Six days to the election, and I’ve spent most of the night handing out candy. Six days until we choose to follow the successful Texas Red State path of low taxes and limited government, or the failing Blue State California path of bankruptcy and bigger government.
Archive for the ‘Budget’ Category
Texas vs. California: Halloween 2012 Edition
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012Texas Vs. California: 13 Days Before the Election Roundup
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012With the election less than two weeks away, time for a roundup of how the champions of their respective political models (Texas for Red States and California for Blue States) are doing:
The total personal income (TPI) in Texas reached $1.07 trillion dollars in the second quarter of this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s an increase of 71 percent from the state’s corresponding total 10 years earlier, $626.7 billion.
Here’s another way of looking at it: Texas accounted for 8.02 percent of the nation’s TPI this year, up 1.10 percentage points from 6.92 percent in 2002.
That’s nearly five times larger than the runner-up, Florida, which increased its share of national TPI by 0.23 points in a decade. Just four other states registered gains better than a tenth of a point.
(Hat tips for many Texas items: WILLisms’ Twitter feed.)
BattleSwarm Blog Endorses Ted Cruz For United States Senator
Sunday, October 21st, 2012Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog endorses Ted Cruz for United States Senator. I believe that Cruz is the best candidate, that he has a long, strong, and deep commitment to conservative principles, and that he will make a great Senator for Texas.
I originally endorsed Cruz on April 30, a month before the Republican primary, and gave extended reasons why Cruz was the best candidate of all those running in the Republican primary, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each. This post reiterates that endorsement, and explains why Ted Cruz is a vastly superior choice for Senator than Democrat Paul Sadler.
Sadler had a reputation as a “moderate” Democrat in the Texas House, which meant he wanted government to get bigger and spend more at a slightly slower rate than his fellow Democrats, and was reportedly a skilled legislator on education issues. But I don’t want a “skilled legislator,” I want a conservative fighter. I want someone to fight for shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and reign in the insanely bloated federal spending that’s holding down the economy, not manage the bloat. There are quite enough Democrats in Congress who pretend to be moderate until the votes really count (see also: ObamaCare); we don’t need another one.
Like his party, Sadler has moved steadily left over the years. After failing to win a U.S. House seat, Sadler worked first as an asbestos trial lawyer, and then as head of a Texas wind power coalition putting him in not one but two of the biggest recipient groups for liberal big government crony capitalism largess. This suggests that he would try to roll back tort reform and would make a very poor representative for Texas’ vital oil and gas industry.
Further, given the positions Sadler has taken in interviews and debates, there seems to be very little of that old “moderate” patina left on him. He’s for higher taxes, bigger government, green pork, public employee unions, illegal alien amnesty, and ObamaCare. He’d fit right in among the big spenders in a Harry Reid-led Senate.
By contrast, Ted Cruz is not only the unquestioned Tea Party representative for shrinking big government, he has a broad, deep and impressive conservative background. You don’t specialize in 9th and 10th Amendment studies because you want to be rich, and you don’t work at the Texas Public Policy Foundation if you want to be a squishy moderate. Cruz is not only exceptionally sharp, an excellent debater and a gifted public speaker, he’s also a classic fusionist candidate with both strong free market and social conservative credentials. He beat all his Republican opponents despite millions spent to smear him and came out of the runoff not only unscathed, but with a national reputation. He was a great Texas Solicitor General, and I think he will make a great Senator. I urge all my Texas readers to cast their votes for him as the next United States Senator from Texas.
Rick Perry Gets a C from the Cato Institute
Thursday, October 11th, 2012Texas has benefited greatly from having a better economy than the nation as a whole, and Rick Perry made the low-tax, small government model Texas uses the centerpiece of his abortive run for President.
However, the Libertarian Cato Institute seems considerably less impressed with Perry’s job as Governor, as they gave him a C on their Fiscal Policy Report Card. Indeed, his numerical score of 51 is only two points above California’s spendthrift Jerry Brown (!!!) with a D at 49, and lower than the Republican average of 57.
Here’s their knock on Perry:
Governor Perry has a conservative reputation, but he hasn’t cut state taxes substantially or reduced the size of Texas government. Indeed, Perry has presided over steady increases in spending. Between the 2000–2001 biennium when Perry assumed office and the 2012–2013 biennium, state general fund spending rose at an annual average rate of 3.2 percent, and total state spending rose at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent.
His record on taxes is mixed. In 2003 he signed into law a package of tax and fee increases.In 2006 he approved a business tax overhaul that replaced the corporate franchise tax with a modified gross receipts tax called the “Texas Margin Tax.” The new tax hit 180,000 additional businesses and increased state-level taxes by more than $1 billion annually.
The added state revenues were used to reduce local property taxes, but the overall effect of the package has been to centralize government power in the state and reduce beneficial tax competition between local jurisdictions. Nonetheless, Perry has supported increases in small business exemptions for the Margin Tax. And in 2011 he vetoed a bill to tax online purchases. In 2012 he proposed a five-point Texas Budget Compact, which includes transparency in budgeting, a constitutional limit on spending growth, opposition to new taxes, a strong rainy day fund, and the cutting unnecessary government programs.
One reason Perry may not rank better is the report is based on data covering January 2010 to August 2012, so presumably Perry’s work as Governor in the preceding decade isn’t covered (despite it’s prominent mention in the section quoted above). Another is that several higher ranked governors scored well for things like cutting individual income tax rates, while Texas has no state income tax. I also wonder how well they factor in population growth.
While I don’t want to reject Cato’s ranking out of hand, the opaqueness of their rating system (which must necessarily involve a substantial subjective component) makes me very wary of taking it at face value. You would think that Brown would rank much lower, especially with his state’s municipal bankruptcies, tax hikes and the train to nowhere. Though I do think Perry still has considerable room for improvement, I have to take Cato’s ranking of him with several grains of salt.
And if you’re looking for a more readable version of the report, click here.
Texas vs. California Roundup: October 2, 2012
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012Time for another Texas vs. California roundup. First up: The man who moved from one to the other:
(Hat tip: Willisms, City Journal, others.)
Dear California: You Know That Money Will Be Wasted, and You Know Those Tax Hikes Will Be Permanent
Friday, September 28th, 2012I’ve got another Texas vs. California piece coming around on the guitar, but I thought there was
Hold on to your hats, but it seems that California voters might, just might, be catching on that the Democrats who run California’s state government are wasting their money.
I will now wait for the indignant shouts of incredulous outrage to die down.
Support for Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan for billions of dollars in tax hikes on the November ballot is slipping amid public anxiety about how politicians spend money, but voters still favor the proposal, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.
Well, I did say “might.”
The findings suggest that voters are leery of sending more cash to Sacramento in the wake of a financial scandal at the parks department, spiraling costs for a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project to connect Northern and Southern California and ill-timed legislative pay raises.
If voters aren’t willing to stop spending for a $100 billion train to nowhere that everyone know will never be completed, and which would lose even more money every year if it was, when will they?
Brown’s measure would temporarily raise income tax rates on high earners for seven years and boost the state sales tax by a quarter-cent for four years in a bid to avoid steep cuts in funds for schools and other programs.
Note that word: “temporary.”
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the way politics actually works knows that there’s no such thing as a “temporary” tax hike. The only thing that prevents Democrats (and establishment Republicans) from spending every cent of every tax collected and more is booting them out of office. Raising taxes simply ensures that they’ll spend all the new revenue and additional money they don’t have on top of that. And with the fiscal tsunami California is facing from bloated government, spiraling debt, and gold-plated public employee union pensions that will bankrupt the state, those “temporary” taxes will never be repealed. Ever.
And two or four years down the line, the next Democratic governor will be asking the voters to approve another “temporary” tax hike…
Texas vs. California: First Day of Fall Edition
Friday, September 21st, 2012Time for another Texas vs. California round-up of how the Lone Star State is kicking the not-so-Golden State’s ass in just about every measure except signing NBA free-agents.
Proposed Romney Ad: Burying the American Dream
Thursday, September 20th, 2012FADE IN: Long shot of funeral.
CUT TO: Shot of Obama in a black suit standing near an open grave.
Obama: The American Dream enjoyed over 200 years of life.
CUT TO: Men with Obama For America t-shirts with shovels picking up dirt from a pile labeled DEFICIT SPENDING and tossing it down into the grave.
Obama: But it’s time for us to bury it today. It’s outlived its usefulness.
CUT TO: Several young children at the bottom of the grave, already partially buried, as dirt rains down on their heads.
Child: Wait, we’re not dead! Stop burying us!
CUT To: Obama.
Obama: It was a fine dream, but we have to move on to another dream: Of a government welfare state present at every moment of every American’s lives…
CUT TO: Men shoveling in more dirt.
Obama: From the cradle…
CUT TO: Children in hole.
Obama:…to the grave.
Children: Stop! Just give us a chance! We want our dreams too!
CUT TO: Obama.
Obama: Farewell American dream. It was nice while it last.
CUT TO: Children in grave.
Children: Stop! Stop!
CUT TO: Long shot of funeral, as the men continue to fill the grave.
Children: (screaming) STOOOOOOOP!
FADE OUT
Anyone know the best way to send this to Romney, Restore Our Future, or American Crossroads?
Billionaire Wants Ft. Worth Taxpayers to Pay For His Hobbies
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012Ft. Worth has a $49 million budget deficit. So they’re doing the responsible thing that Texas governments do when faced with budget shortfalls: Cutting back on spending. (Maybe someone should tell California (or Europe) about this radical approach, since no one there seems to be able to cut a budget except at the edge of bankruptcy. And frequently not even then.)
The City of Fort Worth is looking to cut the arts program by 25% which would bring the Arts Council budget to just over $537,000.
Businessman Robert Bass and his wife have are against the budget cuts and argued for funding to be restored before the city council.
Robert Bass is a multi-billionaire. He could pay the amount cut out of his own pocket and it would literally be less than how much his personal wealth fluctuates on the ups and downs of the stock market on any given day. But instead of ponying up, Bass believes that Ft. Worth taxpayers should foot the bill.
You might think that a Texas oil billionaire would be a big Republican contributor. You’d be wrong. Beneficiaries of his contributions in this cycle have been Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, Ben Nelson, and Claire McCaskill. (And his wife Anne was equally generous to Democrats.)
Government exists to carry out those tasks that cannot be carried out by non-governmental organizations (defense, courts, etc.). Government should let individuals voluntarily fund the arts out of their own pockets rather than forcing taxpayers to pick up the bill. If Robert Bass wants art organizations in Ft. Worth to be funded, all he has to do is write a check, not demand taxpayers pay for his hobbies.
LinkSwarm for September 7, 2012
Friday, September 7th, 2012Still trying to get back in the swing of things, so here’s a LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday:
Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.