By Texas Speaker Joe Straus
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas This week like many Texans my wife & I are getting our children back to school driving our oldest daughter back to college while our youngest gets ready to start her senior year of high school. Its a reminder of how quickly our children grow upand of something I try to think about as we make public policy decisions for our state: What kind of future are we preparing for the next generation?
I am deeply worried about the legacy of debt that is being piled on my daughters generation.
The Congressional Budget Office reported this month that the federal budget deficit was $1.2 trillion for the first 10 months of the 2010 fiscal year. Congress is on track to create a national debt that by 2019 will be equivalent to about 90 percent of our GDP.
Yet the spending spree hasnt stopped.
Nowhere is this reckless spending more evident than in the Obama Administrations massive health care legislation.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission estimates the new federal health care mandates will cost the Texas state budget $27 billion over the 10 year period from 2014-2024or an average of more than $5 billion for every two-year Texas budget cycle.
President Obamas plan to control health care costs actually increases the costs to taxpayers by close to one trillion dollars. Americans are rightly 
worried about the unintended consequences of the health care legislation its impact on the private insurance market and its inability to meet the resulting increase in demand.
The fact is while there are problems with the current system our hospitals and clinics offer the best health care in the world and we want to keep it that way.
For many people the problem is finding affordable health insurance.
Republicans agree that we need to make insurance more available portable and affordable. But we cant get behind a mandate that increases costs for those who already have good insurancethat just doesnt make sense.
As I noted in an opinion editorial in the Houston Chronicle The more we analyze the actual impact of the new federal legislation the more concerned I am that we are facing even greater fiscal challenges down the road as a result of new mandates."
And it seems we arent alone in our concern over these burdensome mandates. According to a Rasmussen Report issued this week
Support for repeal of the health care reform bill is at its highest level in over a month while the number of voters who believe repeal will be good for the economy has reached a new high."
Sixty percent of voters favor a repeal of the health care law and 50 believe that a repeal would have a positive impact on the economy. Is Washington listening? Its clear the answer is a resounding no. In Austin we are sensitive to the plight of taxpayers. We know an individual mandate to purchase health insurance comes at a costnot just for
policyholders but for businesses too. Im especially concerned about the impact this legislation will have on small businesses.
While we cant repeal the health care reform bill at the state level we will continue to work together to protect the economy as a whole.
This fall we can do our part by increasing our Republican majority in the Texas House. Together we will right Texas fiscal ship and help reduce the burden for my daughters and future generations.
