Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst announced he will name the Senate’s committees on Thursday or Friday of this week, with one exception. He wants the Senate Finance Committee to get going right away, and named that panel this afternoon.
Economy
Get the latest on jobs, business, growth, and policy shaping the state’s economy with in-depth reporting from The Texas Tribune.
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Economy
TribBlog: Senate Would Cut $28.8 Billion from Budget
The Senate’s version of a starting state budget is, at $158.7 billion, $2.3 billion bigger than the House’s, but still would chop overall state spending by $28.8 billion, or 15.4 percent, from current levels.
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Economy
A Chicken Little Budget
Whatever budget lawmakers eventually approve will serve as the working blueprint for the state for the two years starting in September. But the budget released last week isn’t a blueprint — it’s a political document. It marks the shift from the theoretical rhetoric of the campaigns to the reality of government.
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Economy
In for the Long Haul?
A proposal by the Obama administration that would grant Mexican truckers greater access to Texas roadways would be a boon for business in the state, supporters say, since three of the top five ports for trade between the U.S. and Mexico are Laredo, El Paso and Houston. But unions contend the plan would cost American jobs. “This cheap-labor program comes at too high a risk and at too large a cost to middle-class American workers who work long, hard hours to help maintain a safe commerce system in our nation,” says a spokesman for the Texas AFL-CIO.
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Economy
TribBlog: Can Texas Cut Medicaid Payments?
In a case that could directly affect Texas’ planned budget cuts, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether states have the legal right to reduce the rates they pay to health care providers who accept Medicaid patients.
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Economy
Budget Blues
As House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, laid out the first grim round of proposed cuts on Wednesday, even some of his Republican colleagues couldn’t stifle their objections. House Democrats went a step further, calling the cuts “akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight.”
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Economy
TribBlog: Pitts Lays Out Budget [Updated]
House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, laid out the grim details of the proposed budget this morning — but said he still thinks lawmakers can be approve the budget during the regular legislative session.
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Economy
TribBlog: Scrounging for Cash
The Legislative Budget Board has begun distributing (to legislators — not to the public) its recommendations for how to save money and raise money to help balance the 2012-13 state budget. They plan to distribute copies of the budget itself (again, to lawmakers only) later tonight, and all of the documents will be available online to the public tomorrow morning. The details are still coming in, but here are some of the headlines from the LBB’s Government Effectiveness and Efficiency Recommendations.
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Economy
TribBlog: Are Tax Holidays Over?
The Legislature’s starting budget will apparently include proposals to cancel popular back-to-school sales tax holidays, cut discounts for retailers who remit sales taxes early, allow sales of liquor on Sundays to increase revenue from taxes on alcohol, cut the state’s subsidy of dependent insurance premiums for state employees and lower the tax breaks for energy companies that take on certain high-cost gas drilling projects, sources say.
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Economy
The Looming Cuts
With some top state leaders warning that Texas’ dire fiscal situation will lead to the loss of several thousand state jobs, House budget writers will release their first draft budget today. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, big job cuts may be just the beginning.