The latest budget news from The Texas Tribune.
Less than two days after approving a state budget that cuts $23 billion from current spending, Rep. Jim Pitts says House leaders are already talking among themselves about how much more money they'd be willing to spend. Full Story
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Texas need to address its structural deficit during the current session, or it will face even deeper financial problems in two years than it faces today, senate leaders said Tuesday afternoon. Full Story
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Texas needs to address its structural deficit during the current session or it will face even deeper financial problems in two years than it faces today, Senate leaders said Tuesday afternoon. Full Story
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Confused about the state's budget process? Trust us — you’re not alone. Check our flow chart to help understand where we are in the process (highlighted in yellow) and what steps are next (highlighted in gray). Full Story
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The Texas House started with a $164.5 billion budget and ended with the same total. But lawmakers spent the better part of a weekend making changes inside the budget for 2012-13 before giving it their approval, 98 to 49. Full Story
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Tan's wall-to-wall coverage of the budget (with more from the rest of the Trib crew, interviews with some of the freshmen seeing this up close for the first time and a map of how it works), Philpott on the similarities between budget worries in Texas and those elsewhere, M. Smith explains school finance, Ramshaw on the dwindling insurance options for orphans, Grissom on legal fights over the drugs used for state executions, Aguilar on the run-up to the debate over sanctuary cities, Stiles maps the diversity of Texas counties, Galbraith on efforts to recycle plastic bags and Hamilton on calls for "entrepreneurship" at the University of Texas: The best of our best content from March 28 to April 1, 2011. Full Story
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No time to follow every twist and turn of the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our weekly recaps of the action under the dome. Full Story
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We liveblogged the full debate over HB 1, the House version of the general appropriations bills for the next biennium, which passed late Sunday night 98 to 49. Full Story
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We cannot solve this budget crisis with blind, across-the-board cuts. There are better choices. If we return to the pragmatic political approach that once defined our politics, we will keep alive the tradition of each generation sacrificing for a better Texas. Full Story
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Today, as we vote on House Bill 1, we are in the position of squeezing water out of rock, and the process is hard and dirty work. Democrats will say there is no water in the rock. They are wrong. Full Story
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It’s not just that state Sen. Robert Duncan doesn’t like gambling. He doesn’t think he could get legalized casinos approved. But Duncan's got a mission: Find $5 billion to $6 billion. Full Story
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Heated debate over the state budget is already under way, but as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, similar fighting has been playing out for at least three years across the country. Full Story
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State Reps. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, and Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, react to the passage of HB4 and HB275, and preview of the upcoming battle over HB1, the House's bare-bones general appropriations plan for the next biennium. Full Story
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Heated debate over the state budget is already under way, but as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, similar fighting has been playing out for at least three years across the country. Full Story
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With the strum of a guitar and the whine of fiddle strings, Ray Benson and two other members of his band Asleep At The Wheel kicked off a rally Thursday to support the Texas Historical Commission, which faces deep budget cuts. Full Story
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House lawmakers voted this afternoon to preliminarily pass HB 4 and HB 275, two bills that together will balance the state's budget for the remaining months of the fiscal year through a mix of spending cuts and use of the Rainy Day Fund. Full Story
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Numbers aren’t all that’s buried in the budget. Lawmakers have filed hundreds of amendments that are political in nature, from repealing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants to trying to push Planned Parenthood out of the family planning business. Full Story
Members of the Texas House filed more than 400 pages of amendments in advance of a debate April 1 on the state's biennial budget, known around the Capitol as House Bill 1. Use this interactive to explore those documents. Full Story
At this morning's TribLive conversation, state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, the longest-serving woman, African American and Democrat in the Texas House, forcefully argued that state funding of public education should not be cut — unless school districts are made to tap into their own reserves. Full Story
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We're liveblogging from the House floor, where lawmakers are expected to vote on HB 4 and HB 275, two bills that would balance the Fiscal Year 2011 budget and authorize lawmakers to withdraw $3.1 billion from the Rainy Day Fund. Full Story