Michael Quinn Sullivan
Published: 05-16-08
Taxpayers were handed a much-deserved victory this week by Attorney General Gregg Abbott. What’s that? You didn’t read about it in the press? Big surprise eh? More on that below...
Poor Democrats
I almost feel sorry for the Texas Democratic leadership. Their national candidates hate each other. They’ve got State Rep. Borris Miles under indictment for deadly conduct. State Rep. Hubert Vo is being called a “slumlord” by the Houston Chronicle. And now all these dang pesky taxpayers are angry about Democratic lawmakers (and some Republicans) hiring political cronies as “ghost employees.”
Okay so I don’t feel sorry for State Rep. Jessica Farrar who chairs the House Democratic Caucus. She sent a typically whiny “memo” out this week torturously explaining (1) why what they were doing was okay-fine and (2) crying about the sunlight being shined on this process.
She wrote “everyone’s Fall opponent will now” be able to say the legislator is under investigation. How shrill and how wrong. The only people who have to worry about it as an election issue are the people actually doing it. But then liberals like Farrar don’t much like having the rules they make for us apply to them.
Whether it’s employment law gun safety or health codes the Texas Democratic Caucus just doesn’t want to be restricted by the laws they make for us.
Grim Liberals
Maybe that’s why liberals are such a grim lot. Recent studies show that liberals are on average a very unhappy group while conservatives tend to be rather joyful. We see it in Texas.
Unlike the rest of the nation the state has job growth and the economy is performing strongly. But to Texas liberals calamity rules because government isn’t taking all that it could from your wallet. One leftist group issued a dire statement this week saying “Texas faces another tight budget in 2010-11.” They go on to shrilly warn that “the state will again be unable to fund critical public systems without new sources of revenue.”
What planet are they on? Texas had a $14.3 billion surplus in 2007 and is expected to have a surplus of between $10 billion and $15 billion in 2009.
The crisis is that liberals don’t have unfettered access to your wallet. And that makes them sad.
Property Tax Victory!
Attorney General Abbott’s office released an opinion this week that wisely concluded (and not just because they sided with a legal brief we sent to them on the issue in February) that the Legislature isn’t allowed to impose new property taxes without a constitutional amendment.
At issue was whether a multijurisdictional library district could impose a new property tax. Even though the Legislature had authorized the tax there was no constitutional language presented to voters. And since the state constitution provides a complete list of entities that can tax property it couldn’t go into effect.
And Finally…
You’ll see that we’ve launched a new occasional video feature “Real Tax Wasters.” Our well-deserved honoree this week is “Mr. Out-of-Touch TxDOT Bureaucrat Man.” Send us your nominees at any time using our special nomination form or just reply to this e-mail.
