Clay Robison Lets The Secret Out
The Chronicle's Austin bureau chief during the week and Sunday partisan editorialist let the secret out in today's column on the Perry/Sharp tax plan:
Coming soon to a bank account near and dear to you! Extra money!
Well, let us not get as carried away as our Republican leaders in Austin, but with a little luck the special legislative session now under way may actually reduce your school property taxes.
Don't plan to buy that extra car just yet, though, and if you are a smoker, you are probably going to be much farther behind than you are now, thanks to the extra $1 per pack that lawmakers are slapping on the cigarette tax to help pay for the tradeoff.
Homeowners will save money, at least initially, if the Legislature cuts school operating taxes by the one-third that Gov. Rick Perry is seeking. But the bottom-line savings for most taxpayers — particularly people in the middle- and lower-income brackets — will be significantly eroded as the swap for higher state taxes is completed and property values continue their inevitable climb.
The dirty little secret is out, if even Clay Robison is admitting that the Perry/Sharp property tax reduction is ephemeral!
It is ephemeral, of course, because of appraisal creep. Today's proposed tax savings will be wiped out in a few years by appraisal creep.
Unfortunately, the new tax on business is not ephemeral.
You can't blame John Sharp, really. Somehow, that guy managed to lose his election (along with other Dems running for statewide office) and STILL got himself in a position to create a new revenue stream in the conservative state of Texas.
But you can blame Rick Perry, at least if you're conservative.
This is the guy who held the line on taxes in 2003, when every editorial board in the state would have praised him if he had suddenly acted like a Democrat and raised taxes because of the budget crisis. This is the guy who's been in line with a majority of Texans on social issues. And this is a guy who otherwise, frankly, has been pretty uninspiring. Still, those two factors were enough.
Were.
Perry must be worried about his favorable/unfavorable numbers if he's this desperate to pass a property tax cut (any cut) -- and yes, I realize the courts "made" him, although that problem could have been fixed with the surplus, so I'm not really buying that excuse. And he must think conservatives are stupid if he honestly believes that the bribe of a temporary/ephemeral property tax cut is going to keep them from noticing a non-temporary/permanent new tax on businesses that is likely to have a disproportionate impact on small businesses that don't own property.
Rick Perry is simply on the wrong side of this issue, as far as conservatives are concerned.
So what's his response?
Personal attacks on Dan Patrick, Norman Adams, and Steve Hotze, whom Perry apparently feels are the source of all conservative resentment at the new tax that he and new buddy John Sharp are proposing.
That's right -- he's attacking the conservative who blew away better financed primary candidates in a Republican district and embracing the tax plan of a Dem who lost his last election.
Stunning.
I'm with Rob Booth on this one. If someone other than that supporter of the twice-convicted triple murderer gets to the right of Perry on fiscal issues (which shouldn't be hard now), that person has my support. Otherwise, I'll be sitting this one out.
UPDATE (05-01-2006): Hotze, Adams, et al. have been circulating a pdf of the potential Schedule B: Reformed Franchise Tax Collection form. That form should really speak to conservatives for itself, and much more effectively than all of the Perry/Sharp namecalling.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/30/06 23:09 | Texas | Technorati
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Comments
I really hate to say this, but Strayhorn is starting to look like the lesser of the evils here. I can't even contemplate voting for Bell or Freidman, but I'm having a VERY hard time seeing a reason to vote for Perry either. That leaves Strayhorn. Sure she's been all over the map politically depending on which way the political wind is blowing, but that does at least indicate she is willing to listen to the public on things. Sadly she has managed to get to the right of a republican on this.
Posted by Rorschach @ 12:44 on 05/03/06
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