leaving nothing but parched ground and scorched earth behind.
Tax breaks for locating or relocating anyh business should be outlawed Nationally. Then we'd have a level competition field/
Jon Roland
@Leslie
The reality is that it is impossible to provide everyone who may need it with unlimited medical treatment. There soon won't be enough money or economic productivity on Earth to pay for it. It is one thing to require medical providers to provide everyone with "emergency" care that is limited to binding wounds, setting bones, easing pain, and feeding them while they recover or don't, but quite another to perform major surgery or provide expensive therapy or medications for the rest of their lives.
There may come a time when all people have to do is pop a cheap pill to get indefinite youthful good health, but we're not there yet, and we won't get there if we spend all the money needed to do the research to get there on treating people. This and the next couple of generations are just going to have to either pay for their own care or die. That is harsh, but we don't do anyone any favors by lying to them about what is possible. The Universe is not organized for our comfort or convenience. It is just luck that we exist at all.
Linda Gerhart
OMG! THANK GOD the Texas legislature spent valuable time on the "anti-groping" legislation. We can live without a school financing, we can live without a balanced budget, we can live without fair insurance practices, and we can even go on paying for illegal, non-insured people in our state (after all it's just money) ahd who cares if they're legal or not, but my god people, how are we going to survive if they don't do something about these rediculous, excessive pat downs? I don't know about you but I don't happen to be in the EXTREMELY SMALL percentage of people who fly on a regular basis but by god when I do fly, I'd hate to be patted down in excess. Whew!! GOD BLESS TEXAS and our Legislators for looking out for us and what's most important.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME????????????????