Homeowners confused, frustrated as property tax bills arrive (April Castros, Associated Press)
What was supposed to be one of Gov. Rick Perry’s greatest campaign assets may have turned into one of his worst liabilities.
Perry claims in a now-pulled ad that the last special session of the Legislature would mean the “average homeowner will receive a $2,000 tax cut.”
As Texas homeowners receive their bills this month, most will find their property taxes have gone up instead of down.
Whoops!
10 comments On Thanks for the tax cut, guv
Bell’s running on the right issue, but he’s going about it the wrong way. Everybody’s angry about education, and knows that Texas ranks close to the bottom in many significant categories, but he’s obssessing over how TAAS is used. He happens to be right, but it’s not exactly a sexy campaign issue.
He should be campaigning on how the schools have gone to hell in a handbasket under Perry, Craddick, and Dewhurst (thus giving a boost to the whole ticket) and how there have have been seven special sessions that have done nothing to fix the underlying problem of the way schools are funded.
I’m not sure Bell necessarily wants the tax to be bigger; my impression is that he wants it to be broader-based. I make no claim to be any kind of tax expert, but my understanding is that the legislation from the last special session puts the burden mainly on smaller businesses and exempts corporations and larger businesses.
If Chris Bell were to go to the right of Rick Perry, he would be changing who he is, and people are sick and tired of that in Democrats. That’s why we keep losing elections. Given the choice between a Republican and someone who’s trying to act like a Republican, voters will choose the actual Republican every time. People know they have to pay taxes; they simply expect it to be fair. If he’s going to talk about taxes at all (and he probably shouldn’t), that’s what he should center the discussion around.
APC,
The problem is that given a choice between a Republican and a Democrat that acts like a Democrat, Texas voters will still pick the Republican every time.
That’s a problem all right.
I wish I could see it making a difference…
I don’t think it will either. The only candidate with the potential voter base to beat Perry in a four-way race (Chris Bell) is far worse on fiscal issues, criticizing the governor for property-tax relief efforts and complaining that the disastrous new business tax wasn’t bigger!
Can you imagine if, instead, Chris Bell had run as a new kind of Democrat, and tried hard to get to the right of Perry and capitalize on one issue (property taxes) that has conservatives in Texas mad as hell?
But Bell’s not a new Democrat, and doesn’t have that in him.
And so, we are stuck with these flawed candidates, and trying to figure out which is the least flawed. I have real problems with Perry on the property tax issue and the new business tax, and I just don’t know if I click the button for him even knowing the other alternatives are worse. Ugh.
I didn’t know any of that Houston history. Interesting. But I have to disagree. There are enough core Democratic voters (35-45%, depending on whose numbers you believe) for Bell to win a four-way race. Perry’s been stuck at 35% for months, and it doesn’t really look like that number’s going to move much. With Strayhorn and Friedman already pulling votes from Perry’s GOP base, he wants to energize his own Democratic base, and a property tax push, while a good issue, isn’t the best red meat issue for the Democratic base. A solid GOTV effort from the Dems could make it a close election. An internal Kay Bailey poll has Bell with five points, although that requires a pretty big grain of salt, I think.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not doing anything stupid like predicting a Bell win. It could be interesting, though.
An internal Kay Bailey poll has Bell with five points,
I thought everyone backed away from that rumor?
That could be right. I haven’t heard anything about it in a day or so. It is, after all, less than two weeks out and time for all kinds of rumors to start seriously flying around. Quorum Report is reporting (and taking great pains to say that they’re internal numbers) that the Strayhorn campaign is releasing an internal poll saying she’s within 5 points of Perry. HA! Just for what it’s worth, here’s my guess for the final percentages: Perry-37%, Bell-35%, Strayhorn-15%, Kinky-10%, Werner-3%
Bell was a good councilman who I wish’d been elected mayor, but at some point in congress he got cocooned into a mass-production-model Democrat that I am very reluctant to support. Were there any indication Governor Bell were more like Councilman Bell than Congressman Bell, he’d have my vote.
If Chris Bell were to go to the right of Rick Perry, he would be changing who he is,
Not on property taxes.
He once touted the fact that he was an advocate of property tax rate cuts on City Council. He joined with conservatives on that. So he had some credibility if he wanted to bill himself as the guy to bring real relief to average property owners in Texas, as opposed to Rick Perry.
That’s a REAL sticking point with many Republican voters. Instead of fighting with two other candidates over who can win over centrist non-Dem voters to the left of Perry, why not try to peel away some of Perry’s base voters to add to your base (Dems).
There aren’t enough Dem voters for Bell to win even a four-way race if Perry holds his base. But if Bell had a wedge issue to pull some of those voters from Perry (while Carol and Richard fight over the scraps)…. maybe. I still believe Dems are mostly going to vote for Bell, because straight-ticket voting is still powerful, and I don’t think they’d abandon him if he advocated real property tax relief.
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